Do you guys hunt rail roads?

[baspinall]

Just curious if you guys hunt old railroad beds? I have an old track bed that runs through my township.
No stations along here at all. Would just the tracks be worth it? Here is whats in my area.


Pennsylvania Railroad (far northwest corner of the county)
The East Brandywine & Waynesburg Railroad opened in 1854 to connect Downingtown to Honeybrook Borough along the Brandywine Creek. It was acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1861 and extended to New Holland (Lancaster County) and eventually to Lancaster City where it joined the Pennsylvania Main Line.

Brian

 

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[QUICKSILVER (appletree)]

Most railroads had passanger travel, and thats why towns sprang up along them. Check the library for old town maps, I'll bet there was a station or two in town. Good luck Ed

 

[gallileo60]

If you have the time, it could not hurt to ride the rails again...No telling what might turn up....Tom

 

[joecoin]

Cinders.

 

[Urban Prospector]

Yea I hunt old RR track beds.In my area they've been turned into horse trails and mountain bikers and hikers use them too. I enjoy digging up old iron spikes, some dated, and find newer stuff that people dropped. Another thing I find is lots of hot rocks, probably fell off ore cars or were used as bedding gravel. I crush it and pan it if it reads right.Retrieved silver and gold in very small quantity. The rail roads set up camps for the workers and their family's to live in and I sometimes find caches left behind or forgoten. Small amounts of change and a watch was it so far.I like that I can dig aggressively without worry off damaging landscaped areas. Fill and compact my holes so as to not trip up others. If you have an area were the right of ways split check them well. There was probably a switch there and workers were jumping up and down off the train and digging in there pockets for keys as most switches were locked. Spurs are another area to check well. The train would pass the spur then switch and back down it to uncouple cars at places were they were unloaded. Any such activity increases the odds of dropping or loosing stuff.

 

[MrMorph]

Who would you contact to get permission to search the railroads and otherareas belonging to them?

 

[Woodsie]

I'm in Northeastern PA and yes I hunt railroad tracks. I found a lot of
coins....also 2 sterling silver spoons, some jewelry and a few ceremonial buttons.

It is railroad property so in some cases you have to get permission.

 

[cam9457]

I'm a Norfolk Southern freight rail conductor and I lose things all the time climbing up and down on cars. You have to be incredibly careful though because ANY RR property is considered federal property. Many rails often look abandoned, the tracks can look ragged as all #@! but it may be used once a week, once a month, only at night, you never know. just be careful, remember we can't stop like a car or 18 wheeler and can't steer around you. look,listen,live

 

[scrapdoggie]

I'm a Norfolk Southern freight rail conductor and I lose things all the time climbing up and down on cars. You have to be incredibly careful though because ANY RR property is considered federal property. Many rails often look abandoned, the tracks can look ragged as all #@! but it may be used once a week, once a month, only at night, you never know. just be careful, remember we can't stop like a car or 18 wheeler and can't steer around you. look,listen,live

Well said! Ive been looking at the Railroad tracks in franklin Mass.I recently purchased a map from 1880 of my home town and im trying to figure out the best camp sites and common areas(small fields)where people would camp or walk thru regularly.

 

[cam9457]

Wherever there is a railroad there has been at least a few camp cars laying track or repairing track or whatever. The work crews in the camp cars bust their butt during the day and usually drink pretty well at night and drop A LOT of stuff. If you can find a spot the roving work crews have stopped at some time you should have a good chance recovering all kinds of stuff, good luck! Be safe!

 

[Poncho33]

Perhaps my comment may help you. I live in Arizona. A friend hunts with a MD along rail beds. The spots that interest him the most are where bridges, or trestles, go/went across depressions, washes, and streams. It was his impression that the rail service people would lie under the bridge/trestle in the shade, resting or sleeping. He had the most success MDing under the bridge/trestles, where apparently the reclining guys lost coins and pocket knives from their pockets. Poncho33

 

[jud]

the town i grew up in had tracks running through. Tons of people used the tracks to get around on foot. But the post above is right, you are trespassing while on those tracks. However as long as you are minding your own business, not harassing trains or damaging property it is highly unlikely that anyone would say anything to you. Fisherman use them all the time.

If you do however contact the railroad, i can almost guarantee you the answer will be no.

Be careful of hazards if you hunt the tracks (such as trains, sharp metal, unstable ground) but if a train happens to pass you by while your out there, you'll most likely just get a friendly wave from a conductor.


Night time can be different. They dont care so much for people on the tracks at night. Ive seen them come through with what im assuming is some sort of federal shipment. They come through real slow and there are men with guns on those trains, as well as vehicle escorts....?

Yea.... we dont wave to those guys.

