Track work at Canandaigua

[rhoward]

The Finger Lakes Railway, a short line that was formed to give railroad service to shippers here in Central NY has only had one derailment since it was formed almost 10 years ago. One of there locos split the track in Canandaigua a while back and although there was no damage to the loco or injuries (top speed in the area was about 1 mile per hour) this spring they are replacing ties and reballasting the track. I passed by on my way to my sister's house a few days ago and wanted to get a photo of the work to bust on Spacemouse. Ended up getting several photos I thought you all might be interested in.

The first one is of ballasting just outside of Canandaigua. (See mouse it is prototype to have ballast all over the place.......) The next ones are taken in front of what remains of the F. W. Lisk enamelware plant in Canandaigua, NY. Several of the ballast cars were gotten from Conrail and have only been modestly painted with the FGLK reporting marks and car#. More to come.....

 

[rhoward]

You can easily see why the derailment occurred given the soundness of the ties that have been removed. The Lisk plant had a rocky lifetime here but was for most of its years the largest employer in the area. They made some of the world's finest quality cookware in the buildings behind those cars. The plant closed in the 1960's and is now used principally for storage. I will be loosely modeling these buildings on my layout. BTW, I was not on the RoW while taking any of these photos. The Finger Lakes hiking trail parallels the tracks and is on part of what used to be the interchange between the NYC and the Northern Central of the PRR as well as several tracks used for the foundry.