Russ Nelson's blog
rants and raves
http://blog.russnelson.com/railroads/index.atomRuss Nelsonhttp://blog.russnelson.com/railroads/index.atomme@russnelson.comCopyright 2021 Russ Nelson
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2011-01-28T20:55:00ZUnfinished Railroads 2http://blog.russnelson.com/2011/01/28/unfinished-railroads-22011-01-28T20:55:00Z2011-01-28T20:55:00Z
<p>Was off to the Finger Lakes chasing unfinished railroads this weekend.
Here's what I did:</p>
<p>Found traces of the <a href="http://russnelson.com/unfinished-railroads.html#BrookfieldRailroad">Brookfield
Railroad</a>. They had big plans, but only graded parts between
Brookfield and North Brookfield, connecting to the DL&W.; Never laid
tracks, but there's miles of grading. Got a personal tour from Doug
Keith, landowner of one section, plus a photo of their BR stock
certificate.</p>
<p>Went up to Oneida Castle and found a few abandoned railroad bridges
and abutments. Chased their railbeds a bit. Went to Madison County
Clerk's Office and located a map of the Brookfield Railroad.</p>
<p>Then I went for a bike ride on the New York Central, which turns into
the Canalway trail. Wanted to find an old trolley line which takes
off up the hill from Canandaigua. Found it.</p>
<p>Found a bridge left over from the DL&W; (I think) which has had its
approach completely plowed away, so the bridge is standing proud next
to a stream.</p>
<p>Found some of the Ontario Midland Auburn Branch (which has been gone
for like 130 years, so there's not much left to see).</p>
<p>All of that was Friday. On Saturday I went over to Ithaca, and
found a few bridges from the trolley line from Auburn. Found a cut
from the Inclined Plane which operated for about twenty years as the
only railroad entrance into Ithaca. Then found the southernmost point
of the unfinished Pennsylvania and Sodus Bay. Met up with an old
college roommate and his family. Looked at the Lehigh Valley bridge
over the Tunkhannock Gorge. Building THAT must have been scary (100'
to the bottom). Then the LV bridge on the east side of
Trumansburg.</p>
<p>Then some remains of the P&SB.; A trestle, a small bit of fill and
culvert, then a slight cut through the woods and a couple more
culverts. A formerly-deep cut still actively being filled by the
farmer.</p>
<p>Then, the piece' de resistance: a matching pair of 30' tall abutments
in extremely good condition, particularly for a railroad that was
never finished. Called it a day and visited with friends in the
area. Still might be more remains to the north.</p>
<p>That was Saturday. Sunday I got up early, drove down to Watkins Glen
and rode the Catherine Valley Trail, formerly New York Central.
Watkins Glen is still served from the north by FGLK, and Horseheads in
the south by NS. A very nice stone dust trail very nearly connects
the two (they're a few miles short on the south).</p>
<p>Then went hunting the Sodus Bay, Corning, and New York. This one was
a bonus. I don't know much about how much of it exists, apart from
something a Bob Scharf had photographed, which I have on my website.
I did "Research by Knocking" on people's doors until I found somebody
who knew somebody who knew something. Eventually, I got sent to Bob
Scharf himself! He told me exactly where to find what I was looking
for, which was great.</p>
<p>Then (no, I'm still not finished) I went up to Penn Yan and bicycled
the Outlet Trail to Dresden. Bunches of railroad relics there,
including whistle posts, mile markers, some forgotten tracks, an
abandoned bridge.</p>
<p>In the waning sunlight, I found the Rochester and Syracuse Interurban
line (which is now a power line -- practically all the trolley lines
became power lines, because they were the pioneers of long distance
power transmission -- they had to be!) Found the Cayuga Trail
starting next to an abutment which had its fill cut down, so it stands
in mute testimony to its former glory. The village of Jordan has on
its main street a very railroady-looking building facing onto the main
street which not-so-coincidentally had a trolley running down it!</p>
<p>And finally, I found where the trolley line crossed the Erie Canal
right next to the highway and the Canalway Trail. Took a photo
showing canal, highway, railroad, and bike trail, all in one!</p>
Garbutt, New Yorkhttp://blog.russnelson.com/2011/01/28/garbutt-ny2011-01-28T20:54:00Z2011-01-28T20:54:00Z
<p>The tiny village of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbutt,_New_York">Garbutt, New York</a> had three railroads serving it: The <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/20113518">Baltimore & Ohio</a>, the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/73628463">Pennsylvania Railroad</a>, and the <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/1330077">Scottsville & Leroy</a>.</p>
Ride starting Sun Sep 21 09:48:54 2008http://blog.russnelson.com/2008/09/23/12219905342008-09-23T01:37:00Z2008-09-23T01:37:00Z
<p>140.20 km 459967.76 feet 87.12 mi
26691.00 seconds 444.85 minutes 7.41 hours 11.75 mi/hr</p>
<p>Went for a speeder run on the NYS&W;, with members of the Volunteer
Railroad Association. I don't own a speeder, so I flagged one day, and
rode the other.</p>
</p><p><a href="http://rutlandtrail.org/gmap.cgi?images/1221990534.track"><img src="http://blog.russnelson.com/images/1221990534.jpg"></a></p>
NYS Railroadshttp://blog.russnelson.com/2008/04/05/nys-rails2008-04-05T03:55:00Z2008-04-05T03:55:00Z
<p>I have a database of every railbed ever constructed in New York State.
From that database, I've made a Google Mashup. I don't usually give the
entire database to the mashup because it's a 2.7MB file. Takes a while
to compute and a while to download. I did it today, though, and took a
screenshot of it (below). The interesting part is that the entire state
is covered with a mesh of railroads except for the southern and central
Adirondacks, and a little bit of the Catskills.</p>
<p><img src="http://blog.russnelson.com/images/nys-rails.png"/></p>
1974 NYSDOT abandoned railroad inventoryhttp://blog.russnelson.com/2008/02/13/inventory2008-02-13T19:43:00Z2008-02-13T19:43:00Z
<p><a href="http://dot.state.ny.us/">New York State Department of
Transportation</a> did an inventory in 1974 of all the abandoned railroad
right of ways in New York State. They were published as typewritten
documents, and so never existed as text on a computer. They're currently
available <a href="http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/scandoclinks/ocm70660447.htm">as
PDF files</a>. But Google seems not to have found those files, which is
no surprise, because they're hidden behind a search box. OOPS! I'm taking
the liberty of turning them into HTML documents and reposting them on the
web. They're a little rough right now, but you can <a href="http://russnelson.com/inventory/">take a look at them</a> in their unfinished state.</p>