Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article regarding hobby rail travel:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 17408.html
Brief passage:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 17408.html
Brief passage:
- HAZENS, N.H.—Some people collect stamps, others collect bird sightings and a few count the state capitol buildings they visit. Mike Rose is riding a train to this remote railroad junction in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to track railroad miles.
Mr. Rose's journey takes him past steep cliffs, towering trestles and cascading brooks. Vitally important is that he is riding over this track for the first time and can therefore add it to his collection. "I got the mileage—that's all that counts," says Mr. Rose, a 65-year-old Toledo, Ohio, tool and die maker.
..Mr. Rose is a "rare mileage" collector, one of about 300 in the country. Such collectors strive to ride as much of the U.S. rail system as they can, often chartering special trains to access routes ordinarily off-limits to passengers. Collectors mark off the routes they ride on rail maps and record interesting sights—an unusual bridge or a complicated track layout, for example