(LVRR) Freeville revisited

["Bill K." <pontiac_@_dreamscape.com>]

I stopped by Freeville on the way home Sunday night.


The Southern Central down to Dryden is hikeable.  The EC&N is just about
undetectable, although a few ties with tie plates were left behind.  The
base to the water tower still stands, turned into a monument with the town's
name and year of incorporation added on.

Most of the buildings you can see in the background of the photos still
stand, and there are a couple of telephone poles left - including one that
was on the back corner of the frieght station.  Without that, I don't think
I could have figured out where it is.

One wood trestle on the SC, just north of Route 38, still stands, and one
wood trestle on the EC&N, towards Cortland, is still there - but all the ROW
on both sides was plowed back into the fields. all there is to tell where it
was is the bridge and a rise in the road.

Just north of the depot location there is a large apartment complex that
seems to encroach on or surround the ROW; I can still pick out the SC along
the side of it but the EC&N I couldn't really determine.   I'm going to see
if I can find some sattelite photos with a fairly close zoom to sort it out.



The one interesting thing is the freight station is not the only building
built in a funny shape because of the crossing.   There is a building just
south of the diamonds, today it houses a diner and what looks like a
junk/thrift store.   It's built in three segments, a center building with
two "wings" off the south side of it that form a very flat Y-shape.   One of
the pictures in the Model Railroader article, you can see part of the
structure.


I'd still like to find more photos of the area when the tracks were there -
again I don't need to see the building, but if someone chased a train and
took lots of photos (I can't imagine the speeds were very fast, it should
have been easy to get a ton of shots at crossings and the like), it might
help to sort out where the ROW belongs and if there are any new buildings
other than the one that's obvious to me.  I have a suspicion one house
across the ROW from the water tank base, has been added on to or maybe built
new, although the concrete porch foundation is very old.   There was a
runaround track on this leg of the X, may have been part of a second through
track at one time, and the way things look now it's awfully tight
clearance-wise for two tracks or even one.


Anyone know when that station was torn down?  Someone told me they were
there in the 1970s when there were still tracks, but no building.




Bill K.




- -- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.1/327 - Release Date: 4/28/2006

------------------------------

End of (LVRR-digest) V1 #561
****************************