In The Beginning

This blog has one overarching goal: to teach archaeologists how to identify and interpret railroad infrastructure.

As an archaeologist, and a former rail, I have been appalled as of late by how my fellow archaeologists are recording structures and items related to railroading.  Modern (less than a year) Siemens-Safetran relay sheds are being recorded while the >80 year old General Railway Signal automatic block signals less than ten feet away are given short shrift.  Here in North Dakota, there is a trend of recording a single railroad crossing that within the course of three years, blooms to an unwieldy agglomeration of active/abandoned right-of-way, more crossings, bridges and a pair of culverts: all under the same SITS number and all scattered across active main lines, abandoned branch lines and even different railroads. 

Some states, such as North Dakota, have tried to alleviate this problem with the creation of contexts that give the average archaeologist (most of which are trained in all things non-railroad) some semblance of what they are trying to record.  Unfortunately, most of these contexts are simply regurgitated corporate histories of the railroads and, in the case of the North Dakota context, is of no value when it comes to identifying railroad-related features.  More importantly, it contains no guidance as to determining the age of railroad-related features, buildings and infrastructure.  This is how you have a site composed of a Siemens-Safetran relay shed lumped in with ten railroad crossings and a 100 yard section of a modern main line with CWR and concrete ties (all less than 10 years of age).  

Interspersed with the lessons, I will probably wax poetic on other (loosely related) topics.  In sum, I am a firm believer in disseminating information to the masses.  The information to properly gauge and assess railroads is out there.  Unfortunately, most archaeologists are unaware of its existence.  It has been suggested that I take up this cause and write a context directed to this problem.  I may do that down the road but in the meantime, this is a growing problem that needs to be addressed in the here and now.  

Coming up this week, Lesson 1: Railroad Crossings.

Me, Myself and I hard at work at the Black Hills Central Railroad (1995)