Surface Dump? And Questions

[Gromit0299]

I don't know how we're so lucky to have such nice weather here in PA all the way into Mid November (global warming be damned!), but it was a great day to get out and hike. Unfortunately, someone injected my children with Red Dye #40 and High Fructose Corn Syrup when I wasn't looking (my husband asked if I had given them alcohol, to which I replied, DUDE, they would have been passed out, not running around like banshees), so it wasn't a great day out for them.

So we were near our local railroad tracks, within about a minute's drive from our house, in between the river and the tracks, when we saw looked like a possible dump site. There were lots of bottles and debris (metal cans, tires, etc). My husband found some older bottles (80's probably) and shards, so we poked around and tried to dig, but it was a bust.

My question is this. Is looking along railroad tracks (the river wasn't too far off) a bad idea? Is it just a surface dumping ground? Most of what we found was maybe 20 or so years old. Lots of shards, but we dug maybe 4 feet down, and stuff stopped turning up. Still a newb, so I have a bit of a hard time knowing what to look for. This is a lot of the "vintage" stuff I was finding. Nothing really newer than the old pull tab Meister Brau. []

 

[rockbot]

ORIGINAL: Gromit0299

I don't know how we're so lucky to have such nice weather here in PA all the way into Mid November (global warming be damned!), but it was a great day to get out and hike. Unfortunately, someone injected my children with Red Dye #40 and High Fructose Corn Syrup when I wasn't looking (my husband asked if I had given them alcohol, to which I replied, DUDE, they would have been passed out, not running around like banshees), so it wasn't a great day out for them.

So we were near our local railroad tracks, within about a minute's drive from our house, in between the river and the tracks, when we saw looked like a possible dump site. There were lots of bottles and debris (metal cans, tires, etc). My husband found some older bottles (80's probably) and shards, so we poked around and tried to dig, but it was a bust.

My question is this. Is looking along railroad tracks (the river wasn't too far off) a bad idea? Is it just a surface dumping ground? Most of what we found was maybe 20 or so years old. Lots of shards, but we dug maybe 4 feet down, and stuff stopped turning up. Still a newb, so I have a bit of a hard time knowing what to look for. This is a lot of the "vintage" stuff I was finding. Nothing really newer than the old pull tab Meister Brau. []

I remember drinking that beer. So darn cheap at the time. Had to down it real quick while it was ice cold![]

 

[Gromit0299]

I remember my brother drinking it in his teens (he's ten years older than me). Do they even make that stuff anymore? [:'(]

 

[cyberdigger]

I gone on many long strolls along RR tracks, and never found any promising signs of a dump.. sure, you can pick up the occasional throw, and ain't no better place to hunt for insulators, but ..in my area, at least, good old bottle dumps are not along the tracks.. maybe in communities where small old properties backed right up against the tracks..

 

[BIRDDOG]

One of my best and biggest dumps are on / near railroad tracks,just keep on looking...

 

[Gromit0299]

ORIGINAL: cyberdigger

I gone on many long strolls along RR tracks, and never found any promising signs of a dump.. sure, you can pick up the occasional throw, and ain't no better place to hunt for insulators, but ..in my area, at least, good old bottle dumps are not along the tracks.. maybe in communities where small old properties backed right up against the tracks..

We find quite a few insulators. But there was other stuff too, tires, bottles. We even found an old hamster habitrail (those tubes), rubber pipe, and even pieces of a crockpot. It was weird. Though, it is an old country road, so I'm sure people just hauled their trash and dumped it wherever they felt like it, before it became more built up in the early 00's. There is an old abandoned house not far down the tracks. One day, when I don't have my youngest one (who really is only 2.5, so she's very young to be out for more than an hour or two). She's pretty dramatic and high maintenance, and constantly wants to be carried. My nature girl, she's not. I definitely feel like there's dumps to be found.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=royersford+pa&hl=en&ll=40.17607,-75.535963&spn=0.007378,0.01929&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.371289,79.013672&vpsrc=6&hnear=Royersford,+Montgomery,+Pennsylvania&t=h&z=16