All these posts about lost locomotives in tunnels, discovered depots, trolleys from chicken coops, etc. All good stuff and the creative April 1 posts nonwithstanding - what are some of the 'real' discoveries that RYPN posters have made out there in the field? It's a pretty observant crew, and I think that posting some of the real stories of how stuff is found and (hopefully) preserved would make a good discussion.

My personal favorite one was up on the B&ML - discovering two outside-braced wood boxcars built into the back of a building at Belfast, ME, but still on track during the appraisal. No reporting marks, no paint, AB brakes, archbar trucks. Local MEC historian Steve Horsley (also an MEC book author) helped me identify the cars and document the history. Turned out they were two ex-Maine Central outside-braced WWI USRA-style boxcars, off the roster and never upgraded by MC because they were in tool service from 1935 and purchased by the B&ML in 1974. They were never in service or rostered by BML so they just dissapeared from records. One of the cars has now been spirited away to the Roundhouse Railroad Museum in Savannah for restoration and display. Finding a 1918-era boxcar in near-usable condition? Priceless.

Knowing this crew, that's probably minor league. What has happened to you?

Probably the "sunken lunchbox" complete with sandwiches and thermos found on the bottom of the oil pan in a newly delivered SD45-2 back in the 1970s. No I did not make any attempt to preserve it.

Actually there were some of more significant "finds" over the last four decades, but I thought you might enjoy the sunken lunchbox story.

The most significant discoveries involved people, not equipment.

PC

A tonic water cap in the main of a tank car (which, along with all the other junk in the filter, managed to successfully thwart a pumping maneuver). Guess we know what those boys at the refinery were up to!

That, and a redwood block carved to the shape of a bearing in the journal box of an ex-IRCA caboose...

Mine is when my boys (14 and 11) and I went looking for SR 385. (Sorry I don't call her MCC 385). Told this story before but the short version, told my boys about remembering her run at Newfoundland,NJ. We did some looking on the internet and couldn't really find anything. We found a pic of her in a trucking yard, Supor Trucking in Kearny, NJ. My oldest son went to Google Earth and found the yard and there for the world to see was 385 parked in the yard. We called the company and got permission to go see her. We got a hold of NC Transportation Museum and were working to get her there but Whippany Railroad Museum swooped in and got her first. But at least you can go see her now. And they painted her back to Southern Railway colors. Nice Job Whippany!

Not a discovery exactly, but in May 1989, finally given permission by the Chinese government to travel to Jijie, Yunnan Provence to ride the 60 CM gauge line to Geiju powered by Baldwin 0-10-0 steam locos. Just in time, as the line closed in 1991. And my first day there was the final day of operation for loco #23. #29 carried on for 2 more years.

The lost pulpcars of the Eagle Lake & West Branch Railroad would be my favorite find.

Heres the story:

During a fall work session we ran out of stuff to do until we could move the ballast into the site that winter. (no road access) To keep busy we begain brushing the line from Tramway to the trestle. One of the volunteers - Hap Mathews - was an elderly gentleman of advanced age who told absolutly the best stories. Every night back at camp we would rush through dinner so we could listen to his tales. He was a classic Maine story teller and we would always bunkdown with our sides hurting from the laughter.

Anyway, at somepoint one of the volunteers noticed that Hap was missing. When he didn't answer our calls we fanned-out searching for him. Several of the crew headed down the line and through the Big Cut just west of Tramway. Pushing through the thick brush and 70 plus years of tree growth that choked the western end of the Cut they were stunned to 15 decaying pulpcars sitting on two sidings that joined the mainline through a three-way stubswitch. This was in addition to the previously known (30) cars that sit rotting on the loading tracks at Tramway which brings the total car count to 45.

Further investigation revealed that the siding to the north which contained 5 cars was in fact a track used to access a shallow gravel pit.

