07/19/11 - Deconstruction Of Unused Railroad Tracks - Chaska, MN

For the past few weeks, crews have been slowly and methodically working their way eastward through Chaska, tearing up and removing an old set of railroad tracks that have been sitting, unused, for at least the past five years or so. To tell the truth, it's been so long I really can't remember when the last trains rumbled through town here, might be more like ten years, I'm not sure. The tracks wind up just a short distance from my house, at the American Crystal Sugar processing plant. That's the end of the line for the railroad here in Chaska and the rail deconstruction crews will reach the Sugar Factory in another week or so from the looks of the progress they've been making the past few days. Supposedly they're going to turn the entire stretch into a new walking trail, which would be nice - and logical - since that's what people have been using it for for the past few years anyway.

I decided, since it was still 94* at 8:00pm last night, to take an evening stroll, bring the camera and document the deconstruction process before they finish up and the tracks are just a memory...

This stretch of tracks is still intact...looking to the west. Here come the machines...

(All images via: NYCDreamin Archives)

In this shot you can see they have already come through and removed all the j-clamps, nuts, bolts and spikes from the steel plates that hold the rails down to the wooden ties...






This machine is used for lifting the old rails off the rail bed...


In this shot, looking at the same machine but facing east, you can see the rails just in front of the machine have been removed...


...looking back to the east again. The tracks have been pulled up...


...but all the bolts, clamps and other miscellaneous steel parts still litter the rail bed...




These nuts and bolts show signs of being welded to get them apart...






In this shot you can clearly see that the tracks had been in disuse for some time as the weeds have slowly encroached right up to the rail bed and have begun to take over...


...but the crappy little bridge that spans the crappy little creek that (sometimes) runs through this end of town seems to be holding up pretty well despite being neglected for the past few years...lets go across and see what this next machine is.


Aha! It's a giant electromagnet. I gotta get one of these things!


...made in Ohio.


This machine has a trailer attatched. Looks like they're using the magnet to pick up all the bolts and clamps and plates and then dropping it all into the old trailer here...


...leaving the rail bed clean of refuse.




One last machine parked just up the former tracks a bit with a big set of clamps on the front...


...used to pull the old wooden ties out of the rock bed...


...piling them off to the side to be picked up later.


Which leaves the rail bed looking like this...




And all that is left now are piles of wood and steel, waiting to be picked up and carted away...




...officially bringing to a close the era of freight-by-rail from Chaska, Minnesota.