clair071

( Bridge Hunter ) Bridge Hunter calls it Winslow Valley, but Willow Valley is much closer. Winslow:  Satellite   plus Paint Tunnel dug in 1899 to straighten the route and eliminate seven stream crossings. Part of the line originally built as the Ohio & Mississippi Cincinnati to St. Louis route. If you look hard you might be able to determine the older right of way. [Bridge Hunter] Dale Smith posted willow valley tunnel shoals indiana John Hamilton posted An eastbound manifest CSX train, with borrowed power up front, emerging from a tunnel at Willow Valley, a bit east of Shoals, Indiana, in a photo taken in the early 1990s. Patrick Cavanaugh   how much traffic is on this line currently ? John Hamilton   Local only, if any. It was once a major B&O, then CSX mainline from Cincinnati to East St. Louis. No through traffic now and the route is actually cut beyond Flora, IL.

What Pennsy called 12th Street was really  B&OCT Rockwell Street  where the B&OCT crossed both C&NW and Pennsy/Panhandle/ Chicago & Great Eastern (C&GE) and  C&NW Taylor Street  where the C&NW and C&GE crossed each other to switch sides in the corridor. The B&OCT Rockwell Street junction was important when passenger trains were still running because both the Wisconsin Central and the Chicago Great Western used this B&OCT route to access Grand Central Station . WC built the route with Northern Pacific's funding because NP wanted to use the WC to access the Chicago market. (By the time this route was built, Chicago was forcing new railroads to share a route into the city to reduce the city being cut up by railroads. NP had to buy and tear down a lot of buildings to build this route.) But the NP went bankrupt in the panic of 1893, and B&O bought a lot of NP's Chicago assets and created the B&OCT to own those assets. This...

I've learned that the railroad name Wisconsin Central is like the TP&W name -- it has confused me because the same name was used for multiple railroads. Wikipedia has a page that clarifies the usage of the name: Wisconsin Central Railroad (1871–1899), Wisconsin Central Railway (1897–1954) , and Wisconsin Central Railroad (1954–1961) , successive names for a predecessor of the Soo Line Wisconsin Central Ltd. , regional railroad acquired by the Canadian National Railway in 2001 Wisconsin Central Transportation , parent of the above My interest in the Wisconsin Central (WC) is that the name keeps appearing concerning the 19th century railroads and passenger stations in Chicago. It turns out that all of those names include the trackage I'm interested in -- the route from Wisconsin into Chicago. But the names before 1961 became owned by the Soo Line which was owned by the Canadian Pacific (CP) and the Ltd. name became owned by the Canadian National (CN). Wikipedia The WC was th...

( Houma Bridge Hunter , Freeport Swing Bridge Hunter , Freeport Lift Bridge Hunter , no Historic Bridges, see below for various satellite images) Houma, LA was at the end of a 15-mile branch from the Southern Pacific mainline. "Built in 1982 to replace an earlier swing bridge. Abandoned in 1991 and moved to Freeport, TX in 2010" [Houma BH] ( new window ) ( source ) This video uses the modern production style of a bunch of different people saying fluff pieces (of the nature "It was a challenge; but we did it on schedule, within the budget, and with no injuries. I'm proud of the teamwork.") At least during some of the fluff narration, this video shows some interesting images. But some of the video is "talking heads," which drives me nuts watching a person espouse platitudes. It makes me appreciate the 1940s style of a narration by a professional voice explaining what you are looking at. If I set Google Earth for Jan, 2011 (see below), they catch the span...

UP  ( source ) What does it mean to dig "by hand?" It does sound like they dug it out with spade shovels. But that is inconsistent with the photo showing them spraying high-pressure water near the top of the tunnel. I've seen them hose demolition work to control the dust. But shoveling wet dirt does not create dust. So are they using some sort of sluicing operation to remove the dirt? Or maybe they are knocking the dirt of the steel channels they drove in to stabilize the top so that they can then dig out that dirt. UP The tunnel...collapsed before crews could finish a routine lining replacement. No one was inside. Prior to the collapse, crews were finishing the last six feet of a routine tunnel lining replacement when water started flowing in. “As soon you see water, you get out,” Hill said. “Safety protocol is to back out, let it happen, then once it’s safe, start mucking it out. That safety protocol paid off. Everyone was out of the tunnel when it collapsed; no one got...

Satellite (no Bridge Hunter!) David Epling posted Last week [posted 7-10-18] near Santa Rosa NM UP Tucumcari Sub Noel Lythall Noel and 615 others joined RAILROAD BRIDGES, TRESTLES, TUNNELS AND CUTS within the last two weeks. Give them a warm welcome into your community!   What is happening demolition and or MTCE, REBUILD ? Bart Culbertson   Ballast deck conversion to replace the burned bridge ties. The fire wasn't hot enough to warp the steel. Tim R. Smith commented on David's posting I was there working on this bridge. laminated bridge stringers.

( Bridge Hunter , no Historic Bridges,  3D Satellite )   ISRR = Indiana Southern Railroad I've seen a "delicate" pin connected truss bridge before ( Big Four over Wabash River ), but not one that is still carrying railroad traffic. As discussed below, this one has had some reinforcement. John Stigall shared a photo Mooresville, Indiana, ex PRR bridge, now Indiana Southern Railroad. Notice the unusual hardware, some kind of stiffeners? Bruce Carrick   Have seen a few with this type of reinforcements. Barry T. Lidstone Barry and 694 others joined RAILROAD BRIDGES, TRESTLES, TUNNELS AND CUTS within the last two weeks. Give them a warm welcome into your community!   Bottom chord reinfocement. Does not appear to extend over end panels maybe they rated adequately? John Stigall John and 694 others joined RAILROAD BRIDGES, TRESTLES, TUNNELS AND CUTS within the last two weeks. Give them a warm welcome into your community!   Post-tensioning to stiffen the bottom chor...