The (Rail) Road Less Traveled
Bill Thomas writes an article for the Washington Post today about an unusual hobby that he and A. L. Freed have been practicing for the last decade or so. That would be following old railroad right of ways in their travels. They have done this all across the country, the most recent outing in Texas.
My friend A.L. Freed is behind the wheel. I've been speaking at his public policy seminars since the early 1990s, and for the past decade have navigated our occasional out-of-town business trips, although "business" may be the wrong word, because the trips themselves are purely for fun, an excuse to forget about work for a few days and hit the road. On the first one, we drove a Land Rover from Omaha through the Sand Hills of northern Nebraska to a seminar in Denver, following railroad tracks the whole time. After that, whenever a program is scheduled outside of Washington, we fly part of the way then drive the rest along whatever train tracks we can find, some of which haven't seen a train in years.
Normally the shortest distance between two points would be a straight line, but dotted lines are what we always look for. On railroad maps, dotted lines indicate abandoned tracks, often just mounds of overgrown dirt where tracks used to be, and those can lead to some fairly incredible places.
A.L. and I had been talking about the Texas trip for weeks. Our ultimate destination is a Capitol Hill workshop for government scientists in Las Cruces, N.M., roughly a five-hour plane trip from Washington. But getting there in a hurry — or even knowing how to get there — isn't the idea.
IT'S EARLY FEBRUARY, and we're tooling along Fort Worth & Western tracks going to Brownwood, Tex., 150 miles southwest of Dallas. A.L., a former pro on the North American rally circuit, likes to drive, which is fine with me. In 10 years of traveling together, he's compiled an impressive record: no wrecks; only one speeding ticket; and we've never been stuck in the mud. After a recent trip through the Mississippi Delta, fishtailing over rain-soaked farm roads, we returned our car caked with dirt and debris.
"Where've you all been with this?" asked the rental agent.
"A White House seminar," A.L. said.
Many of the old right of ways have disappeared in recent years, some turned into bike trails, some used for other purposes. But Thomas and Freed have found enough still there to travel some unusual paths to places few people go these days.
By Sam, Saturday, 26 April , 2008 @ 9:25 am
Fascinating hobby. With the recent increases in fuel prices there has been a corresponding increase in interest in rail travel. The subject seems to pop up every time gasoline prices spike and the cost of driving and flying do too. It makes me wonder if some of those old abandoned railroad right of ways might become unabandoned. Here in the Salt Lake Valley, the Utah Transit Authority purchased railroad right of way from Union Pacific and has used it to construct the light rail system. A commuter rail system was also constructed on the right of way and begins service today from Salt Lake to Ogden. In the future, both the commuter and light rail will be extended to additional areas, primarily using abandoned or rarely used rail ROW. Obviously these gents are following the right of ways across rural land, not built up cities, but I wonder if some of those lines may eventually be revived should peak oil prove to be the case. Thanks for the posting Gaius.
By plantlady, Saturday, 26 April , 2008 @ 10:22 am
When I visit my brother in Missouri, I like to travel the few remaining stretches of the old Route 66. You don’t get the same sense of history when you drive the sterile expressway that was built parallel.
By Bleepless, Saturday, 26 April , 2008 @ 12:04 pm
Lovely. Good for them.