Who here has ever heard of running a full-size RR as a hobby?

JonMyrlennBailey

Active member
This 1971 Lassie episode depicts just that: sound far-fetched?

I first saw this when I was about eight or nine years old.
It's recommended for train buffs and dog buffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRPYmzhJiZM


Would you go joy-riding on a handcar you were to find along a seemingly-abandoned train track?
I don't think that would be a good idea even though some young boys might think it fun.
 
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I watched 1971 Lassie episode. I saw a car with train wheels instead of tires. The scariest part was when the small dog was accidentally knocked into the turntable pit and was trapped by a spike. Lassie was trying to get the man to stop moving the turntable until the last minute.
 
I watched 1971 Lassie episode. I saw a car with train wheels instead of tires. The scariest part was when the small dog was accidentally knocked into the turntable pit and was trapped by a spike. Lassie was trying to get the man to stop moving the turntable until the last minute.

The old man in the show supposedly owned the railroad line and was restoring it. I would think a person would have to be rich to do something like that.
The Sierra Railroad of California is actually real and that locomotive No. 3 was actually famous and was used in television and movies a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rx4vrsGrT0

The number 3 steam engine is a Rogers 4-6-0. I don't know exactly on the California map that Lassie episode with the train was shot. Wikipedia said Sierra RR was a number of different lines. It must be at Jamestown, CA in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It still runs that loco on excursion train rides. Jamestown, Ca is in Tuolumne County, California.

Here is the Railtown 197 website:
https://www.railtown1897.org/
 
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The Sierra Railroad runs from Oakdale, California eastward up into the mountains of Tuolumne County. It is now the Oakdale division of Sierra Northern Railway, which has multiple operations across the state.
 
There was/is a private standard gauge railway in Fife.
I'm not sure if it transformed into the Fife Heritage Railway, but it's not totally unknown to have your own full-size RR.
 
It's basically taking the train hobby to extremes when a sole proprietor has a full-size RR line for pleasure. I'm sure some billionaires could do this.
It must be much more exciting than your typical Lionel train set of the 1970's.

My fantasy road if I were a trillionaire would be: the Sacramento Valley to Crescent City via Weaverville and Eureka: California's Redwood Empire RR.
 
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There are/were several in the UK: Beeches Hill light Railway (Adrian Shooter), Fawley Hill Railway (the late Sir William McAlpine), Statfold Barn Railway (Graham Lee), Richmond Light Railway, Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway, probably more I can't immediately think of too...

Most of these hold occasional open days for visitors, but are primarily private affairs run as hobbies, some (eg Statfold) have become closer in operation to a traditional heritage railway.
 
Name one trillionaire.
Name one billionaire foolish enough to run a full-size RR as a hobby ?
Since each, and every, Major RR Corporation has a hard time even keeping a RR running, and can not turn a profit, and loses money in the long run, why on earth would anyone want to waste their money running full-size a RR as a hobby ?

They buy them and mostly run them as tax write-offs as in Tim Mellon and Pan Am Railways.
 
Name one trillionaire.
Name one billionaire foolish enough to run a full-size RR as a hobby ?
Since each, and every, Major RR Corporation has a hard time even keeping a RR running, and can not turn a profit, and loses money in the long run, why on earth would anyone want to waste their money running full-size a RR as a hobby ?
A full size railroad need not be a Class 1 operation. Smaller operations usually cost less.

It's basically taking the train hobby to extremes when a sole proprietor has a full-size RR line for pleasure. I'm sure some billionaires could do this.
It must be much more exciting than your typical Lionel train set of the 1970's.

My fantasy road if I were a trillionaire would be: the Sacramento Valley to Crescent City via Weaverville and Eureka: California's Redwood Empire RR.

My brother works for the Forest Service out of Weaverville. That is a route I would like to see.
 
Name one trillionaire.
Name one billionaire foolish enough to run a full-size RR as a hobby ?
Since each, and every, Major RR Corporation has a hard time even keeping a RR running, and can not turn a profit, and loses money in the long run, why on earth would anyone want to waste their money running full-size a RR as a hobby ?

I can't really name any trillionaire, but I was using that term to mean "if money were absolutely no object". The amount of money to do what I envision seems astronomical and untold to me. Building a new standard-gauge railroad through the Six Rivers National Forest seems prohibitively expensive these days. Bigfoot is more likely to be proven than what I dream of is to materialize.

Think of all the California and local politicians who would have to be paid off. Think about having to purchase all the right-of-way real estate. There was a time in American history when railroad developers got right-of-way land from the federal government dirt cheap. Think of locals and enviro groups that would squawk. I don't see any federal railroad expansion program or act in the future. I would not have the benefit of cheap immigrant labor to lay my pike, drill out my tunnels and build my bridges anyway. I imagine my pike's running along one or more of the six rivers in this area for scenery for tourists on excursion trains.

I think many more RR lines have been shut down or abandoned than new ones have been built over the last 75 years. When was the last new standard-gauge RR line laid in America?
 
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The railway I work at is full size and we all give our free time up to do it. Most, if not all of us, treat it as a hobby and I doubt our net worth would make us anywhere close to being millionaires. The line was started in the late '80s on an old track bed and has slowly but surely extended from the initial length of a few hundred metres.

One of our recently repainted locos.

23933548436_18cb136bc7_b.jpg
 
A fellow named Jay Maeder essentially did just that when he purchased the final Milwaukee rapid transit line in 1949. His "big model railroad" operation, branded as "Speedrail", was actually doing quite well for itself until Labor Day 1950, when the colorblind Maeder decided to act as motorman, ran a red signal, and proceeded to kill about a dozen NMRA members in a head-on, telescope collision.
 
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