My friend Russ, while working for the GM&O told me you had to be very careful running from Varna IL to Lacon, along the IL river. Said it was downhill all the way, about 9 miles, and you had to keep your speed down and the track was overgrown with tall weeds. O Otherwise, you and your RS1 would get a dunking in the river where a severely sharp curve headed into town. Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 13, 2012, at 3:29 PM, Bob Werre <[email protected]> wrote: > Having been raised in a prairie state served by a Milwaukee Road branch line, > tall grasses and weeds were the only living things along the ROW. Since real > ballast was a rarity nearly all freights had two Alco's even for the > typically short trains (10-30 cars). The weeds crushed under the wheels made > the rails slippery. At one time they used weird looking devices called weed > burners. The problem was that they started lots of prairie fires and it > wasn't long before the weeds grew back with a vengeance. > > I imagine during the steam era, just dumping the ashes and cleaning the fire > on a windy day was a problem. > > Bob Werre > PhotoTraxx > > > > On 8/13/12 12:57 PM, tpm1ca wrote: > >> >> No idea, Dave. I haven't seen anything written about such fires. I think the >> yard was better maintained in earlier times - but by the 1950s it was pretty >> overgrown, with just one train per day picking its way through the grass... >> - Trevor >> >> --- In [email protected], "ctxmf74" <ctxm@...> wrote: >> > >> > >> > >> > --- In [email protected], "tpm1ca" <tpmarshall@> wrote: >> > > I'm using static grass. I've written about this extensively on the blog >> > > If you have any additional questions, drop me a line. >> > > >> > >> > Hi Trevor, Do you know if they had many fires in the yard in the old days? >> > ....DaveBranum >> > >> > > > > > > >
