Steam & Excursion > The Age Of Steam Also Was Filled With The Use Of Plenty Of Wood!

While we often concentrate on the motive power difference between the days of steam and modern times, there are many more differences that just that.  One huge difference is the amount of wood that was used when steam was in charge of the country's trains. We see in this simple photo and example of just that.

While the motive power for this short train on the California - Western's 10-mile Branch is definitely steam, the train and the roadbed are made up of mostly wood.  The 2 aging passenger cars are constructed of wood rather than the more modern steel we have today.  Also, the railroad engineers that laid out this line thought nothing of spanning this entire portion of the beach north of Ft. Bragg, California with a wooden trestle.

Modern railroading would never dream of relying on wood for the entire train's construction or that much of the right-of-way's construction.  But, don't forget, wood served this nations railroads well for many decades during the age of steam power.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/16 03:34 by LoggerHogger.

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Awesome, Martin...as my wooden boat-building buddy says about wood: "Miracle Fiber W...it does everything!"

Thanks for another neat posting.

-Tom