Awesome Railroad finds!

[Wildcat wrangler]

Look buddy, are you trying to be difficult? That is calcium deposits stuck to the bottle. Unless I tumble it, it ain't coming off.

I have taken a nail buffer sanding block for acrylic nails to bottles like this and have had great results- you can control the crusty look and even the irridecense and shine. Also I have been told to use muradic acid and that will remove the deposits and etching. I had already tried the acid without show-stopping results but maybe my mix was off. But that bottle, if I had it, would get cleaned up with a nail buffer- they come in different grits.I like the way it gives me some control over the rainbow look of the patina, and I can remove the gunk I don’t want. I mean if you don’t have a tumbler!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Wildcat wrangler]

Searching along an abandoned and overgrown railroad line that operated from the 1870's sounds like a dream day to me! Virtually nothing like that out here in western WA where the majority of our rail lines date 1890's or later.

Two advantages to western Washington woods though: no venomous snakes, and I have never picked up a single tick in wading through our underbrush. Some Salal stands (https://green2.kingcounty.gov/gonative/Plant.aspx?Act=view&PlantID=33) can actually grow over head height despite what plant guides say; and it can be mightily frustrating to tunnel one's way through such jungles. In such encounters it is nice to not be also encumbered by thoughts what what might be slithering around one's feet or latching onto one's clothing!

If you find cuts and fills along the way, be sure to check the fill embankments for items discarded by the original workers as well as toss out the windows by train crew and passengers. A potato rake or small cultivator, even a pitchfork, is a good tool for raking and probing through the forest detritus. What would be really great is to encounter the crunchy feel and sound of crumbling tin cans with a trace of solder sealing a small hole in the center of the lid, a great indicator that you've located a vintage dumpsite. Ravines and gullie, as well as creek banks, were always popular disposal terrain.

Hope you find more so we can all enjoy the adventure vicariously!

Now see whatcha did, here…. You have me thinking about walking the rails, here- it’s flat freakin hot here, always in the summer, but this is worse-Redding heat on Steroids! Thinking the lake that’s now a creek would be a good call. Even that’s too far down for crystal hunting or rock climbing-Plus we do have a lot of the snakes with the noisy tails, with a huge spider on every rock, is what I saw, Sunday. I got over the fear of snakes, as much time as I spend climbing out there- I just watch everything so close because 1 wrong move and it’s 129’ of a Very bad fall, straight down with occasional giant boulders, before you hit the lake! But those big
a$$ed spiders? Those freak me, for real! I think maybe we have the same trax running thru here and up the coast, pretty much, to Alaska. But to me, I would be really happy finding 1890’ trash, too!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Screwtop]

What an attitude.
Your mom must be very proud... sonny.

My mother is a 5'2 alcoholic, yeah I got an attitude, what do you want from me?

 

[SMJB]

Still looks like mud...
and you don't know me - I'm not your "buddy".

Screwtop said he cleaned the bottle. Why are you being difficult?

 

[Bohdan]

Just said it looked like mud.
It still looks like mud.
Others agreed.
Why are you being judgmental?

 

[nhpharm]

Just said it looked like mud.
It still looks like mud.
Others agreed.
Why are you being judgmental?

Bohdan, I've seen a number of comments from you that in my personal opinion come across as unnecessarily abrasive or rude in response to people's posts. Since most of our interactions here are through the computer, it's easy to jump to conclusions. Nonetheless, this forum will die without posts from members, be those posts good, bad, or ugly and it seems like responses that belittle people's posts are probably not necessary in the furtherance of a post. Most of the bottles I find are etched very similar to the one that was posted and nothing short of a tumble will "clean" it.

 

[Bohdan]

Just said it looked like mud.
It still looks like mud.
Others agreed.
Why are you being judgmental?

 

[Screwtop]

Just said it looked like mud.
It still looks like mud.
Others agreed.
Why are you being judgmental?

What others???

 

[SMJB]

What others???

The guy's a troll. Forget him.

 

[zsmith333]

View attachment 227161

Today I hunted for several hours along an old abandoned railroad line in Kentucky. This particular stretch of railroad was in use from the 1870s, through the 1940s when coal stopped coming out of that particular area. As I was walking along the overgrown mess that is the area now, I was picking up plenty of 1930s Hemingray insulators, but these three were the ones that took the cake.


View attachment 227162

I don't know anything about CD numbers, or how old they are, but they are not from the 1930s! The one on the left is marked Hemingray Pat. May 2nd 1893, with all drip points intact, the aqua Brookfield Beehive (I've always wanted one!) is marked Brookfield / New York, and the other one is marked W. Brookfield / New York.

I was finding a mix of household and telephone line insulators as well, but they were broken.


View attachment 227163


The beer bottle is a West Virginia Brewing Co. bottle from Huntington W.Va, a nearby town. The druggist bottle came from Cincinnati. Weird how that ended up all the way out here! The beer bottle is a BIM, So 1900-1905 era. The druggist is from the 1890s.

Beautiful finds. What camera did you use? Photo nerd here


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk