I love watching trains. I really enjoy the fact that safety was number one. Too many people get hurt crossing tracks, but I do feel for the people who reside near tracks and have to put up with the noise and rumble.
David, I was shocked out of my mind one day when I was driving down a small side street towards Main Street and I saw a train go by even though there are no tracks there. Later I found out that our local bus company was doing a safety program in conjunction with CSX, and they had painted a bus to look exactly like a locomotive. From my narrow perspective on the side street, it looked just like the real thing.
Being a life long Floridian that has lived along the Florida East Coast Railroad's corridors for over 60 years , I've observed that they seem to always maintain their crossings and right of ways to a high standard. As you can see in this video, the grass is cut and the trackage is well maintained even along seldom used areas. FEC was one of the first railroads to use concrete cross ties, too. Not bad for a small railroad. Old Henry Flagler would be proud.
The FEC takes a great deal of pride in their company. They believe in having the best of everything and they maintain it well. As a railfan, I have visited railroads and railroad officials all over the country, and whenever I tell them I'm from Florida they say something like "That's where the FEC is" with awe in their voices. I've tried to go to work for them, but I can't meet their standards.
Trains, train tracks, crossings, they all fascinate me. I even once worked for a business making devices for the model railway hobbyist. I don't know why, they are fun to watch.
Very pretty video. Railway crossings on sidings are indeed the bane of engineers, and in 00:36 the lack of prudence is very evident. Greetings from Poland, Central Europe.
That's the cleanest looking abandoned tracks I've ever! Tracks are really visible and no grass or weeds or anything growing thru the rocks and the tracks aren't sunken into the ground like most abandoned tracks!!!
Also... The wheels on that pulled empty UTLX tanker are shiny, like it was polished silver from hundreds of miles recently. It couldn't have been sitting in there at that plant for years !
Wow! First time seeing some railroad tracks that were only about 10ft or so from the homeowners properties in residential areas. I didn't know that homes could be so close to the tracks.
I'd be curious why think no one has ever recorded this before? Also, by looking at the condition of those tracks it looks like it gets some regular use.
Excellent video but I have a question. Your title says this "Train runs on abandoned track for first time in YEARS!" Since they are picking up a car from there how can this be the first time in years? Did they leave the tank car there years ago? But that doesn't make sense either since the track was abandoned. Did they have a hard time getting the track back into service since it was abandoned? Nimby people make it almost impossible to put abandoned track back into service in congested residential areas like this. I'm just curious about what happened here.
The power of the electric motor.. man, can that engine move it's mass quickly.. Obviously a "torque monster". It was odd to see "a" train stop at it's own crossings.. of course there were no x'ing controls. Thanks for the video! Cheers.
WOW! Hasn't been used in year's! You can tell it hasn't.When that GP38-2 backed into the industry siding the conductor looked very concerned.And the flange squeal definitely tells you it hasn't been used in ages! Nice video!
@@TheNemosdaddy I agree. I've heard flange squeal on main lines. It's due to the flanges hitting the side of the rails, not how often the track is used.
I used to live about 25 feet more less-from the railroad..guess what happened? The train derailed and knocked out our fence and my grandmothers garden..she was pissed..lol. She was more concerned about her garden than our lives.. not to mention the fence. She was pissed at the railroad Forman. Our neighbor warned the rail road department that the tracks were an accident waiting to happen, obviously they didn’t care. Thank God we were not killed or hurt. The railroad Forman calmly explained to my grandmother that she would be recompensed for the damage.we lived behind her, same lot. The engine went down the street.. it actually sunk at wheel level,even though it was asphalt.,It was the story of the town. This incident happened 1973.
The rails were probably just out-of-service and not abandoned. The plant might not have needed rail service for a while. Those rails were in really good condition and abandonment requires the railroad company to install signs near all crossing grades.
