Nostalgia & History > Preparing for coal: scenes from BN's WY coal line construction

I took all of these on July 19, 1979 .... this was a warm summer day spent in the barren area near Bill, WY where one of the largest new stretches of rail in a long time was being constructed. Hol Wagner put together this amazing 'tour' which consisted of just 3 guys with cameras and a BN guide.

These 12 shots are representative of the variety of activity occurring at the same time as as the line construction moved north.

Graded ROW and a couple bridges at different stages of construction ....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 05:03 by valmont.

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here come the ties ....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 05:10 by valmont.

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then the line starts to take shape ....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 05:10 by valmont.

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getting close to another stretch being completed ...

.... what's ahead for this line now?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 05:11 by valmont.

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Very nice! Who would have thought back then it would be multiple tracks years later. Thanks for sharing

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 05:29 by SNY1337.

Very cool series of shots. Also very rare indeed to get shots of "new" railroad construction in the latter part of the 20th Century. Loved it!

Very much liked these shots and you were or so fortunate to be able to get them. I'm totally jealous.

The track construction is interesting as apparently, track laying machines of today had yet to be
developed. A lot of hard labor involved in this track laying, although not as much as 100 years
earlier.

Thanks for posting.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Very nice shots. Where did all the trees go :-)?

Still an incredible amount of manual labor turning the ties "right side up" and spacing them correctly. I'll bet those guys were sore at the end of the day.

Dave

GBW309 Wrote:
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> Still an incredible amount of manual labor turning the ties "right side up" and spacing them correctly. I'll bet those guys were sore at the end of the day.

I was thinking the same thing. You would have thought things would have been a little more mechanized.

It's almost a lost art where guys can swing spike mauls like that and hit the spike every time. I know I probably would be able to hold a job like that for about five minutes.

I've seen some publicity photos that ATSF took when they were building the Abra - Skull Valley line relocation in AZ in 1962 and they were more mechanized than these guys.

DFWJIM Wrote:
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Where did all the trees go :-)?


Kinda reminds me of the Peter, Paul and Mary song 'Where have all the flowers gone?' from about 1961-1962 :-)

Imagine trying to sell this project to a board of directors and emphasizing that this would be a long term investment. Great set of images.

IC1038west Wrote:
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> Imagine trying to sell this project to a board of
> directors and emphasizing that this would be a
> long term investment. Great set of images.

It was a hard sell in 1970, especially with all the upgrades of lines fanning out of the Basin. Had to do some creative selling to ARCO to pay for the cars they would use in 1972

valmont Wrote:
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> DFWJIM Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> Where did all the trees go :-)?
>
>
> Kinda reminds me of the Peter, Paul and Mary song
> 'Where have all the flowers gone?' from about
> 1961-1962 :-)


Try Kingston Trio instead.

Nick Tharalson,
Mairon, IA

ntharalson Wrote:
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> Try Kingston Trio instead.
>
> Nick Tharalson,
> Mairon, IA


Nick: Tried them too! It was on their 'College Concert' album, but probably another one too

Awesome. It’d be cool to see some modern day pics n the same area next to these