How Close to a Railroad Track Do You Live?

Fred, the black/yellow one (335) is the newest, the yellow (324) is the predecessor.
Here a bit about our trams on Wikipedia if you’re interested. I would suggest, you translate the german page bit by bit. It holds a lot more information than the english side … :slightly_smiling_face:
Straßenbahn Karlsruhe – Wikipedia

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Not my home but my office. My office window looks directly out onto the main US North/South rail artery of the Norfolk Southern not 65 feet away.
I am seeing a major freight train moving either North or South nearly every 30 to 45 minutes.

Multiple unit trains, mid-train units and tail-end pushers!

A L-O-N-G Inter-modal just this morning.

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Great! Railroad eye candy !

3 Blocks from tracks . Can feel the house rattling as they go by and at times when they blow the horns for crossings sounds like they are in my back yard .
Also can hear the clackity clack of each section of track .

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@Phantom13

Sounds like you live near jointed rail, which sounds like a secondary line or a spur. Is that right? I miss those sounds.

@165thspc

That sounds like the CNO&TP the NS now uses.

Yep! You got it!

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How close is the hobby shop you work at to Blue Door BBQ? We ate there back on the 3rd but did not have time to come over and visit. Next time I come through either, I want to come by and see what the hobby shop has.

On a distantly related topic; the local hobbyshop came across two sets of scale plan drawings in O scale of a CNO&TP Station in a recent estate liquidation. (Located in Northern Kentucky - Erlanger, KY)
$12 per set.+ tax & shipping.

These are beautiful multi-page engineering/construction grade drawings done in O scale and a model station could be built directly over them using them as a pattern with scale wooden materials.

I would be happy to help hook up any interested parties!

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Fred nothing in Lexington is very far apart. Google Maps could have gotten you there in 10-15 minutes. I think I had already sent you their address prior to your trip.

Berkshire Trains & Classic Toys
209 Rosemont Garden
(Right at the NS tracks)
Lexington, Kentucky

View from the front of the shop.

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Speaking of tracks close to my office; the hobbyshop next door has a 24/7 webcam set up on the crossing and the owner’s son tapes EVERY daylight train that passes and posts them on YouTube.

Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBpmE9fMaSqcbAtu8MYr0fw

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These images are not all that close to where I live, but I rode my bike past them this morning on my way to Point Richmond, maybe 13 or so miles from where I do live - interesting range of images:

This is of the big BNSF yard in Richmond CA, just north of Highway 580, long trains assembled here and this, a few miles away, short (line) train in the streets:

This shortline serves the Port of Richmond. They have a few engines, but until today I’d only seen them from about a mile away, from the freeway. Nice clean and quiet power serving local industry. It was pretty cool to see this, as I’ve often wondered about the line in general.

Cheers
Nick

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So here’s a surprise, I was riding my bike down the same street as above - and, saw another short line yarder:

These pictures were taken less than 100 yards from the two above, on a side street at the Port of Richmond.

As I waited for the train to cross, I wondered about the earlier questions/comments in this thread about layouts, and it occurred to me that if you really like complicated track work and don’t have much space, you could build a small layout of trains switching in and out of various small industries - it could be a pretty cool and complicated layout - as with DCC you could have several crossings/switches etc - and like these pictures run a few engines.

And, @KoSprueone, just up the street from this is a small shunting engine - which is also pretty cool. I think it was called a rail handler? not sure, but as I ride up through this area fairly often, I’ll try and get a pic. I saw it running today moving some gravel hoppers - but behind a slatted fence so not a good chance for pics -

OK, take care
Nick

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Thanks for sharing those. Side track and facility and plant activity is most interesting to me.

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Nick, thanks for showing us. That’s a neat switcher. Arco, I forget what it stood for but when I was in El Paso there was a smelter that was owned by Arco, if I recall correctly.

I believe ASARCO was the smelting operation. I believe that ARCO is a petroleum refining facility.

I worked in Norco, LA before joining the Army. Good Hope Refinery to be exact. The town derived its name from New Orleans Refining Company.

Google to the rescue:
" ARCO was established in 1966 as the Atlantic Richfield Company, an independent oil and gas company formed from the merger of Atlantic Petroleum and the Richfield Oil Corporation"

" ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999."
Smeltertown plant & cemetery

That was sorta the point of my post - that the RCO probably stood for Refining Company. At least they didn’'t name the town after it.

As I was curious after all this discussion, I found these two posts about the very engine in question and where it came from, and it’s full lineage:

Well shoot - those are hard to read! so the first one says:

"No idea about the unit, but the Arco Cherry Point refinery was built in northern Washington (Blaine) a little over 50 years ago to process Alaskan crude oil. It became part of BP when BP bought Arco in the early 2000’s. So I’m surprised the unit wasn’t repainted after that.

I did find a photo of what I think is the same loco on railpicutures.net from 2017, it was at the Progress Rail facility in Tacoma. So it must have been sitting around for a while before heading to Richmond, CA.

The refinery is the fourth largest on the West Coast. My dad worked at the former Exxon refinery in Benicia, CA that was built a little earlier, but was also setup to process Alaskan crude."

And, if you’re interested in the unit itself:

"We acquired the locomotive about a month ago as our motive power needs have increased. It entered service on monday 6/24 to shake out any bugs it may or may not have and performed beyond expectations, however it is intended primarily to be a spare engine so I wouldn’t expect to see it regularly. As of this morning it is parked in the terminal for some light maintenance before it goes back out again for a longer period.

Regarding paint, as it’s a spare we have opted to forego paint for the time being and instead recieved approval for a special logo to honor the locomotive’s hertitage as an ex-Great Northern engine. It’s been a good morale boost among the team as its effectionately referred too as “The Goat”, “Rocky”, and insert your best goat bleet impression “Ele-ee-ee-vv-ee-nn”.

Lineage is as follows. Built for GN as an NW2 #5322, renumbered GN #122, became BN 469, rebuilt to SW1200 specifications in 1976 and renumbered BN 19, sold in 1987 to MRL as their #11, then Arco Cherry Point around 2000(?), into lease service sometime in the last decade(?), purchased by RPRC in 2024."

Ahhh…railfans to the rescue! I ride up to this area fairly often, but have only been doing so for while, so my guess is I’ll come across other into too

Finally, regarding ARCO:

Railfans and Google! crucial resources to us model builders!

Cheers :smile:
Nick

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