Big South Fork

[landnrailroader]

Big South Fork, located about 20 miles south of Danville, KY and 3 miles north of Kings Mountain is a very long, but not very high viaduct. There 15 towers under it, but the height is only around 40 feet. The river under it is the south fork of the Green River which flows westward for about 100 miles and eventually empties into the Ohio.
Jerry big_south_fork.jpg

[landnrailroader]

Another rail line that has always fascinated me is the Camas Praire out in Idaho. Although parts of it are still operated by a shortline, the most interesting part, the branch to Grangeville is now defunct thanks to the destruction by fire of a large timber trestle. So here we are, way up in Lapwai Canyon, looking at the spot where the line has doubled back on itself, with a grade approaching 2% and nearly everywhere you see the upper track line, there is a trestle, and where you don't, there is a tunnel. At the upper left, the railroad turns away from this canyon to follow another with a few more tunnels until coming out on top. I have included the Nez Perce railroad which was a seperate entity that connect to the Camas Praire near the top of the climb out of the canyon and I have also included the connection along the Snake River to connect to the UP and "GASP", it will also include the Joso Viaduct and about 3 or 4 miles of the UP geographically north of it.

Jerry CamasP01.jpg

[PerryPlatypus]

Another rail line that has always fascinated me is the Camas Praire out in Idaho. Although parts of it are still operated by a shortline, the most interesting part, the branch to Grangeville is now defunct thanks to the destruction by fire of a large timber trestle. So here we are, way up in Lapwai Canyon, looking at the spot where the line has doubled back on itself, with a grade approaching 2% and nearly everywhere you see the upper track line, there is a trestle, and where you don't, there is a tunnel. At the upper left, the railroad turns away from this canyon to follow another with a few more tunnels until coming out on top. I have included the Nez Perce railroad which was a seperate entity that connect to the Camas Praire near the top of the climb out of the canyon and I have also included the connection along the Snake River to connect to the UP and "GASP", it will also include the Joso Viaduct and about 3 or 4 miles of the UP geographically north of it.

Jerry CamasP01.jpg

Definitely looking forward to that one eventually! The Grangeville Branch (aka the 2nd Subdivision of the Camas Prairie) actually got mothballed in 2000 because they couldn't justify the cost of running the line. Shortline BGCM bought the lines east of Lewiston with grand promises of restoring service, but it never happened. (The 1st Sub operations lasted a bit longer, but that branch has not seen regular operations east of Arrow Jct. for many years. The 4th Sub has been shut down for at least 25 years now. Things look very grim for all of the branches east of Lewiston...) Roughly 10-15 years ago, BGCM starting ripping up the south end of the 2nd Sub for scrap in phases - first from Grangeville to Cottonwood, then Cottonwood to Lawyer's Canyon, then to Craigmont. For a number of years they used the lower end of the hill up Lapwai Canyon for storing cars. That trestle file was more like the final nail in the coffin, but it had been many, many years since any regular service on the 2nd Sub by that point. Of all the lines I missed out on seeing in operation by being born just a bit too late, the 2nd Sub is one of the most painful.

P.S. The grade up Lapwai Canyon should be close to 3% for most of the climb.

[landnrailroader]

I never saw the real line either though I did purchase a video of the 2nd sub. Must have been done in the 90s. I have taken measurements off Google Earth for the Joso viaduct and for the most part the towers seem to be 40ft. in width, seperated by 80ft. girder spans, except that the first 3 at the geographically north end are a little shorter. I guess there is still a roughly 4000 polygon limit for TSRE/ORTS so it will take 4 or more sections to do that one. I included the branch off the line that went more or less south from near Reubens to a lumber operation. American Cruise Lines operates a Columbia & Snake R. cruise which seems to end at Lewiston. The wife is agitating heavily to take this cruise and whether we do or not depends on what happens in Nov. I just picked a number for the %grade. I used a track chart to lay the track. Fortunately, RailFan Depot still have a UP chart that included the line.

Jerry

[PerryPlatypus]

I went to college in Moscow, Idaho - only about a half hour drive north of Lewiston. Unfortunately I was there more than a decade too late to see the 2nd Sub in operation, a few years too late to photograph BGCM operations on the 1st Sub to Kooskia, and just *barely* too late to see trains operating into Moscow itself.

I've never experienced a 4,000 polygon limit for TSRE or ORTS. There are a few scenery objects in Mullan Pass (like at the Conoco facility in Missoula) that approach 20,000 polygons each.

The branch line south that splits off at Craig Jct. (south of Reubens) was the Craig Mountain Lumber Company's railroad. They had quite a few logging spurs around the Winchester area, but a lot of it's pretty hard to find traces of (either physical or in maps).

We've seen that cruise ship (which is stylized to look like a paddle wheeler even though the paddle wheel is decorative) pass by us many times while railfanning at Joso Bridge or other places along the Snake and Columbia. A beautiful area, and you're bound to see lots of trains on the Columbia River section, and maybe a few on the Snake too if you're lucky!

[landnrailroader]

The bridge gang was busy this weekend. I stayed home because our A/C system is ailing and fortunately it has not been maximum hot this week. We replaced a inside blower motor on Thursday and things were good until Saturday morning when we noticed the temp. creeping up and found that the outside unit was not coming on. The system was installed new in 2011 and 13 years may be it's lifetime. Most A/C systems in Florida are excellent if they make 10 years so. Anyway, the bridge gang was busy and now the new (1950) span at Burnside, KY is almost done. I forgot that I used M-track spacing here for the double track and I did the bridge for A2 spacing, so I will relay the track using the transition from M2 to A2 spacing here. I also need to put a short dpg on the north end to make the transition to a deck truss span. Trees hide it, so that will just be a educated guess. There is a 85 ft. on the south end over a road.

Jerry NEW_BURNSIDE01.jpg

[landnrailroader]

Here is the southbound Royal Palm crossing South Fork. I am perplexed as to why the image is so distorted. For example the concrete footings under the viaduct are square and the slope of the side steel members is 1:10 as suggested by a friend in the CSX bridge department. Otherwise it is okay and I have run the train as far south as Moreland, KY and so far no bumps or grinds. When I laid the track 2 years ago, I did put in a number of #10 manual turnouts where there are industries etc. and now I must go back and add those, which I usually do as I add structures. After I check the main track, then I will need to do most of it again, using the abandoned areas. My plan is twofold as for covering these historical items. I will have a SR style sign at the entrance/exit to each abandoned area and I will include in the readme or a similar text file, an explanation about these, the marked old tunnels etc.On this section, CNO&TP 2nd District, the first abandoned tunnel is #2 at Kings Mountain, which at nearly a mile was the longest and being on a 1% ascending grade southward it had some sinister incidents. Then just before Burnside there is #3 & #4 the latter opening out onto rails just above the lake. This rejoins the existing line at Tateville for a few hundred yards and then deviates again up Sloan's valley through tunnels 5, 7, 8, 9 and 3 viaducts. Tunnel 6 was the shortest on the line and was daylighted before 1920 and no trace is seen of it, though if I could have found an old topo map that showed it, I would have put a marker there.

Jerry Open Rails 2024-09-02 12-45-30.jpg