What are these?

[seaclock22]

This is my first port to this forum. I'm glad this place exists even if it is a bit quiet.

I have been walking the rail trail in Yarmouth County a fair bit in the past several months and I've noticed these clusters of concrete posts in various locations by the railbed. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to their location though I'm sure there must be. Most of them are four posts arranged in a square with bolts or threaded rod sticking out of the top though one or two are solid blocks of concrete with bolts/rod sticking out of the top. Near the 340 in South Ohio (near the old spot office) there's a group of just two posts. They look like the base of some sort of signal installation but I used to take the Dayliner a fair bit in the 80s and I don't recall seeing any signals. So far I've found about ten of these things and there may be more under the overgrowth. Can someone identify them?

Chuck

[SamuelMClark]

Welcome to the forum, yes the forum has been quite over the past few years as most activities are now done on Facebook Group called dardpi.ca if you have Facebook you can find us there to join as well. A link to this post here has been shared over on Facebook to see other people might be able to answer your question.

It's possible they were bases for future signal but the DAR never used signals the only one that was on the DAR was in Windsor Junction and was used to be able to move onto the CN Line to go to Halifax.

[SamuelMClark]

Are those near where the old rail line would cross a road?

[jk_eaton]

Samuel is thinking what I'm thinking - these look like the bases for the metal boxes that contained the equipment for crossing lights. Especially in the later years of the line, more and more crossings got lights, to protect the Evangeline Dayliner from motorists who didn't see it coming. Are most or all of them within 100 m of a road?

[seaclock22]

I thought they might have something to do with crossing signals. Of the ones I've seen some are probably within 100 m and others seem to be nowhere near a road. I've been trying to record the locations when I find them. I wonder if they replaced or moved some over the years. Sometimes there are two fairly close together. And then there are crossings that did have lights but I don't see any of these posts. It may simply be the case that the grass and other vegetation have grown over them. I presume CP kept a record of all the electrical equipment on the line. That would be interesting to see.

[stem]

Yes, records would be awesome. Unfortunately, they are extremely hard to find for the D.A.R. Keep your eyes open as from time to time a batch of records kept by some individual pops up on eBay or Marketplace.

We have a small selection of records on the wiki most under corporate.
https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... :Corporate

Under Engineering then Track Charts you might be able to locate that signal. We don't know what some of the nomenclature means but if you can locate it on a tracks chart and it has some kind of nomenclature, we might be closer to understanding the track charts.

[seaclock22]

I went for a walk along a section of the trail yesterday and noticed that the "installations" in that section are fairly near roads that had crossing signals so they probably are connected with them. Well, the one closest to a road was about 240 metres which isn't really that close. I'm guessing that the stretches where there are a few close together had these boxes moved or replaced and they left the base in place. I seem to recall, though, that the crossing lights had boxes connected to them right at the crossing so I'm still not entirely certain. Why would signal controls be some distance down the track? Just to keep people from tampering with them?

Yes, records would be awesome. Unfortunately, they are extremely hard to find for the D.A.R. Keep your eyes open as from time to time a batch of records kept by some individual pops up on eBay or Marketplace.

We have a small selection of records on the wiki most under corporate.
https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... :Corporate

Under Engineering then Track Charts you might be able to locate that signal. We don't know what some of the nomenclature means but if you can locate it on a tracks chart and it has some kind of nomenclature, we might be closer to understanding the track charts.

I have looked quickly at some of them. I'm not sure exactly how to read them. So, are there no records of the construction of the railroads (I know the DAR was result of a merger) or are they just locked up in a CP archive or something?

[stem]

If you would share the location of a few of these foundations, maybe we could work this out. Pace out the distance from the crossing to the foundations and lets see if it matches up with track charts.

As far as the continuing subject of records go, railway engineering, which is very long term, tries to keep only the latest greatest versions. So for example, in 1930, after combining the information from various sources and drawings into consolidated drawings, what was the value (apart from historical) to an engineer of 1869 drawings of rail and structure that had already been in most cases replaced once or twice?

