Interesting video on the BBC about "Ghost Trains" in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18644343

These trains run once a week on lines otherwise unused by passenger trains to keep them "open" as the cost of full-abandonment is higher than running a weekly service. Guess there's no trail lobby in the UK clamoring for removal of infrastructure.

I wonder of any of these lines have made their way into preservation? Seems like a natural for a steam group looking for a place to run.

Rob

How come things like this don't apply to the US? Most railroad execs in this country would rather saw a leg off than run a completely empty train to keep a line open.

Actually there was at least one such train in the U.S. After the C&O took over the B&O in the '60's, all passenger trains were moved to a diiferent station in Detroit. But the B&O was the last user of the station they were vacating ( NYC??) By federal law, when a terminal is completely abandoned, the staff must be reassigned or paid for 5 years. The host railroad would certainly have just paid them off and back-charged the B&O. So the frugal B&O sent an RDC to Lima, Ohio with spare parts in the baggage compartment. Once a week it deaheaded to Deshler and ran "in service" to the old station in Detroit. Voila! -- no complete abandonment of a terminal!

The day I rode it they dispatched it right behind the local feight and we were hours late into Toledo, where we gave up and got off.

A common term for the practice here was "franchise run" or "franchise car" (the latter more common in a traction sense). Like these British counterparts, the operation of such a car or train was to keep a line technically "alive" in a regulatory or legal sense:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 15&start=0

Note the context of "franchise" in this link on an elevated line in Chicago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northweste ... d_Railroad

One of the more interesting "franchise runs" was an operation by the Pennsylvania Railroad on the still-narrow gauge Waynesburg & Washington. I understand this lasted into at least the 1940s, long after regular operations behind steam had ended; the equipment was a converted truck, looking like something from "Mixed Train Daily," but in what looked like Tuscan and gold and lettered for the mighty PRR. This kept the line open for possible revival, which at least partially occurred some years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waynesburg ... n_Railroad

http://www.narrowtracks.com/wwrr/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... n_R._R.jpg

Amazingly a steam locomotive survives from this road, a little 2-6-0 with vacuum brakes!

http://toyotameister.tripod.com/wbgharvest/WW2.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rchgck/2919566918/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rchgck/291 ... otostream/

http://www.steamlocomotive.info/F72001.cfm

http://www.narrowtracks.com/wwrr/WW4.htm