UP Railyard Being Torn Up

[TheNiche]

I stopped off at the General Supply junk yard (which was closed on Sundays) this morning and walked around their fenceline looking for anything of interest. What I came across was a two-man operation ripping up most of the rail yard that backs up to the Buffalo Bayou and is connected to the main tracks by a line that crosses Navigation and runs down Commerce street a little ways.

I spoke with the guy in charge, and he said that four tracks would remain, including one for a rail-served warehouse next door. UP had no intention of divesting the land at any point in the forseeable future. They aren't even all that interested in the sale of the scrap, but when I asked whether I could have any of the more interesting peices, the answer was a solid NO. Evidently, the railroad industry is heavily regulated and needs to account for almost all of their metal when tracks are ripped out.

Also of interest was that the government taxes railroads by the amount of trackage they have and requires that they maintain it to a high level of quality constantly, even if it is not being heavily utilized. So there is an incentive to invest in the destruction of marginal industrial capital sooner than later.

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On a side note, as I was walking away, the lead man on the job got in his bobcat and dragged a rail off the ties and over to the side. It was amazingly flexible and snaked off the ties like a wet noodle. He let it down but as he was changing the position of the bobcat, the little grappling device hit the steel noodle (btw, Steel Noodle would be a good name for a band...or something) and it produced this very pure lower-pitch tone for a split second that sounded like a laser pulse from a grade B sci-fi flick. It did not sound like metal-on-metal sound 'clang' or 'ching', did not have a lasting ring to it, and was just...interesting.

[dbigtex56]

it produced this very pure lower-pitch tone for a split second that sounded like a laser pulse from a grade B sci-fi flick. It did not sound like metal-on-metal sound 'clang' or 'ching', did not have a lasting ring to it, and was just...interesting.

Very observant! Even grade A sci-fi flicks use 'found sounds':

Sound Design of Star Wars

Laser Blasts The sound of a hammer on an antenna tower guy wire.

[Vertigo58]

I stopped off at the General Supply junk yard (which was closed on Sundays) this morning and walked around their fenceline looking for anything of interest.

If this area is where I think it is you may not get many responses on this thread. Its another part of Houston that has been forgotten, but we could see some new interest soon. I was at the end of Navigation @ Jensen to attend mass (at Guadalupe Church out of nostalgia and pure curiousity) to see how much has changed. I recall nothing but smelly old factories behind the church and old shotguns houses that was in the late 1960's. Anyway I'll leave it at that.