If you modeled this, nobody would believe it.

[SkipGear]

http://tonka.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2031074

http://tonka.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2031101

I am assuming the green carpet is grain that has fallen off the cars taking root.

[SkipGear]

BTW - There is something for the Conrail fan's in the rest of the album the above pictures are posted in...

http://tonka.rrpicturearchives.net/archivethumbs.aspx?NumCols=2&View=1&id=38117&Page=18

[ednadolski]

Good one for the Grassinator....

[Ed Kapuscinski]

This is a funny thought, actually.

Now that I think about it, I tend to believe things that "look" intentional like that much more so than "I put an engine house here because it's my railroad" type things.

[SquirrelHollow]

The grass reminds me of a causeway over the lake I lived on in Washington.  They had major erosion problems, and had to make repairs almost weekly (including dredging the adjacent parts of the lake, to remove 'contaminants').

Their solution was heavily planting the entire causeway, including between the rails.

Current satellite images make it look like they've given up on the sediment collecting in the lake.  I have to wonder if it has to do with the change to creosote-free concrete ties...
http://maps.google.com/maps?num=20&hl=en&safe=off&q=lake+pattinson+lacey+washington&ie=UTF8&hq=lake+pattinson&hnear=Lacey,+WA&ll=46.996588,-122.783364&spn=0.004332,0.009645&t=h&z=17

The property to the east of the golf course (south of lake) is what a strawberry farm looks like from above.  All the other cultivated areas around there are sod farms (different varieties, of course)... If you've ever wondered...

[ljudice]

Not so hard to believe!

CP in the Rockies has a vacuum truck that sucks up grain behind grain trains so that animals don't end up being hit by following trains.

[up1950s]

Well I was totally surprised to see that growth . I would never model it though , unless I was trying to model that exact stretch of rails . Thanks for the bazaar shots . Odd that this isn't more of a common shot what with all the grain being shipped by rail .

[asarge]

If you model a grain elevator or feed mill, a great detail is spilled corn. Some might even make it to sprouting if the critters don;t get to it. It's not uncommon to see spilled corn around the feed mills down here. Most of the time, deer, racoons or something else will get to it before sprouting. Once, the Georgia Northeastern derailed a grain hopper on a siding in Holly Springs Georgia during deer season. They had to post a cop down there for a couple of nights to discourage the hunters.

I don't know that the green in rails down there is corn though.

[SkipGear]

From the discussion this was originally posted in.....the photographer said it is wheat. The NOKL hoppers that service this facility are old and leaky and the growth is the result.

[asarge]

that makes more sense Tony.

[DrifterNL]

Not as bad but... -> http://www.railroadforums.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/48339

[Bruce Bird]

Not so unbelievable.  With 2 large processors and 3 Class Is here in Decatur there are a couple of companies that have Vactor Trucks (the vaccuum trucks) that stay very busy cleaning leaking grain and meal out from between the rails.  The rats are big around here!  And when this stuff gets piled up deep and then rained on- it really starts to stink.

The other place that I've seen issues with stuff falling out of leaking hopper cars is near the taconite mills in the U.P. and northern Minnesota.  Unlike with with grain however, this problem can cause derailments.  Once the inside of the rails fills up with pellets the rail wheels will climb up and over the railhead and hit the ground.  Somewhere I have a slide of an LS&I maintenance crew with an electromagnet on a crance picking pellets up from between the rails and loading up a pair of hopper cars. 

Bruce

[Bruce Bird]

Here's an old LS&I shot from Railpictures.  Notice the material between the rails coming towards the photog and right in front of the 'honoray steam loco' there is a pile that looks to be near the top of the rail.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=307553&nseq=40

Bruce

[randgust]

The lightly-used line headed south of Harrisonburg, VA (where the diamond is) was completely grown up in a corn crop when I was down there about 1997.  I was inspecting track and you literally had to push the cornstalks around to walk it....  It's been cleaned up since.

Seems to me that on CP one of the issues with the leaking grain was that bears were feeding on it, and it was also fermenting.   So you're a track inspector or a signal maintainer, and encounter a drunken bear....

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/spring_2007/on_the_ground_grains,_trains_and_grizzly_bears.php

Scroll down on this one for a great shot of the problem....
http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=a&id=4716

[conrail98]

I saw quite a bit of this when I went railfanning NS's Harrisburg line last year. Here are some of the photos:




Remember, that's supposed to be a double track line so who knows how it got like that,

Phil