This is an interesting photo...yikes.

Looks to me like someone made a "wrong turn!"

That looks a lot like the local track here.

Greg

Must be a Penn Central ROW.

Good grief. To call this track is almost a stretch of the imagination, a track in theory. I can't imagine what that hapless crew has to face running on that wobbling spaghetti keeping their fingers crossed. I could see them all getting out on one side of the engine o keep it from rolling over. I also can't figure why it has not been embargoed. Amazingly bizarre in a bad way.They would be better off spray painting two straight lines on the grass and run on that.

To literally put this in perspective, it was taken with an extreme telephoto lens from a considerable distance away.  If you were actually standing on the tracks using your own two eyes, it would not look at all like this.  Even with the good lighting, the depth of field drops off quickly in what appears to be the immediate foreground.

You may not believe this, but that track is perfectly usable. The ties are likely junk and since there is very little ballast the track has sunk into the ground, but it is usable.

As ADCX Rob pointed out, this is a telephoto lens shot. The long lens tends to magnify the imperfections in the track. Obviously the track is badly out of cross-level and needs a lot of tie and surfacing work, but trains run on track like this literally every day. Many small short lines and even some of the regionals have track like this.

At 5 to 10 mph it's not a big deal. I've run trains on worse track than this.

I would still bet it's somewhat of a bumpy ride.

Rusty

If you guys don't quit making fun of my track laying skills  I'll .....

Operating on track like that is not bumpy, it's more of a gentle up and down, rocking and rolling motion.

That is some track.

Wondered how big the Lens needed to be to "reach" that far?

There is some local track where we are and some of it is essentially in the ground.

[edited..]

We see these types of telephoto shots all the time. Usually taken with a 250mm to 500mm lens (for the 35mm film format), and the resulting comments are always the same. I definitely makes the track structure LOOK much worse than it really is.

The cross-level is pretty bad. 

Have run bad track... maybe that bad if a long focal length telephoto was used... just didn't look that bad to the naked eye.

Like Rich says, it's a slow motion thing: Lean over this way... then slowly lean over that way... up in slow motion... down in slow motion... can make you very sleepy in the right conditions.

Andre

Makes switches look funny, too.  This is the CSX right of way at Point of Rocks, Md.

Ok I understand what you all are saying now....thanks for the information everyone.

If there were a derailment, it would be from the rails spreading on rotten ties, not the slow up, down and sideways motion.    Been there, rode that and felt the spread.  Kind of a bump and then you're riding in the web of the rail.

Greg