Train tracks and Trout streams

[Lkyboots]

Watching the special on Shaver's Fork got me thinking about Rail Road tracks and Trout streams. I started Trout fishing at the a very young age of ten. When most of my buddies were playing baseball I was a Trout fishing.

Every stream I could walk to had a RR track running by it. Cool spring creek had 4 old tresses and a old bed you could walk. Neshannock creek had a active Train running along most of the stream. I'd walk miles on those rails to get to my fishing spots. Most of the old beds are still there minus the rails. Any of you have any favorite streams with Train tracks running beside them.

 

[Dave_W]

It's no surprise as the tracks were built along waterway passages through hilly or mountainous terrain (to state the obvious).

The same effect exists along many or our larger rivers as well. Those of us who fish the lower Juniata River are well used to the sound of trains.

I often think of Letort. Its train tracks were purchased for conversion to a rail trail in the late 1970s and is a harbinger of a continuing and positive trend of making such conversions.

 

[Swattie87]

Many streams I fish still have active rail beds along them, yes. Many too have abandoned lines but the tracks are still there.

Many more still long ago had narrow gauge tracks along them. It seems almost every hollow in NC PA had these at one point running along them. Many of these are now hiking trails, or in many areas nature has reclaimed them even further and they’re just intermittent straightaways with no large trees otherwise in the woods. One such area I came across from a recent outing below.

Good stuff.

 

[Baron]

There is an active line and a siding yard along the Martins Creek that affords access to non posted property further up the tracks.
I saw the last train leave the Bushkill Creek when I was assistant super of grounds ad Lafayette in 93+/-. I miss seeing them go thought a 5mph with only a few cars going down to Crayola. It is a preserved walking trail now from Easton to Tatamy.
I've really enjoyed the upper 4 miles of the Walnutport canal. I've seen 30-40 turtles in one day along there. A study I found on the Net identified the species and their age. Many of the species can potentially become 145 years old. That means a good few may have seen the canal boats pull through. 1932 was about it for canalboat travel.

 

[Prospector]

As a kid I also spent tons of time on tracks at Neshannock Creek and to a much lesser extent on Cool Spring. As an adult I have definitely walked far more miles of RR tracks on Oil Creek over any other stream.

 

[Clams]

^^^^ My son having some fun on our trip to the Lehigh a few weeks ago.

 

[wildtrout2]

These tracks lead to heaven on earth.

 

[dryflyguy]

All of my favorite streams have - or had - RR's run along them:

The Delaware, Clarion, and Little Juniata, and Youghiogheny rivers all have active lines
Big Pine and Penns had RR's in the past, that have now been turned into nice trails that provide easy access.

Spring creek has a short active line along it's lower section.

Trains and good trout fishing have always seemed to go hand-in-hand for me

 

[lycoflyfisher]

There is some very neat rail road history in our state, and given the logging, mining and industrial history you may have to try harder to find a stream without some remnant of a rail line, narrow grade or logging road along it than ones that do. Unfortunately these are often a significant cause of degradation to our waterways as they can prevent flood plain access and/ or are sources of sediment.

My great grandfather used to inspect the rail line that ran north out of Williamsport along Lycoming Creek and ran up to Elmira in NY this would have been in the very early 1900s. Wish I could have asked him more about the fishing back then!

 

[allthingsfishing]

Pretty interesting read from the Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps-1828-to-1900/articles-and-essays/history-of-railroads-and-maps/the-beginnings-of-american-railroads-and-mapping/

 

[troutbert]

lycoflyfisher wrote:
There is some very neat rail road history in our state, and given the logging, mining and industrial history you may have to try harder to find a stream without some remnant of a rail line, narrow grade or logging road along it than ones that do. Unfortunately these are often a significant cause of degradation to our waterways as they can prevent flood plain access and/ or are sources of sediment.

My great grandfather used to inspect the rail line that ran north out of Williamsport along Lycoming Creek and ran up to Elmira in NY this would have been in the very early 1900s. Wish I could have asked him more about the fishing back then!

There's a book about fishing Lycoming Creek in the early days.

Bodines: Or, Camping On The Lycoming by Thaddeus up de Graff. 1886.

