Abandoned Santa Fe Spur Track

[trainman9393]

Is this still here?? Where is this at?

[K9mauser]

It always makes me a little sad seeing tracks like this, but they sure are fun to explore!

[stopglobalswarming]

Make a rail riding lawnmower! :-)

[analyzingfunny]

well, you are not going to find a "date" now, because you looking at rr tracks. lol no woman wants you ! lol

[theGUYwho1]

ive gotta spur linei've been keeping my eye on for a wile now, its not abbandond but they only use it during harvesting season! i've been meening to buy or biuld a rail rider for an advnture on it! its the line from Morinville to Legal Alberta north of Edmonton, as the crow flys on google earth the line is 11.23 miles long!! lots of potencial there!!

[Videomakera]

it goes into a forgotten factory

[MrDasher01]

Excellent find dude. I've learned to look for what appears to be a grade. 99 percent of the time, I'll find tracks on it or find out that it did have tracks on it. I wonder what it is about old abandoned RR tracks, especially if they cross a road, that puts a thrill down our spine. I've been this way since I was a kid.

[CSXandSpartanfan33]

This is bad, we should save abandoned tracks and factories. People would have more jobs.

[denniscaspers]

abandoned tracks with weed groing around it.... It makes my heart beating faster!

Greetings from a trainengineer form The Netherlands!

[theGUYwho1]

@denniscaspers LOL YES!!!! "tracks with Weed growing around it" as you say! lol i'd love a spur like that too LOL

[KraljLazar]

you should tape where is it leading to...

[robertgift]

Neat!

Would love to make a rail cart to ride on it.

How far does it go?

Could be many miles.

[NathansBackwoods]

If i had enough money, i would buy an old spur line and run my own railroad with steam locomotives.

[MilwaukeeSDman]

Id do the same but with ALCOs especially C424 & C425

[rockguitarist946]

@NathansBackwoods i would start a shortline and use the kodachrome scheme as the livery

[NathansBackwoods]

@rockguitarist946, I wish i could afford to do it is the problem....you can have really cool ideas, but money gets in the way....it sucks, lol

[rockguitarist946]

@NathansBackwoods i dont think any normal person has the money to even buy a locomotive, those things can get expensive! i guess you would buy a RR buy investing or something, i dont know for sure

[UNIONPACIFIC9199]

@NathansBackwoods cool. You should try the ol' CF7 diesels. They are rare to find but cool to operate.

[skinnyshit8888]

Where exactley is this spurr

[taffy402]

If there's a line closure you mostly find someone will try to reopen it for the preservationists, or lift the track and relay it at a site which is already open. In the UK there's always someone looking for bits for railways

[moon47mars]

That is very cool. I love looking at old railroad tracks in the grass just laying there!

[sandman19681012]

Very interesting video. I especially like the Santa Fe stamp on the tie plate. To address an earlier comment someone made as to why railroads abandone lines...very simple. The industries that used these rails dried up. Kind of sad but a fact of life. Here in Southwestern Pennsylvania we also have many abandoneed rail lines and I have walked and filmed many of them myself. We also have alot of abandoned railroad tunnels as well. I temp fate and walk these from time to time.

[mikeye12222]

awsome Xd

[trainz675]

yea how bout u try amtrak

[railfanner91019]

Ok someone needs to explain exactly why railroads abandon equipment and tracks. i just dont understand y.

[Inuyasha4lif]

Well this kinda happened to the famous railroad were i live The Virginia and Truckee RailRoad,You know when some railorads are built for mine operations,you know carry suplies and ore to and through,but when the mine runs drie they pick up and leave now the rails have two places to go,either be scrapped,or abandon,The V&T luckly still lives because of Tom Gray

[charlieb640]

well, they are a for profit business. So, when there is no longer a profit to be made...they close down their business. It is that simple.

[Manongjojo]

because its really costly to pick it up.

[RustedBovine]

Bingo. It costs more to pick up track than it's worth at scrap.

[charlieb640]

Actually that's not necessarily true. When scrap metal prices are low as they are now it doesn't pay.

But as they go up it definitely pays. Some lines are easier to scrap than others. Access to the line for trucking to haul rail out and proximity to scrap dealers who will buy the rail influence the decision.

At times the railroads have legal reasons for leaving lines in the ground. Some early rail grants had provisions where if the rail came up the original owners get the property back

[RustedBovine]

The scrap prices of the rails, chairs, and ties together will never bring in more money than what it costs to pick up the track, even in a really favorable economy, unless you use illegally cheap labor. It's actually more cost effective to repair and sell the track as a business opportunity.

[charlieb640]

You are absolutely and completely wrong.

I've been involved in several scrapping projects including a 20 mile line near Indianapolis. We leased a locomotive and pulled the line up as we went along dumping the rails in one car and spikes/bolts/tieplates in another. We made a very decent profit on just the scrap.

We went back in with trucks and sold the ties to local landscapers and actually did ok in certain sections on ballast.

