railroad hunting

rseasy1

Elite Member

Joined

Feb 28, 2012

Messages

634

Location

Cottage hills Illinois

• Mar 22, 2012

• #1

My parents have property in the country with a railroad track that was built in the mid 1850's I was wanting to find out how to locate old camp sites used by workers during the lines building.Any helpful hints?
I have searched the internet but nothing.
How far off the line would the camps been.
Any certain types of signs to look for?
Thanks in advance.

 

Irons

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Joined

Jan 8, 2012

Messages

8,008

Location

Michigan

• Mar 22, 2012

• #2

Good questions, I too have old RR grades in my AO and am not sure how to approach detecting them.

I'm not interested in pounds of old iron.

 

rseasy1

Elite Member

Joined

Feb 28, 2012

Messages

634

Location

Cottage hills Illinois

• Mar 22, 2012

• #3

no iron for me

I agree don't want tons of iron just the dropping from the people who built it.
and I don't mean human droppings.LOL...

 

Jody007

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Joined

Mar 16, 2011

Messages

731

Location

Capital of Florida

• Mar 22, 2012

• #4

Maybe this will help:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrmap.html

 

S

spinnerbait825

Junior Member

Joined

Jan 31, 2012

Messages

73

Location

Conroe Tx

• Mar 22, 2012

• #5

There's a book on ebay right now about old RR lines that are no longer used. By it now $19.95. hope that's what you are looking for! HH

 

AJinNJ

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Joined

Jul 23, 2010

Messages

1,203

Location

Morris County, NJ

• Mar 22, 2012

• #6

I would just hunt the outer lying areas of the tracks. Do a broad search in different spots to get a reference point.

 

Milhaus

Elite Member

Joined

Dec 18, 2011

Messages

2,563

Location

Minnesota

• Mar 22, 2012

• #7

I've seen this atlas series mentioned many times. Oddly enough it's published in Britain.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1874745056/ref=nosim/gearedsteamlocom

 

IMShooter

Elite Member

Joined

Jul 3, 2009

Messages

1,667

Location

Iron Mountain, Mi

• Mar 23, 2012

• #8

Seems like RRs are getting popular again...
We have a nice RR line running through here that dates back to the later mid 1800's from when this town was basically the iron ore capital of the earth.

I know it'll be good hunting....well, I hope. Both sides of it are about a 10' slope to a gulley and on the other side of one of the gullies it's quite flat and grassy with pine trees mixed in and it borders the first/main cemetery in town (it's fenced in and not extended to where I'd hunt). Goes on for 10-15miles like this. Waiting to get a chance when it's not raining and haul a backpack and one of the dogs with me and go for a hike.

I'd be hunting bottles first few times, then probably detecting..