This picture is from the archival photographs of the University of Montana. A Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul General Electric EP-2 ultimately wins a tug of war against two steam locomotives. I'm not sure of the trestle location, but I think it's part of the Milwaukee Road in northern Idaho, which is now the Hiawatha Bike Trail. This route includes 10 tunnels and 7 trestles.
Taken in Paris on part of Petite Ceinture an old passenger and former freight line circling Paris.
I also tried editing it for the first time a little bit in terms of lighting and exposure. not sure how good it is, but I did my best!
Looking out from one of the vaulted brick tunnels along Paris’s abandoned 19th-century circular railway.
Built between 1852 and 1869 to connect the city's main train stations, this 32km line was rendered obsolete by the Paris Métro and mostly abandoned by 1934. Today, it’s a hidden green corridor filled with decades of foliage, graffiti, and urban history.
Spotted while paddling the Clark Fork River, Montana, USA.
Both the NP/BN/BNSF and former Milwaukee Road grades sandwich the river here, between Bearmouth and Beavertail Hill.
This was nearer the BNSF side, so assuming the river helped to involuntarily "relocate" this part of the line. Crazy to see crossties and all still attached to these rusty rails.
Former railway line now a cycling/pedestrian walkway from Feugarolles to Moncrabeau. Closed to passenger traffic in 1940 and freight in 2000. Flat and straight 👍
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The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway (L&HR) right-of-way (ROW) that cuts directly through the Pequest Trout Hatchery grounds is a prominent, historical artifact of Northwestern New Jersey's rich railroading era.
Historical Background:
The line was originally chartered as the Pequest and Wallkill Railroad in the 1870s before merging to become part of the L&HR. The tracks through Warren County were constructed in 1886. It operated primarily as a highly efficient freight "bridge line," connecting the industrial Lehigh Valley region in Pennsylvania eastward to Maybrook, New York, where trains could cross the Hudson River to southern New England
A devastating fire on the Poughkeepsie Bridge in 1974 severed the railway's primary connection. Following the decline, the L&HR was absorbed into Conrail in 1976, and the tracks through the Pequest area were ultimately abandoned and ripped up in 1986.
Current status:
Today, because the line runs through protected state land within the 5,200-acre Pequest Wildlife Management Area, much of the old rail bed is preserved and used informally as a nature and hiking trail.
Anglers use the old flat grade to access prime trout-stocking spots along the river.
Though there are talks, Local initiatives, such as the proposed Lehigh & Hudson Rail Trail project, aim to formally link these scattered publicly owned segments into a continuous multi-use greenway extending from Belvidere up toward Great Meadows.
There is not much left here besides a few moss covered ties and some infrastructure like telegraph poles, signal boxes and a few miles posts that are left to decay back into nature. And even though a few spots are overgrown it is still an awesome area to go hike and to sit and just a picture what it was like to see freight trains rumbling through the wooded area that once was a hustle and bustle of a line.
Liverpool Road is the former Manchester terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway - it handled both goods and passengers.
Image 1 - facing West towards the Upper Campfield Market Hall, and the end of the goods yard. On the left of the image is the former ‘Great Western Warehouse’ (formerly ‘Main Building’, now 'New Warehouse', the main Science and Industry museum hall), on the right the 'Power Hall', built in 1856 to replace a smaller transhipment shed.
Image 2 - facing East towards the 1830 Passenger station and Warehouse, with the former being the oldest surviving purpose-built passenger station building in the world. The latter was the world's first railway goods warehouse.
Image 3 - Painting of the 1830 Warehouse and Liverpool Road Station looking East, by Alfred Peter Harris (credit National Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
Image 4 - 1884 London & North Western Railway plan of Liverpool Road Station showing the extent of the station site and railway lines the area (credit The National Archives)
If you ever find yourself in Manchester the museum is well worth a visit if only for the power hall. Entry is free and they run regular demonstrations of how a steam engine works (using a cut-away 1873 Isle of Man Pender locomotive) and one of the mill engines.
Sources: https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/introducing-liverpool-road-station
https://blog.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/new-warehouse-name/
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/manchester_liverpool_road/
https://thebeautyoftransport.com/2016/09/21/house-of-train-liverpool-road-station-manchester-uk/
Holt, Geoffrey O. (1978), A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain - Volume 10- The North West - ISBN 0-7153-7521-0
James, the lovely tour guide from the museum.
I show it in a video before, y study in a University which restored a turntable, even got a prize for it
The Somport Railway Tunnel is a historic railway tunnel linking France and Spain through the Pyrenees. Built in the early 20th century, it was opened in 1928 as part of the Pau–Canfranc railway line, providing a direct rail connection between the two countries. At approximately 7.9 kilometres long, it was one of the longest railway tunnels in Europe at the time. The international railway service was interrupted in 1970 after a train accident destroyed a bridge on the French side. Since then, the tunnel has remained closed to railway traffic, while the Canfranc station on the Spanish side has become an important historical and tourist site.
The Tulcea Oraș (Tulcea City, as opposed to Tulcea Mărfuri, the freight station) to Medgidia railway (secția feroviară 804, railway line section 804 in the Romanian CFR network) is a line connecting the capital of Tulcea county to the broader national railway network.
The terminus, Tulcea Oraș (see last picture) follows the award winning project of Irina Rosetti. It replaced the former station closer to the port, and was built in 1972 during the demolition of the entire old city under communism. It had a first class and a second class waiting room. Now there is only a ticket office and a relatively frugal waiting room.
The line is 144 km long, non electrified, and served by two pairs of trains a day (two in the morning, two in the afternoon). In previous years an InterRegio would connect Tulcea directly to Bucharest during summer and/or from Friday to Sunday. Not in 2026.
The line currently has 14 active stops. At least two are completely abandoned - there is no staff and the buildings are completely wrecked: Zebil (third picture) and Ceamurlia de Jos (formerly called Mocani: pictures 4, 5). Others have been repurposed into private homes (Mihail Kogălniceanu, picture 2).
Interesting rusty rail findings:
picture 2 - Mihail Kogălniceanu: black and white picture shot on film in 2020 (no filter, haha) still showing "Trăiască Partidul Comunist Român" ("Long live the Romanian Communist Party") under the station name. Very faded. I have a colour one somewhere but could not find it now.
picture 3 - Zebil: station completely covered by vegetation (taken today from the train)
Ceamurlia de Jos: building collapsed. Two pictures are from today.
Many other railway buildings, water tanks in particular.
Codru: no picture. The station is near Babadag and used to serve the still active NATO military base (CIA prison conspiracy theories!). The branch line cut through the Babadag forest and crossed the European road and it was paved over relatively recently.
Even when stations are still operational, usually only a small bit of the building is in use. A limit case of rusty rails, I suppose?
I started travelling on this line in 2015. Paradoxically, the situation was probably worse back then: the service was operated with a Malaxa railcar built in the 1940s (first picture taken by myself in 2017, at Mihail Kogălniceanu station). Now you get a newer Siemens (picture from 2020; I travelled on the line this morning, see penultimate picture).
There is also a video on YouTube (not mine) about the lost train stations of Dobrogea. It points to a few more that are now completely gone: Frunzănești and Derichioi.
Picture Legend:
The historical railway Bentheim - Coevorden( Netherlands) , running through Grafschaft( County) Bentheim, Niedersachsen ( Lower Saxony), Germany, is being reactivated since 4 years, last phase underway, for passenger transport.