He took the train down from Elmira NY and camped along Lycoming Creek and fished that and Pleasant Stream. And one story is about going over and fishing the Loyalsock.

The library in Williamsport probably has the book.

There was a nice hardbound reprint done around 1993.

 

[troutbert]

I remember when there was still an active trail line along Pine Creek, and remember seeing them remove the tracks.

Regarding the narrow gauge logging railroad tracks, as others have said, you can see them along most of the mountain streams in the forested areas of PA.

The ones that are in the floodplains often do severe damage to the streams, and should be removed. The ones that are up on the hillslopes above the floodplains really don't hurt much.

 

[coyoterahn]

I’m not sure but if I remember correctly, Stony Creek in central Pa, at Dauphin had a narrow guage RR that ran up through Stony Creek valley on the side opposite of the game lands road. My grandfather had a sawmill somewhere in that valley sometime between maybe 1930’s and 1940. I seem to remember my uncle telling me about that years ago.
Does anyone know if that’s correct?

 

[Swattie87]

There a ton of old RR grades in Stony Valley in Dauphin and Lebanon Co’s. I thought (but may be wrong), that the main one on the valley floor (that is now the rail trail) was a full size track, as were some of the side branches up the ridges. I’m sure there’s some narrow gauge grades too.

 

[larkmark]

I was fishing the Upper Delaware one time and it was particularly busy with boats and fishermen. A train came by and it was pulling a whole circus. My friend said " what a circus" and I said " yep sure is".

 

[GeneBeam]

There a ton of old RR grades in Stony Valley in Dauphin and Lebanon Co’s. I thought (but may be wrong), that the main one on the valley floor (that is now the rail trail) was a full size track, as were some of the side branches up the ridges. I’m sure there’s some narrow gauge grades too.

Brief History of the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad

http://www.stonyvalley.com/history.html

There were two companies called Dauphin & Susquehanna Coal Co Railroad and Dauphin & Susquehanna Co unknown if they were the same company. I'm not sure but I thing is was a standard gage RR.

 

[laszlo]

Sunday, I fished "the run" on Yellow Breeches for about 1.5 hours and I bet 4 trains went by.

 

[salmonoid]

Old railroad grades are all over the state. Since streams and rivers had already cut their way through mountains, forming gaps, or where they had been incised into a plateau, valleys were a logical place to put tracks for trains. In some places, where the tracks have been long gone, you can still see where the railroad ties were, based on how they rotted out. There are many old railroad cuts in the woods; sometimes you'll be walking along and it will dawn on you that you've found the remnant of an old logging railroad grade/cut, although the woods are trying to reclaim it. I know of one place where there is still an old railroad rail exposed at the bottom of a little hollow that feeds into a creek. On the Old Loggers Path trail, if you're hiking clockwise, about half of the stretch between Ellenton Ridge Road and the ghost town of Masten is on an old grade. Right before the trail reaches Pleasant Stream, there are obvious railroad cuts and at one point, the trail contours upstream on a small stream, to cross it, moving off the old railroad grade, before rejoining it on the other side. The grade continues into space over the stream, where an obvious trestle must have been many years ago. Browse the PA LIDAR data and you'll readily be able to pick out old roads and railroad grades.

The logging railroad era of lumbering in Pennsylvania : a history of the lumber, chemical wood, and tanning companies which used railroads in Pennsylvania is a 13 volume set (plus index and addenda) that covers much of the use of trains in the timber industry across the state. Some of the maps identify grades that are in the middle of nowhere now and I can positively identify I've walked on them. Other maps show, for instance, an old switchback, and I've walked right over the location described and could never have told you that a switchback was there.

 

[coyoterahn]

Swattie/Gene Beam,
Thanks for that info......interesting

 

[coyoterahn]

Salmanoid,
Was just in that area near Masden this past Saturday. I am familiar with the RR that ran through there. Wanted to get to Masden but the roads are too icy.
Speaking of the Old Loggers Path, where it crosses Camels road, about 5 miles from there is a trail called Browns trail. I believe also there was a narrow gauge RR off of Browns a good ways down in the hollow. I once found a RR spike on an old trail that goes along that hollow.
As you said, there are many old RR grades in those mountains.