IMG 1548

An awful lot of what appears to be loose spikes, would be interesting to hear the comments of a railroad person on this.

Indeed. I'm amazed that railroad ties are still by and large wood, even on a main line like this. An odd holdover of 19th century technology-- Some ties have been replaced with concrete (e.g., thru Reno), but not nearly as many as I'd expect.

It's amazing to me, in general, how much of American railroad is on rights-of-way that have barely changed since since the 1800's. Particularly since we're running increasingly dangerous cargoes (e.g., very long oil trains) over tracks with curves and tunnels built for shorter trains.