Today, if you visit the famed 'Ghost' Locomotives of the Allagash be sure to walk up the line and into the Big Cut. You will soon see where we stopped clearing due to water. Over on the right side look for a path that leads to the top of the embankment. Follow it to the end of the cut and drop back onto the track. Then push through the brush along the line and shortly you will find the Lost Pulpcars.

Probably the last time these cars were seen was when the Forestry Service stopped using the line for fire patrol back in 1968. The current custodian - the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands had no idea the siding or the cars existed.

As for Hap.... he just had to go find a convienant tree and returned to wonder where everyone went!

Hi all,
Mine was back in the beginging of March of this year, I been tracing the old Colebrookdale branch of the Ex. Reading Company on the most northern part where the tack has been removed for some time. Located in Barto,PA. This was the end of the line when it was in service. but there had been talk of extending the line to the Perk Branch of the Reading , but has been said they never laid track, but I found information they were wrong in their writings. I traced the line to Baly,PA. where I found a battery box and old ties with plates still in tact. On the left leg of the Wye I found track still in place, that wasn't ripped out back in the early 1960's. Along with a MOW Work shack Three stall Brick engine house and a Scale houe, plus the cement cap of the round table pit. When I was looking in the woods between the left leg and the Right leg of the Wye I found the first engine house that was made of stone and wood.
I videoed the whole event, So enjoy.
Len.
Colebrookdale Branch Walking Tour March 18, 2009 Part One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xRNsazWhH4&feature=channel_page


Colebrookdale Branch Walking Tour March 24,2009 Part Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kifp4FqZk&feature=channel_page

This story happened just before I joined our museum back in 1991. One of our members was an over-the-road truck driver. Had a pickup in Jackson, Michigan. While he waited to be loaded, he wandered across the street to the old Michigan Central yard to look around. While walking though the waist high weeds, he came upon an old turntable. It looked in decent shape, so he went into the yard office and aasked about it. "Nope", he was told, "the turntable was removed some years ago." He insisted it was still there and practically had to drag someone over to see it. The folks in the yard told him that they obviously didn't need it, so he contacted Conrail and was told if the museum could remove it, the museum could have it. We did, and the turntable now sits on museum property awaiting a future re-installation.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

About 20 years ago, the Southern Michigan Railroad Society got a call. Apparently someone had been digging under the abandoned NYC Old Road (east of Adrian) and hit some odd timbers. We came out and excavated, and found to our surprise original wooden rails, with strap rail. Apparently when they came in with T-rail, they just laid it right on top. Makes us wonder if there isn't strap rail under the Clinton branch... except we think it was originally laid with T-rail.

I was part of the crew that dug up the front yard of Baltimore's President Street Station several years ago to uncover wooden rails with iron straps on the OUTSIDE surface of the rails. BOY that concrete-backed Belgian block was a rhymes-with-witch to break through.......

I still wonder what became, if anything, of that wooden passenger car sitting along with two or three trolleys along US 224 near Nova, Ohio (east of Willard in B&O turf)? Word was that it was a former P&LE dining car........ It had apparently been hidden by a barn for years before the barn collapsed, exposing the car....

Aside from that? Digging out the foundation of my hometown railroad's original one-stall enginehouse buried deep in the woods in a still-active wye..... finding the foundations for two bridges for a never-completed railroad elsewhere in my home county......

Sandy - I remember see these cars in about 1972-74 driving west with my parents. No photos, of course. Anyone out there with some details?

Closer to home, after years of trying to preserve some of Washington, DC's conduit relics, finding a section of rail complete with two conduit yokes preserved in concrete was a nice surprise. The concrete has since been removed and the artifact is now displayed in our "Conduit Hall" in the new visitors center.

