I live a half a block from a short line. It used to be the Santa Fe. I get to see trains about daily from my front porch. The problem is that it is mostly late at night.
What about you all?
Will
The Location: Forests of the Pacific Northwest, OregonThe Year: 1948The Scale: On30The Blog: http://bvlcorr.tumblr.com
I live in a neighbourhood approximately 200 yards from CN and CP tracks---I don't seem to have much luck with my schedule and train schedules----now, if I'm at friend's studio near Beachville his driveway crosses the CN main----
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Well depends..To the CF&E about a block.To the NS about 1 mile.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Unfortunatly I am about 6 miles from the nearest rail line. It's a commutor line (metro North) in Peeskill. CSX and CN only run freights there at night. I can hear their horns when they have to blow for a crossing and can hear the locos late at night when it is very quiet outside. I do get to watch trains by crossing over the hudson river to the westshore line of CSX and can sometimes see 4 or 5 trains in an hour.
I live a half mile from a retired sante fe line that was active in the mid 1900s . You can still see the raised line in some parts of town.
Right now I'm living both the closest ever that I have to railroad track (~500 feet), and the furthest I have from ACTIVE railroad track (about 2 miles to the light rail, about 5 miles to the nearest freight)
About 5 Kilometres from the BNSF line where it crosses the border at Peace Arch, and 6 Kilometres from the BCR line that goes to the Roberts Bank Superport. But at night it sometimes sounds like they are blowin just across the field. It's a nice sound to fall asleep to.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
My main house is just a little over 1/2 mile from the Dent Branch of the UP out of Denver. Unfortunately there is about one train a month on it. The UP main from Cheyenne to Denver is about 5 miles east, and the BNSF coming into Denver from Nebraska is about 7 miles east. There are often 20+ trains a day including Amtrak. I can only hear the train horns when they blow grade crossings.
My mountain property is about 2 miles away from the old Colorado Midland Ute Pass summit. There hasn't been a train there for almost 100 years now.
My "vacation" property is 4 blocks from the old MP Larned Branch. They took out the track about 10 years ago.
Lots of houses - lots of former tracks - no trains to see.
About 30 miles to the CSX line
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
About 1600 feet in a straight line to the NECR. I'm right between 2 grade crossings. I hear every train - most days that's 4 trains - the Amtrak Vermonter SB in the morning, NB in the evening - exactly 10 hours apart to the minute if both are on time. I'm 10 minutes South of Montpelier Junction (interchange of NECR & WACR) and an Amtrak stop. The evening Amtrak train can be heard in the Valley blowing for the Northfield crossings at our house (2+ miles) and we can hear it blowing for the next 2 NB crossings also. The horns echo off of the hills - a lovely sound.
We also hear the SB and NB freight on the NECR. There is currently one train in each direction each day (unless they are annulled). Their times are somewhat random, sometimes the SB goes thru before midnight, sometimes much later. The NB is pretty much an afternoon train - but no set time.
During the summer there were many NECR track gangs working - both with a train, or just a couple of hi-rails and on a few occasions a hi-rail crane truck to do the lifting.
Gil
Where ever you go, there you are !
I live about a mile from the mainline of the P & W railroad, (Portland & Western) during weekdays our commuter rail runs on that same mainline,
About 1/2 Blk from the Black Dog Power Plant in Burnsville,MN. Mostly Coal Drags (Snore)
Jimmy
ROUTE ROCK!
About a mile to the UP (ex MoPac) line running south out of Omaha to Falls City. About 1.5 miles away it parallels the BNSF (ex CB&Q) line running from Omaha to the connection with the Chicago-Denver main about 5 miles south of me.
I live in a fairly new neighborhood and could see the trains everyday, now that all the houses are nearly up, I can hear em and occassionally catch a glimpse.
Ricky
I live around the back. Just about a mile from the Railroad track.......... The Finger Lakes Scenic Railway that is. Right here in the heart of the Finger Lakes. I can sometimes hear them from my deck if it is very quiet. Gives me another good reason to shop here in town!
Oh, and we used to have an "Alice's Restaurant" here too.
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
It's about a mile, maybe two to the Wisconsin and Southern yard and Union Pacific interchange here. Enough so that when I hear a horn, I know I won't get there in time.
Grew up within a couple hundred yards of a SR branch. Today I'm about two miles from the CSX (old Nashville, Chattanooga, and St Louis) line from Nashville to Atlanta. Just far enough for the horns to echo lowly at nighttime. Plenty of action along that line. My son actually watches the signals to see of a train is coming and from which direction whenever we drive along it.
Most of my childhood I lived more than 5 miles from the nearest railroad (C&O in southeast MI.) But now I'm about 1 mile from the B&O's Old Main Line between Baltimore and Point-o-Rocks, MD. CSX still runs an average of one train per hour over it.
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
About 3.5 mi west of the UP's LA&SL. Used to get some nice grade crossing horns - but the city recently biult an overpass...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
About 12 miles to the KCS main in Mena, Arkansas. We have our own neat little brand of mountain railroading here in the Ouachita Mountains that made the cover of Trains mag a couple of months ago.
Growing up in rural north Louisiana some 60 years ago, I was lulled to sleep by the deep chime whistles of the 2100 class IC Mikes as they blew for a grade crossing about 4 miles to the south. The Louisiana and Arkansas (KCS) ran Consolidations with much shriller whistles (we laughingly said they resembled a braying donkey) about 6-8 miles to our north on tracks that paralleled the IC. We could hear them on most rainy nights as well. There wasn't as much ambient noise in those years.
