Ross, good points; and am not likely to actually spend the effort anytime soon. But the rail is on a siding to an old feed mill I have owned for 20 years. About 5 years ago they re-ballasted and did some maintenance to the mainline and removed the switchgear and frogs to the siding, for safety. The antique switchgear and scrap is piled up on my side, but someone made off with the old pole and flag indicator.
I suppose if it came to actually getting around to scrapping it myself, it might be necessary to look up how the siding was priced out, or whether the RR merely provided the facilities without "selling" them as sometimes happened. But clearly they have abandoned it and left the remainder, including junk, on my property. Not being down there (couple states away) to look closely, would guess it is only maybe 100 yds - 400 ft (single side) of steel rail left. The siding was one of 2 put in around the turn of the last century, and then maintained and used until the mid 70's or so. The other was torn out complete including rails, on the other side of the mainline tracks "many" years ago.
smt
