You've hit a nerve.

Benny,

What you describe is so true.  I can't tell you how many buildings and other potential modeling projects in my area are gone.  I had the good intention to snap a photo, or even take the time to measure and sketch, but didn't. 

A good example:  I've always had the desire to include a PFE icing station and ice house in what I've modeled, but did not consider that the prototype would completely go away.  Well, in Oxnard, where I work, there was a two track 12 carlength deck, with the Union Ice company next door to supply ice.  It's all gone.  The only record is a small photo in the excellent book, "Pacific Fruit Express."  They even have scale plans.  If not for that most excellent resource, I'd be relying on decades old memory.  So, with my research and active return to HO scale this last year or two, I now have taken photos of some of the remaining packing houses in Ventura County, and also now carry a digital camera and a tape measure in the car. 

Another note concerning photos and resources.  We have, in Ventura County, some excellent archives of photos and articles about the history of oil and agriculture, the two biggest industries here over the last 100 years.  But, the photos and information do not generally include the buildings and facilities serving the industries; the very things we are interested in modeling.  They were not high on the interest scale for the photographer.  They took photos of the farmers, the workers, the main streets, the signs on the front of the businesses, packing houses, and oil company offices.

So to reiterate Benny's admonition  "if you see something you know is a good scene or a good story, get the pictures as soon as you can, at the best level you can, becasue it's likely the next time you go by, it won't be there!"

Thanks, Benny, for bringing this up.

Been there done that!

During the 1990's, I used to drive past a propane gas dealer on my way to- and from work each day.  There was always a 65ft lp gas tank car sitting on the spur, which came several hundered feet from the main line.  One day I even had the privilege of seeing the CSX local swapping out an empty car for a loaded one.

Fast forward to 2005: I've moved to another location ~20 miles away, finishing construction on a garage layout.  I needed a few lineside industries, and I immediately thought of the propane dealer.  When I drove out there to snap some photos, the track had been removed - they were now getting all their incoming shipments by truck!

Get those pix while they are there to be gotten...

You can say that again

I have had a similar situation, I grew up in northern Wisconsin, at one time the county seat, Ashland WI, had Omaha, DSSA, CNW, NP(BN after the merger), and SOO line.With the mergers it dwindled to 3 SOO, CNW and NP/BN. When the iron ore from the upper penisula of Michigan dried up it was cut down to 1 the SOO, not only that but the lines to the west, that ran to Duluth/Superior got pulled up. WC made a lot of money hauling freight out of town, but now with CN in charge the town is doing it's best to flatten anything left of it's railroad history. The paper mill closed, and was torn down last year, they have dismantled the approach to the one surviving ore dock (CNW dismantled theirs in the 60's) they probably would have demo'd the dock if it wasn't made of reinforced concrete, no salvage value, and a hell of a lot of work to do. The CNW coaling station is still there as well, reinforced concrete, standing in the middle of a field, that used to be the CNW ore yard.  The last of the 5 roundhouse's was just  leveled as well, a truck company was using it for a garage (the old Omaha road one) I fortunately have a couple of pictures of everything, and I put together a composit arial map of the towns on the line a couple of years ago. So I should have enough info, but what I would give to have more shots of most of the industries along the line.

  Fortunately there are still a few railroady buildings, the old SOO station was recently restored by public donation after a major fire, and the restoration archtitech posted the elevations in scale on the internet < Big Grin> , the former NP/SOO joint freight house is still there and is a dead ringer for the C. C. Crow NP brick freight station, one less to scratch build..

   But repeating the sentiments of the previous posters, don't just take pictures of the neat trains, take a couple of the area aroun the trains, there's no telling how long they're still going to be around.

Interesting

Youtalk about getting photos of stuff while you can. But what if you saw stuff that was interesting in your youth and never thought you might one day want to have photos of it?

Back in the early 1960s in lived on Hooper Street in the Williamsburg section of Brookly and took the Metropolitan Avenue (B-53 back then and now the Q-54) to school in Kew Gardens in Queens. The bus route ran along Grand Street from Bridge Plaza until the road crossed Metropolitan Avenue and it then ran along Metropolitan Avenue until the line terminated at 170th Street in Queens.

Now here is what made that bus trip interesting to pre-teen who was attracted to trains. The road actually crossed track near what is now Flushing Avenue. Today this line is run by the MTA but back then the track was much, much busier than it is today. Back then traffic was stopped for long trains that made the rounds of the factories and warehouses located in the buildings alongside Metropolitan Avenue that ran from the drawbridge that crossed a creek that featured various barge operations carrying coal, petroleum and other products to various locations in the area. In addition to these distractions (I was supposed to be doing homework on the bus ) the area was the home of the Bohack Supermarket chain. And every morning the traffic would e stopped while the tractors storred in a garage on Flushing Avenue made their way to the trailers they would be taking to various stores in the New York Metropolitan area which were located in another garage loctaed on Metropolitan Avenue. It was entourage that could easily block traffic for a half hour if I remember correctly. (OK maybe it wasn't that long but it did seem longer.)

