Abandoned Railroads

There are quite a lot of abandoned railroad miles in this country when trains were nearly everywhere, connecting everything of importance. It’s not surprising considering train trackage fell from 250,000 miles 100 years ago to 140,000 today. That’s roughly 40% less track.

Over the last few decades, organized and interesting rails-to-trails have come to be in many places if you care to bike or hike along some of those abandoned railroad lines. They’ve been cleared and resurfaced, usually in fine gravel. In most other places, you can still walk along old railroad beds where trains once ran through the woods and fields, or trace the old lines on maps.

Although much of it has been scrapped, some of the railroad equipment from the last 100 years remains today if you know where to look. Much of it sits in organized museums of different quality, often without much funding or care.

There are railroad things sitting out in the middle nowhere too. I’ve enjoyed creating abandoned railroad pictures both ways, but this gallery consists of things found outside of operating museums, in the wild.

I’ve always enjoyed poking around old railroad history and hope you enjoy this old junk too. All the pictures are available as artist-made prints on gloss metal, canvas, and matted paper. There is free shipping to the US and Canada as well. ~Andy