 

[cam9457]

Jud it could have been spent fuel rods from a nuclear reactor. I used to get that train, it's an on call train meaning it's never scheduled and usually at night and there are always armed personel at the facility and they escort the train the whole way. I used to take it from Limerick power station down here in SE Pa. The escorts could have been there for any number of reasons though, space shuttle parts, military equipment(which even the conductor doesn't know what it is), if it had armed guards it was something "hot".
You are right about calling the railroad for permission. You will get a run around, call this number, then call this number and so on until you just wind up with no. Maybe some of the smaller short line RR's you might be able to shmooze permission from but I can tell you first hand if it's the company I work for Norfolk Southern or CSX you are going to get a no. But like you said, if you are just minding you own business and don't look suspicious, I doubt anyone will bother you at all. A friendly wave to the train crew as they go by couldn't hurt as insurance. Another tip to keep you alive is back up at least 50 feet from the tracks as the freight train goes by because all to often the is a cable or something hanging off one the cars and I've seen those cables cut right through thick iron switch stand posts like a hot knife through butter. Other then that have fun and good luck. Look, Listen, Live

 

[DiverGuy83]

food for thought, i used to do underwater bridge inspections for CSX... a good place to look is under and around bridges that cross rivers and stream beds.
just walking around ive found all kinds of stuff just lying on the riverbed.

 

[jgowans]

Baspinall, I grew up in Baldwin and we use to collect old bottles and crocks from along the tracks.
We found a dump site next to the tracks along with poison ivy and a hornets nest. For us detecting would have been useless. I think it was only frieght that cam through there. We would collect pocket loads of pig iron pellets to use with sling shots. My mom still has the old bottles. A couple were old clorox amber types with the corks still in them.



We once brought home what we thought was a wagon wheel. It was like the old ox cart wheels. Solid wood planks and round. After we carried it about a mile to the house someone told us it was a wire spool that the electric company uses.

JG

 

[vanoldschool]

I do now after finding a 1895 indian head and some date nails, take your time and dig everything you will be surprised what you find!!

 

[mrjosh]

There is a section of adbandoned tracks near me. Rails have been pulled up. There is a debate on who has rights to use the property. The rail line who ran the tracks is nolonger but was bought out, so that company clains bits and pieces, a wildlife refuge was put in about ten years ago and they border alot of it so they came it, and the local farmers are trying to claim it because it was "adbandoned".

 

[floodcitykid]

Railroad ROW are perhaps the BEST palces to hunt. When I lived in Virginia, I used to hunt the Orange and Alex line from Alex to Culpepper co., especially concentrating on the stretch from manassas to Rappahanock Stattion. The US army had to put a regiment every mile, a picket post every quarter mile and a calvery vidette every half mile. What that means is you can go along the woods and find relic EVRYWHERE, so times a small five man pickett post will yield more relics than a large regimental camp that served it will yield, coz the big camp has been hunted over so well and the pickett site is virgin.

Don't forget RR's in other parts of the country were home for work crews and labor camps that built them
and of course you had the Hobos and train jumpers that camped along side them.....hobo jungles they used to call them. Should be good for relics and old bottles.


Billy

 

[DoubleUgly]

I was an employee of the Grand Canyon Railway, a tourist line in Arizona, for about 10 years. It was an old Santa Fe spur that ran passenger and freight/timber/ore from the late 1800's to the mid 1970's. It was abandoned and eventually reopened in 1989.

Tons and tons of artifacts can be found along the right-of-way. Porters used to throw items from the train if they no longer had any use: empty bottles, bent spoons, chipped dinnerware, tools, etc. Also, Santa Fe had built several bunkhouses along the line and the maintenance of way workers would live while they worked.

One of the places I'd love to get to is a ghost town called Apex (renamed Imbleau, after my friend Sam Imbleau that died of cancer. He was Road Foreman of the railroad when I was there). It was a camp for the Saginaw and Manistee timber company, and still has a standing railroad bunkhouse. Here's a link to a photo I took for ghosttowns.com and some more info about the town. http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/az/apex.html
35°56'43.93"N, 112°11'11.18"W

Another is Anita station: 35°51'37.47"N, 112°14'56.89"W. It was a loading station for sheep, cattle, and copper ore from the Anita mine. If you look close at the current ROW, you can see the old ROW split and head off into the hills to the mine. I know for a fact that the mine entrance is still open, as I have a friend that documented it with photos for a book he wrote. I'm sure there's tons of relics out there, too. As far as I know, most of this is BLM land, but some is open range ranch land. Having spent a considerable amount of time out in this area, you could go for a long time without seeing a soul. It's a whole lot of open land and scrub brush.

 

[ibjeepn]

Old logging railroad beds are abundant in the forests. I often wondered about searching them. The workers building these could have lost or left something behind. Do you think so ?