The train probably had something to do with operations of the New York Connecting Railroad but I haven't been able to determne exactly how much. The line is hardly used these days and it certainly doesn't look busy. In the old days they had the crossing guarded by a shack and a person whose job it was to close the road while trains passed, but that shack, the crossing arms and everything else that had anything to do with preventing automobiles and trucks from trying to share the same exact location with a locomotive or the cars it was pulling is now gone. Interestingly enough, a few years ago a switcher somehow got loose and ran over a car driven by a woman who was abdly injured. It made the news but nothing has been done other than to make sure diesel switchers don't get away from their drivers while the drivers are doing something else.

I just wish I had the idea that I might want to model this line some 50 years later. I guess that is one of the drawbacks of trying to recapture some part of one's youth.

Irv

A funny anecdote... The SP

A funny anecdote...

The SP pulled most if not all of the switches out of the Tucson industrial park a decade or more back. 

Now when they did it, they started pulling up the switches starting withthe Northernmost switch...n then proceded to the next...and pulled it up...and then the next...and the next...now if someone could pull up the map of Tucson you'll start laughing.

Cause you see, the crew didn't realize until they got to the very last switch that they only way back to the yard was...right up the route they had just removed all the switches on...

In order to get the work train home, they had to respike each switch...that they had just pulled up!

There's a lot of evidence left over, but it's fading fast.

I grew up on the east coast,

I grew up on the east coast, 6 years in upstate NY.

I remember once driving (well, being 5, I was a passenger) north from Corning toward Watkins Glen.  At night there was a railroad facility to the east... busy and lit. 

Years  later I went to visit old friends still in town, and we fished near that facility.  We explored and found the foundation to a roundhouse.   Nearby was an interchange... PC to EL.

Google earth barely shows any of that now... the railroad was relocated after the Hurricane Agnes floods of c.1972.  That was the flood that bankrupted the PC, EL, RDG, etc.  

I agree... if you see it now and are interested, Document it NOW...    Collect old maps, photos, etc., and expect all to change.  

more NYC railroading

Irv-

I remember visiting my uncle on FreshPond road... where the LIRR had elevated tracks.  As I recall, traffic was daily, not much, but often.  Later I traced those tracks back to Glendale (parallel to Cooper Av).  But it was lightly used when at all...

I went to College in Brooklyn... but got there just after the demise of the Myrtle Av El... the structure lasted another 8-10 years... but the wooden cars ceased before I got to experience them.

I have a few dozen photos of the West Side Highway- the elevated one - before it went down... and photographed the neighborhood of the west side freight line.  Also not in use.

Regards-

Peter

I traveled a lot in my younger years

I traveled alot in my younger years. I hev some photos that my parents took but none of them show any trains. My first big trip was in August 1949 when I was 10 months old and that trip involved crossing the Atlantic from Germany to Boston aboard the then Army transport General Haan. That ship later became a container ship and was scraped in the 1980s. I didn't live in Boston as we came to NYC for the first time shortly after arrival. We then moved to Macon, Georgia (by train) and lived there until 1956 when I took my third train trip back to NYC. No photos unfortunately but I do have memories inlcuding my first sight of a Pennsy GG-1.

I do remember Fresh Pond Road. And I remember the Myrtle Ave line though I never road on it either. But my favorite train watching spot was the view I got from the main building of York College which overlooks the Long Island RailRoad tracks in Jamaica, New York in the mid to late 1980s. I remember watching push-pull passenger operations on passenger trains with an od PA-1 used as a control cab on one end and a GP-38 that provided the power on the other end. Those have since been replaced by newer stuff.

I often toy with the idea of going out and seeing the tracks that are left and still used but it isn't any fun doing it alone. Oh well.

Irv

That might be possible, still!

Irv-

If you don't mind, where are you living? (zip code for nw)

I'm in 07922 - and need to get to the nearby DL&W station before the roof renewal is finished!  Lot's of construction detail available when they do a tear-off!

-Peter

Ill add another...

Growing up in Utica, NY, I remember watching trains as early as 3 years old. We lived very close to the West Shore where it cut its way up through the middle of the city. I remember my dad taking me down to watch the Broad Street switcher do its work amoung countless industries and sidings. I even remember the conductor asking my dad if it was ok for me to come on the caboose and go for a ride. What a thrill that was, waving to all the people that were waiting for us to pass. That moment sparked my interest in a railroad career and I knew thats what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to be that conductor on the Broad Street switcher.

How said (unfair) it was for me to learn that only a few  years later, it would all be gone. Who would have thought that the railroad would "go away"? If I only had a camera (sound familiar?) to capture the time and the scenes and the face of that wonderful conductor who made my day. There is still evidence of that time as you can still see some of the structures along the route and rail imbedded in the pavement of some parking lots. The line was torn out sometime in the early 70's. The only thing I have is the memories...no pictures. When I try to tell my kids about the railroad, it's very hard for them to imagine what it was without the pictures to tell the story. My son, 6 years old, even asked me..."Dad, why didn't you just take a picture with your cell phone?" Ahhhh, youth.

Lesson learned. When I finally went to work for the railroad, I carried a camera in my bag to captured pictures of the people I worked with, places I've been and certain locomotives assigned to me. I don't ever want to say "if only..." again.

I can't stress that point enough. If you have something that's special to you, take a picture of it. Nothing lasts forever...well, except for paying taxes in New York..but that's another story.

Where do I live?

My zip code is 11365 whicx is obviously not near you.

Irv