Midweek Photos 11/27/2019

Went rail-fanning October 24, 2019 at Mayville Station, Mayville, Michigan.  The last passenger train left Mayville Station in 1962.  There is no longer any passenger trains but there is a lot of track side structures & industrial buildings.  I enjoy exploring railroad sidings and adjacent structures.  Always looking for ideas for my home layout.

The major industries served by the railroad is farming, plastics and automotive parts. This is a sampling of what I saw. All aboard for a walking railroad adventure with Train Room Gary. 

Camera: iPhone 11 Pro • • • Post-production: Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom 

Thanks for taking a look. Hope to see you out rail-fanning: Gary

Great photos Gary, even when there's no trains I enjoy walking the tracks and imagining the scenery on a layout.

Definitely great photos.  

Finally got some photos on my computer. I went back to Haysville on August 18th to get some final shots before going back to college, and saw a few things worth photographing. 

Down by the crossing, Main 1 had a section of rail with uneven wearing, probably caused by successive wheel slips as trains got up to

to speed. The track crew decided the best solution was to cut out the offending part of the welded rail section. Here, the crew has noted (as far as I can tell) the date of replacement, the length of the section (34' 2") and the maximum temperature before the rail flexes out of joint (I believe). 

Here is part of the offending section, left railside. Even without looking at the surface, the underside tells the story. 

Above is the fishplate connecting the insertion to the previous section of welded rail (left). Note the welded exposed copper wire for the crossing circuit.  

ES44AC 8081 leads an AC44C6M over the crossing on track 2 with a manifest freight, likely 10K. An interesting side story; as I visited Haysville over the summer, first, one, then both of the stoplights at the left went dark; it took at least a few weeks for someone to come replace the bulbs by the time of this visit.  

The DPUs of 10K. 

The consist passes under the now-removed signals at Haysville. I should have more pictures of them from this day for next week. 

                         U P in Maumee by Marci...    have a  Happy Thanksgiving !!

A few snaps from the Arkansas and Missouri from the past few days... 

Diner 109 is in the shop yard for wheel work. 

From Wednesday, getting ready for the holidays: 

Mitch

It's the little things that mean a lot.

This stamping that was made by an unknown shop worker on the Reading has survived nearly 75 years of ups and downs in preservation, and will soon feel the rush of steam again. Indeed, this is a stamping on one of the rods of Reading Company no. 2100, the first of the road's 30 T1 class 4-8-4's. Thanks to the efforts of the American Steam Railroad Preservation Association, perhaps this stamping will capture the imagination of another young preservationist like me, 75 more years from now.

Here’s a photo I took this evening at the engine terminal before my trip to Chattanooga. 

Nice catch Max! I've caught a few unpatched Warbonnet's over the last few years, myself.

Rusty

From the post & photos above: What is this?

About five ties from the crossover. There is what looks like an upside down orange funnel with two electrical wires attached.  Do you know what this is and how it works?

Gary

Looks like a piece of junk that happened to wander onto the tracks.

Rusty

Gary,

That is known as a bootleg, in my 42 years on the railroad I buried many of them. It is used to connect the solid underground track wire to to the flex wire that is installed to the rail for a track circuit. The ones we used were cast iron. Today they use pvc. That one you pictured has the cap broken off which had the wire clamp missing. Looks like the maintainer spliced the wire where the clamp was missing.

STE

Gary,

here is what they look like

STE posted:

Gary,

here is what they look like

Hi STE: Thanks for sharing your informations & the drawings.  Have one follow up question.  In this circuit the electricity it traveling from point A to point B.  How does the electrical circuit interact with the locomotive or rolling stock as it travels over the “bootleg”.

Gary

Gary,

looking at your picture, the jointing rail bars have insulation in them that separate electrically one side from the other. Like our model rail track insulators it forms track sections. So in the old days each section (about every mile or less) each track section at one end would have a 1.5vdc battery. The other end of the track section would have a 2 ohm track relay. So one rail is + and the other rail is - . When a engine, or rail car occupies the track section it would shunt the relay (de energize the relay) in turn through the circuitry and other circuits would indicate to a remote location track occupied by a engine, rail car, broken rail etc.

Hope this helps

STE

STE posted:

Gary,

looking at your picture, the jointing rail bars have insulation in them that separate electrically one side from the other. Like our model rail track insulators it forms track sections. So in the old days each section (about every mile or less) each track section at one end would have a 1.5vdc battery. The other end of the track section would have a 2 ohm track relay. So one rail is + and the other rail is - . When a engine, or rail car occupies the track section it would shunt the relay (de energize the relay) in turn through the circuitry and other circuits would indicate to a remote location track occupied by a engine, rail car, broken rail etc.

Hope this helps

STE

Hi STE:

Thanks for the help...  Got - it ....

Gary