Trains section for rail construction updates

[banjobenne1]

I want to suggest Trains Magizine run a section on rail construction updates. As I travel around the US both on the road and Amtrak I see rail construction/destruction and I wonder just what is going on? I've been in this hobby for over 50 years and it is embarrrassing to me to not be able to tell whoever esp. my family whats happening. I know most railroads are not forthcoming with information esp. to the public but these days they have to go for permits to do most big things. If the publics money is involed they must revel many details.  

[mudchicken]

Freight railroads rarely require local permits. Federal USACE 404b's might explain a bridge or two, everything else is under the blanket 404b's most railroads have.Road crossings would be interesting (most local authorities have no clue what goes on and a few still stupidly try to get the railroad to do half at a time.) 

[MidlandMike]

Trains Mag used to have an "Arrivals & Departures" section, and then a Construction(?)/Abandonment(?) section more recently, but for some reason seems to have discontinued it.  I wish they would bring it back.

[Overmod]

banjobenne1

I want to suggest Trains Magizine run a section on rail construction updates.

This is something that is far better provided and kept updated on the Web than published in a magazine.  Even if you print out the 'current' information just before you go on a trip where you won't be able to get an Internet connection, or don't have a capable phone, you'll be well ahead of whatever was going on at the time the copy was finalized before the issue was put to bed.

This might easily be implemented along the lines of the Heritage Units site, which is partially 'crowdsourced' by individual sightings that can then be edited as needed and incorporated into larger databases or reports.  As noted, having a 'printer-friendly' option is desirable, although many sites seem to discourage or deprecate that.

An organization like Kalmbach may command better resources to find and analyze public information, or have enough 'clout' with the industry to be cc'd in or receive PR material on maintenance or improvement projects and their progress.

Obviously, anyone able to read this post will be better off accessing a properly-done Web site than reading the information three months delayed in Trains.

[rrnut282]

On the local forums I lurk, there is a thread/topic section that is just for trackwork projects.  It serves to let others know of "maintenance windows" that will affect train-watching on the affected line(s).  It might be harder to implement here with a national (or world-wide) scope.  Even if you had a thread per railroad, there would still be thousands to sort through, even if it were disciplined enough to just use reporting marks only instead of multiple variations of the railroad name.  

[tree68]

rrnut282

On the local forums I lurk, there is a thread/topic section that is just for trackwork projects. 

I suspect that "crowd sourcing" would be the best option for this, with a few conventions for the threads that allow for an easy search for the locales in question.  

I don't see Kalmbach devoting any resources to such a project, beyond setting up a new major topic area and monitoring for the usual issues.  Actually maintaining an accurate database on a daily basis would be quite time consuming.

There are other fora where such a resources could be established as well, ie, Trainorders or Railroad.net, or a wiki, among others.

[MikeF90]

IMO there isn't enough RR construction activity to populate an online forum much less a magazine column. As has been pointed out, physical access for pictures is difficult and PR folks avoid discussion of this topic for various reasons.

As a 'construction geek' I'll just continue to post here, thank you.