I grew up a block away from this plant in the 80's-90's and remember FEC switching cars there from time to time during the week. I would chase the train in my bike with cassette recorder in hand on days I didn't have school. Its what got me hooked on trains. Boy this brings back memories!Great catch!Agentadq has a nice clip of this track being use in 1996 with the classic GP9. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-e6E1CBTa9vw.html
reminds me of the old B&O spur line that ran from the main line in Silver Spring MD down to Georgetown DC by the Potomac River - now it's the Capitol Crescent bike trail, but back in the 60's a short freight would run once a day, over a trestle across the Rock Creek valley, behind people's houses, through a country club, under the Air Rights Building, down the Little Falls Creek valley, past the Dalecarlia Water Works, down the Potomac Palisades, across the C&O canal, over Foundry Branch, past the Washington Canoe Club, to a lumber mill and coal-fired heating plant for federal government buildings - once to my boyish delight I saw the train cross Connecticut Avenue with the flagman trotting ahead to stop traffic while the train passed. Another time the train stopped in Bethesda across the street from the Wagon Wheel Restaurant, evidently for lunch :) Nice to have the local rail traffic rumbling past, behind the trees
@@robgyanisu312 Hopefully on these tracks, the nearby homes will not have to deal with loud train horns in the middle of the night. But the people in the small town of Peabody, KS. where my friends live DO have to deal with this every night with TWO Amtraks passing through town in the middle of the night. I guess they sleep through those VERY loud blasts of the horns, especially the people in the homes near the tracks.
Neat but nothing compared to the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton RR, in upstate NY, which had trackage that was so overgrown it looked like trains were off-roading. Or the former Penn Central Crescent industrial trackage, which was abandoned in 1976. There was a Ford tractor plant on the line that NYS wanted served. So arranged for the D&H to take over the trackage. Seriously overgrown by that time. There's pictures of D&H locomotives threading through tunnels of underbrush and bushes.
Nice water plant in Hialeah, but I thought they were building a new one. Looks like they worked on track before re-using it. That's in old east Hialeah area in Miami, Fl. I saw a mango tree in back of one of the old houses by the track. It's off old Okeechobee Rd South almost at the end of Okeechobee Rd south. Notice there are no RR crossing bars, only and old RR sign.
Might be the 1st time the place has been switched in daylight in years. Many plants don't want railroads switching in their plants when the plants employees are working.
TrainsWow™ really not all it's cracked up to be, both myself and an ex-girlfriend of mine lived near the same rail line just about 2 miles apart and both of us lived near crossings me about 100 yards, her like the houses on this video and the line was a main line so trains were passing a lot faster than this one, and where we lived trains blew at crossings no matter the time of day or night, at my house was a lot better living as a rail fan, her house it was but not as awesome as you would expect
brickbuilder711 Regs state that even if it does not get used often it still has be maintained.There is a line near me in Redlands,CA that hasn't seen a train since 2006 but looks and crossings work perfect.Maintenance was last checked and performed about a month ago.
Nice. I'm not sure abandonment means no service. It just means the railway no longer requires to maintain the tracks. It also means they pay less taxes as well. So it's possible a train could appear on abandon tracks, but it's just not expected.
I wish railroads would give up that rule about not boarding moving equipment. I believe CSX just relaxed their rule about it. No reason a conductor can't get on and off the engine moving at a slow speed. Saves time and fuel.
for about 10 years - i worked as a switch man for Southern - which became Norfolk Southern 32 years ago - we did not have the engine stop for us to catch up this is the first time i ever saw that - when did that become standard practice ? they did change the rule and say the train should be stopped before catching up on flat TTX cars - but we never did
omg...that's my home town hialeah on you tube yo!? that train is coming out of the water plant off of ockeechobee rd in hialeah. those tracks are no where near abandoned just not used as frequently like before.
In the early 90's would drive between Miami Lakes and Miami International Aiport and see it at least every other trip. I believe it travels the spur far more than one would think.
The FEC. Florida East Coast Railway. For those who are not aware, this is the railroad that Henry Flagler built. It started out north of Jacksonville, and eventually was built along the Florida east coast. Up until 1935, the railroad went all the way to Key West. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed the FEC tracks, and the railroad declined to restore it's tracks in the Florida Keys. After this time, using the old railroad bridges, and right of way of the FEC, the federal government build the Overseas Highway, from the upper Keys to Key West. I can recall driving over the old White Knuckle bridges in the Keys back in the early 70s. The old bridges are gone now, and replaced with new bridges. The old bridges are still there, but are no longer used for vehicular traffic. Henry Flagler was quite a visionary. He is considered the father of modern day Florida.
jaybarber68 I worked the Sidney Local between Sidney,Nebraska and Cheyenne, Wyoming And the Gering Local between Gering, Nebraska and Torrington, Wyoming. Most of my career was between Cheyenne and North Platte, Nebraska with Union Pacific.
Why are people having their houses built so close to the tracks??? Then they get upset for the noise, vibrations etc.What a strange world we are living in!