While looking into the NYS&W’s Utica area operation I came across this video from 1991 showing a flying switch maneauver to do a runaround, with only a single guy on the ground.  The setup for the flying switch starts at 5:10, the train is just coming back from working an industry in New Hartford, and sitting on the other track are a couple cars they had previously pulled from the New York Mills industrial track that comes off the straight leg of that switch.  I don’t know what if any grade is on that track.

I am looking for examples of how railroads dealt with Tunnel Cave in's during the 1950s, to answer a number of questions.

First question is, how long did it take to repair/rebuild the tunnel (or day-lighting it if that was practical, as was done on the Santa Fe RR, IIRC)

Second, in the 1950s, if it was a mainline for the railroad, and was the only line available, how did the railroad seek out alternate routes on other Railroads?  Would trackage rights on another RR's tracks be an option?

I am thinking of modeling a Class 3 railroad during the mid 40's-mid 50's, and I was wondering where they would get their motive power.  The railroad is set in Colorado (with a potential partner-railroad extending the network down to Arizona via trackage rights) and I was wondering where it would get it's equipment.  I know that later Class 3 railroads got their locomotives almost exclusively second-hand, but I want to model steam AND first generation diesel on this short-line railroad, and since the earliest first generation diesels (excluding early yard switchers of

I love history. History and Mechanical Engineering were my double majors in college. I was reading a book about covered hoppers and how thay have changed during their lives and I came across the mention and short history of Southern's " Big John " hoppers. Like any great internet search/trail of breadcrumbs that somehow leads you to looking at the set of slicin' n dicin' Ginsu knives, I soon was reading about how Southern's marketing plan got the ICC involved and then how that court case radically changed some facets of railroading in America.