Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Street Running Trains
So I will admit, what brought me to La Grange was the possibility of seeing trains running down Main Street somewhere. I saw pictures of this somewhere and so I decided to see where this happened and found out about La Grange. Since it wasn't too far away, I decided to head there.
When a train goes down a street like this, it is called street running. At one time, it used to be more common than it is now. Apparently La Grange and Oakland, CA are the only places where this is part of a main line. There are other cities where this happens but those are spur lines.
I'll have to admit, it was pretty cool to see a train going down a Main Street. I tried to find accident statistics on this but I could only find a couple of news reports. The train only does about 10 miles per hour through town but I imagine that would be dangerous in the right circumstances.
At any rate, it provided some cool picture opportunities.
A switcher engine.
Some oil cars.
This is the same train I saw as I was leaving Cincinnati. La Grange is situated on the main line from Cincinnati to Louisville. As such, there is about one train per hour passing through.
I can't imagine how that would impact life in the town.
I decided to follow this train for a little bit.
I was hoping there would be more reflection.
I tried to get a night shot of a train but I was too late. I guess this means I will have to visit again.
I decided to go downtown before leaving town again. It wasn't long before I caught a train heading towards Cincinnati.
It looked pretty cool.
I was on the inside of the train this time.
As it passed by.
It was carrying mostly autoracks.
But it had a few other cars.
And cars from other railroads.
And shortly after that train, another train appeared.
this was pretty cool.
And it blew right through the stop sign.
As it was close.
And it passed by.
Some of the cars reflected in the window.
One of several "fallen flags". This particular railroad used to be common in Michigan.
And some graffiti.
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3 comments:
I'm curious how they handle traffic control for that. Are there crossing gates that go down on all the side streets? Or do they assume that 10 mph is slow enough that people in town can just see/hear it coming and get out of the way?
This lasts about three blocks and there are crossing gates on the streets that run into Main Street. The train itself is ringing a bell as it goes down the street. As I said, I'm not sure about the safety of this....but it was cool to watch.
The USA is street running train country no. 1 ! 1200 locations ! In 600 towns ! The location-list on wikipedia is missing a lot . There is a much longer, completer and more current list on : www.coasttram.info/street running trains ! Also about 74 other countries ! Have fun with it ! c.schouten .
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