Ted
All these make responses me rather envious. My closest is the CP and CN transcons in the Thompson Canyon at Spences Bridge, about 60 kms away. And I rarely drive that way for anything. So the closest is really Kamloops, about 80-90 km to the rail.
The IC (now CN) mainline is about 200 yards from my front door. The C&EI (now UP) line crosses the IC main 5 miles North of my house. The B&O (now CSX) mainline is about 6 miles to the South.
I have sometimes dozens of trains a day on the IC (CN) line go past my house including at least 6 AMTRACK trains. Unfortunately the City of New Orleans goes past the house around 12:15 am if it's running on time so catching photos of some of the private cars that run on it is difficult. Before I retired from my job as a police officer, I would often clock the City at 75 to 82 MPH on my radar gun.
A year or so ago I caught the UP's DD40 pulling it's business train a couple miles from my house when it went by.
The railroad comes through the middle of the house;
Since the company bought the land
They let us live in the front of the house;
They let us live in the back;
But there ain't no livin' in the middle of the house;
'Cause that's the railroad track
Actually I live between a a half to three quarters of a mile from the old Espee's Weldon cutoff on the west side of Phoenix. I don't get down that way very often but I frequently hear trains on the line.
I don't really know the status of this line. The Onion Specific embargoed it beyond Arlington shortly after their 1996 acquisition of the Sufferin' Pathetic--they couldn't embargo the whole line which they would like to have done because of the Federal requirement for rail service to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Facility. About two years ago they needed additional capacity into Phoenix so they spent about two million smackers refurbishing the line but they don't want AMTRAK to use it and AMTRAK says "You open it up--we're going to reestablish service through Phoenix" so, as I understand it, it's still embargoed.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I live on the backside of a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and the UP mainline. It serves a local coal fired powerplant(one of the largest in the US). The sound comes up the valley and is quite noticable. We get a train about every hour or so including two, 100+car coal trains for the powerplant each day.
Here in Carmichael, I'm about seven miles from the big UP yard in Roseville, so I see it pretty frequently when I journey over to Railroad Hobbies in that city. And since UP has refurbished the former SP Donner Pass line to allow double-stacks, the yard is busier than ever. It used to be the largest railroad yard west of the Mississippi, it's still one of the largest railroad yards on the West Coast. Lots of trains moving in and out, and through and being made up.
Where I used to teach--St. Francis High School--the property was right across from the UP/former SP mainline between Sacramento and Stockton, so there was plenty of rail traffic during the day--about 10 to 18 trains, plus the Sacramento Caltrains sections of the "San Joaquins".
If the breeze is just right, I can hear the "Coast Starlight" as it blows its horn through Roseville in the early morning. Happens just about the time my alarm goes off, LOL!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I'm about three miles east or west of UP (former SP) switching lines in increasingly de-industrialized Orange County, California.
If the old Pacific Electric interurban still ran between Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, I'd be within a mile of it but, alas, it's been gone for about 80 years.
About a mile or so from the Kongsvinger line in SE Norway - I can't from my house see or hear the electric passenger trains passing through or stopping in my little town (population about 4000), or the freight trains passing through, but I can sometimes hear the whistle of the tea kettles of the narrow gauge museum railroad in town on a quiet Sunday morning, if the breeze blows the right way.
Well, time to head down to the RR station to hop onto a commuter EMU into Oslo, and then the subway onwards to work.
Grin, Stein
Well for me..............
The longest tracks away is about 10 miles. Its a CSX line that runs to Baltimore. I don't get that way much. I do have a few very close thou!!!
I have a Norfolk Southern line about 3 miles away. Its mainly coal. Sometimes I hear up to 5+ trains a day. Plus the wifes job is about 100-200ft from the line.
I also have a CSX line about 2 miles away. Same thing, coal. I do get to see some switching thou. A plant near me does the "driveway melt". The hoppers carry the salt. They run about once a day.
AND..........I also have a Wheeling & Lake Erie track near me. About 2 miles. Its used maybe once a week. Here's a photo of the train and the bridge.
With all of these tracks, how many times to I go and "train hunt"....................Maybe once a week if that.
"Rust, whats not to love?"
Most of my life I lived within a few hundred yards of where the Pittsburg & Shawmut crossed over the Pennsy/Penn Central/Conrail/Mountain Laurel Low Grade. Someone said earlier about only seeing coal drags...that's all these two were except for the occasional bulk car full of plastic beads for the Owens-Illinois cap plant that was in town.
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=41.14985277524466~-79.07462787591065&lvl=17&sty=h&rtp=adr.brookville%2C%20pa~adr.&rtop=0~0~0~
Now I live a few hundred yards from the CP Binghamton, NY - Sunbury - Harrisburg, PA division. then cross over the Susquehanna River and we have the North Shore Railroad shortline.
CP Line:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Catawissa,+PA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.710275,56.162109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Catawissa,+Columbia,+Pennsylvania&ll=40.95352,-76.465144&spn=0.001961,0.003428&t=h&z=18
North Shore:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Catawissa,+PA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.710275,56.162109&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Catawissa,+Columbia,+Pennsylvania&ll=40.955425,-76.470675&spn=0.001961,0.003428&t=h&z=18
Robert H. Shilling II