I've done this FAR more than once.

[RustedBovine]

Really? So how many dollars profit did you get? One? Two? Did you share the candy bar you bought with the winnings among the crew or did you just eat it yourself? *rolleyes*

Track lifting is not a freelance operation, it's done at cost, and the railroad company pays to have it done. If it were profitable then railroads would do it themselves, not let some redneck dreamer and "the boys" help themselves. You have to OWN the track before you can pick it up!

[charlieb640]

There were five of us. The railroad paid us a percentage of what we sold the scrap for. We cleared around $100k or so. Not extremely profitable, but it was a family business we ran on the side for years.

Railroads contract out a lot of work including but not limited to rerailing cars,laying and maintaining track, pulling track up, car cleaning, locomotive maintenance. Should I go on and on educating you about something you know nothing about.

[Boss302fan]

Except for mainlines almost all of my trackwork is contracted out now Charlieb. Hell. RJCoreman out of Kentucky has made millions either repairing or pulling up track. (Not to mention picking up derailments)

But I enjoy hiring the independent contracters like yourself. You can always make a buck on the small jobs.

[charlieb640]

Yeah. We always grabbed the small jobs before Corman or others came in and made the big bucks. LOL.

My specialty was small 1-2 mile branches where we could go in and pull them up on the weekend. Good money. Especially if you can arrange for a few gondolas to take the scrap to the mills.

Selling ties is always tough. Landscapers can be pickey. If you can get a contract to help sell the land, that can be good money!

[RustedBovine]

LOL. The stuff you post gets more and more rediculous with each post. Nobody contracts anyone to "help sell the land". LOL. Realtors are there for a reason, and it's because they're good at what they do. Railroad companies don't go to a two-bit salvage business looking for a realtor just as much as you wouldn't go into home depot looking for a loaf of bread.

"Take the scrap to the mills"? Come on! Sounds like you've been spending too much time reading Walther's sales blurbs.

[charlieb640]

Actually when you sign an agreement with a 'Realtor" that is a contract. My wife, who is a co-owner of the company, is a commercial realtor. The shortline railroad we contracted with used us to sell the land. Sorry dude. You are once again wrong.

Yes. We sold the scrap metal via gondola carload to the U.S.S. Gary Works mill.

I'm not sure what "Walther's sales blurbs' means so I have to pass on that one.

[Boss302fan]

Maybe in your country. But in the North America that isn't the case.

If you have a 30 mile branch and the leading shipper closes down, it makes far more sense to pull up the line and sell the scrap and land than continue to repair it.

And you can without a doubt make good money scrapping track. I've sold of unused sidings many times and brought in great revenue.

Again, I know little about UK scrapping. But I've railroaded in North America 30 years.

[RustedBovine]

The majority of UK track is government owned, so it's a civil engineering operation. Private track is almost never lifted unless there's a very good reason - it would be like digging up a road to sell the used asphalt. Track hasn't been profitable scrap in this country since world war 2. It has ever since only been sold to be reused as track. Scrapping only happened to recoup lifting costs to make it a cheaper operation. Ties were used in mines, which have mostly all closed.

[Boss302fan]

Tell you what. We won't second guess you on whether or not you can profit on selling track in the UK.

How about you not calling people liars when they tell you that in North America (US, Canada and Mexico) it is done all the time. Profitably.

Stop criticizing or calling people ridiculous when you know NOTHING about it. Tracks in the US are scrapped or removed when lines become unprofitable. Private contractors have a nice portion of that business.

[charlieb640]

Not really. Actually it is amazingly cheap.

The equipment is readily available. Give me a backhoe, some trucks, and a bit of 'know-how" and I can pull up lines quickly and efficiently.

Normally on older lines you can just pick up the rail and 'jerk' it out from the ties. (The spikes are usually in old, dried rotted ties and give way).

If ties are in good shape landscapers come running. LOL.

[Treyvs]

Theres a rail in town from 1886 lol.

[Treyvs]

They Vary from the late 1800's to the early 1900's

[pilgor87]

dude good eye for them tracks

[BNSF7776]

Does the spur connects to the Lajunta sub still?

[Treyvs]

No, they tore the switch out.

[UNIONPACIFIC9199]

@Treyvs that sucks. There could be other switches that connect to other subs, right?

[Kingkong9099]

WOw lol a chain for a brake... thats kinda neat... a cheaper way rather than useing ceramic or metal brakes...

[BoxcarFrank]

Nice

[cifn2]

nice video, I wish I would have thought to walk a set of old tracks they pulled out over the last 2 weeks as an old CSX spur was cleaned out... made the streets alot smoother where they pulled the tracks and blacktopped lol

[Hickler90]

Nice catch of the far cry from the glory days of railroading...good job man

[rhsballa3344]

well im glad you did. thanks for sharing.

[rhsballa3344]

nice find man.

[Treyvs]

Thanks Patrick, I have known about it since I found the diamond last year, but only now decided to walk over and look at it.