Wesley

Finding our Denver Texas and Fort Worth car 45 in Cheyenne after moving here from the UK in 2007, and becoming the proud owner in 2008, saving it from demolition before we knew its amazing history with three roads, DT&FW, UPD&G, and C&S.
Now the city of Cheyenne is interested in displaying it eventually outside the depot.

http://mikepannell254.fotopic.net/c1599811.html



Mike

Our group is preserving the technology of the Carter Brothers… car builders in the San Francisco Bay area from 1874 to 1902…

They had three narrow gauge freight truck styles, 8 ton, 10 ton and 15 ton. We have two sets of 15 ton truck in our collection. There is a set of modified 8 ton trucks under a preserved locomotive tender. But the 10 ton trucks, the most common were unknown, believed to have all be scrapped. They had cars scattered across the west.

Story 1, Many years ago, in teh early 1970's a member, a historian was taking photos of surviving railroad artifacts in California's Owens Valley... feeling a call of nature he stepped into some bushes only to find a 1881 narrow gauge caboose/combine being used as a goat house on the other side... We now have that car, still un-restored in our collection.

Story 2, Some years ago we heard a rumor of a 10 ton flat car, with trucks, found along the line of an unknown logging railroad, 30 some miles from our site.

A trip confirmed that a car, with trucks, wrecked during a forest fire in 1901 had been found and had survived, abet in rough condition (car burned, metal castings and forgings surviving). We negotiated for access (they are loggers in an anti-logging community.) We signed pig hunting releases to gain access. The wrecked car, with trucks was found. Information from the car allowed us to recreate a set for a box car restoration. We also found a sample of original paint trapped behind a stake pocket strap.

Story 3, We regularly hear stories of cars left in the woods… By now these cars would have been abandoned as much as 85 years. I and a friend join a Forest Service Historian and a couple of local railroad historians for a hike… we climb up a scree slope to find the railroad right of way, walk along it for several miles, detouring around trestles abandoned in 1925, now collapsed, around a corner to find a complete 15 ton narrow gauge flat car, a second flat car body on logging trucks, and a pair of logging trucks, all left behind.

We are still working on that one… but I have laid hands on the cars, and can find them again.

Future stories… We have lots of stories of cars left behind… Logging trucks in the redwood belt, narrow gauge cabooses in the desert, passenger cars on ranches and backyards, some true, some fables, we hike, we explore, sometimes we find treasures. Then we restore what we find...

The best part of this story is that the car was retired by the railroad as "worn out" back in 1915! Initially, when it was obtained it was thought to be a sister car that had been retired in 1948.

One of my own stories has to do with a trip through Nevada following the old Carson & Colorado / Southern Pacific narrow gauge.

First a little background. The C&C back in 1881 bought some of the "high-tech" cars of the era. These were the LaMothe patent iron gas pipe framed cars (both flat cars and box cars). However, this was not a good idea; the cars would not hold up to service like the traditional wooden framed cars -- one of the local newspapers in 1882 noted that this was a complaint about the cars. The cars managed to remain in service though the SP purchase of the line in 1900 and some made it though the Tonopah boom era that swamped the line with business and caused many cars to be brought over from the SPC in California. A few lasted into the 'teens.

In Mina, Nevada, for a long time the body of one of these box cars was on the north edge of town across from the (now gone) Standard Oil bulk dealer. A fire damaged the body and with the tin siding burned away the pipe framing of the upper works could be seen.

Years ago, a friend and I were driving the line and stopped to look at the burned out body. Then we decided to cruise the old yard area and the remaining company housing. As we approached one of these my friend who was "riding shot gun" said, "You see what that is."

"No, what is it?"

"Back up." and I did so. There attached to one of the houses was another, almost intact body of one of these pipe frame box cars. We got out and walked around the abandoned structure, took photos and then continued on our way.

When we got up to Carson City we visited with the then curator/interpreter of the Nevada State RR Museum collection who had himself developed quite a knowledge about the C&C. We told me we had looked at the burned out car and then looked at the "other one in town."

"What other one!?" was the response. We explained where we had seen it, etc.

In time, the first one by the road was obtained by the Nevada State RR Museum and is still stored off-site in the Carson City area. The second one was in time gifted to the local county historical society which in turn transferred it to the NSRM. This car now rests deep inside the storage building at Carson City.