Private enterprises are very selective of which historical entities they will keep and thus, most of the original D.A.R, W&A.R. and W.C.R. engineering was mostly if not all disposed of in the period after C.P.R. took over and they created their own drawings based on the originals. To whit, I have never seen nor heard of anyone in possession of engineering documents from the original railways.

Some relevant C.P.R. documentation has surfaced such as the track drawings and another historical society is in the constant process of receiving and digitizing old C.P.R. engineering that was discarded. See them at CPTrack.ca and check out the library.

Perhaps Exporail has some of it? If they do I'm sure it will never see the light of day but you're free to search their fonds of anything they have received and decided to finally catalogue. http://collections.exporail.org/emfc/#b ... rratives.1

[seaclock22]

Here are some of the locations of the foundations. I don't have the ones closest to town but I think you'll get the picture. Even though they're not too close to the crossings they must be for the crossing signals since there were never any other signals on the line. If anyone sees similar objects in other counties I'd be interested to see pictures. I don't know how to post the link to Google Maps directly above each picture so I'll post all the maps and then the pictures in the same order.

South Ohio 1:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.9246 ... 246227!1m0

South Ohio 2:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.9183 ... 06!1m0!3e2

South Ohio 3:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.9134 ... 01!1m0!3e2

Brazil Lake (I'm pretty sure this is the last one in the county though there might be one more. There is another crossing that had lights not too far after this one -- you can see it on the map if you scroll -- but after that I'm pretty sure all the roads are gravel and the crossings just had signs):

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.9531 ... m2!4m1!3e2

Hebron 1:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.8813 ... m2!4m1!3e2

Hebron 2 (only 50 m from the first one):

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.8811 ... 49!1m0!3e2

[stem]

I only had a moment today to look at these but the Hebron foundation definitely correlate to objects on the track charts.

I look at this again in more detail this week.
The track chart is here:
https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... Hebron.jpg

[seaclock22]

Hmm, I thought this section on the map showed an area of the track past the first crossing of the 340. My reasons for thinking that are 1) the location of the siding corresponds to where I remember there being one back in the 70s, 2) there appears to be a trestle and an incline about where the current overpass over the 101 is today which makes me think the 101 followed the route of a natural "valley" in the topography, and 3) the two public roads seem to have the right orientation for how the 340 crosses the rail line. But I could easily be wrong. (The maps would be much easier for newbs like me to read if they didn't render the tracks as a straight line and reorient everything else around them.)

[stem]

That's the way the railroads liked it. Think of the track chart as a schematic rather than a realistic diagram. It straightens the track chart out so that each little scaled square across and down represents distance. Everything relative to the rail, not the other way around. Remember this was 1920 or so and as such, no Google maps, and no aerial photography to use for engineering planning.

The track charts on the wiki are reduced (1,900 × 1,500) to a reasonable size for brevity. If you'd like a high resolution version (3276 x 10200) I can let you have a specific chart you request.

Hebron and the majority or the others were received already cut and cropped. There was however one section that had not yet been cut and cropped so you can see there is more to the charts if we could only see it on the majority. Here's a good section that was not cut up:
https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... _River.jpg

[seaclock22]

The way the maps were made makes perfect sense. Perhaps I should have said the labelling makes it a little hard to pinpoint locations. But of course, in those days the roads weren't numbered the way they are now and it wasn't the railroad's aim to make their maps readable to outsiders.

We've strayed far from my original question but before we leave I will point out that chart for South Ohio (https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... 9_Ohio.jpg) confirms that there was a siding at the station there. While I was scouting the location of the signal placement in that area I noticed what looked like an overgrown right of way to the east of the trail and it seems that the map confirms it. It would be difficult, I think, to photograph it because of the trees but it seems clear that's what it was.

The Memo of 1969 states that there was a 1590 ft siding in Brazil Lake. There's no map of that area that I found but I've walked the trail in Brazil Lake and I can't figure out where it was. Could anyone pinpoint it on Google Maps?

[stem]

The track chart for Brazil Lake is there on the wiki. Have a look:
https://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title= ... l_Lake.jpg

[seaclock22]

Thank you for this! I couldn't find it. I'm definitely going to have to go looking for it soon. Hopefully there are some signs of it after all these years.