railroad

A stalled train is blocking the roadway at the train crossing on Seven Springs Road, Batavia, and is expected to remain there for the next hour, according to an emergency dispatcher, who informed first responders for the towns of Batavia and Stafford.

CSX has postponed its planned closure of the crossing on Route 262 in Bergen.

The closure had been scheduled to start tomorrow.

No new closure date has been announced.

Route 19 through the Village of Bergen is closed to all but local traffic while crews rip out the current crossing and construct a new one. The recommended alternate route is Jericho Road. Village officials only learned of the closure after CSX erected signs, and officials say that when contacted, CSX was unable to provide a timeline for how long the work will take or when the crossing will reopen.

On the way back home from the fire on Roanoke Road, Stafford, yesterday, of course I stopped along the way to take some pictures.

Above is a series of barn and silo structures on Sweetland Road, Stafford.  Below, the back of the barn at Ellicott Street Road and Stafford-Batavia Townline Road, and under that a railroad mile marker along the railroad track next to Lehigh Road, Batavia.

BTW: If you like my photography, you might enjoy the photoblog I set up: Vufindr.com. Of course, many of the shots will have appeared on The Batavian, but I set up Vufindr.com to allow for larger format pictures.

Railfanning is alive and well here in Batavia. Railfanning, I've since found out, is the verb (to railfan) that goes with the noun (a railfan) that describes the phenomenon of inching up to a set of railroad tracks and holding still as the train bullets past. Railfanning.org has this to say about railfans:

Along the rails of America, stretch from one coast to another, you will see people standing beside the tracks enjoying the splendor of trains. Whether it is a freight train, a passenger train or an excursion train, little parallels the adrenaline rush caused by a train barreling past at 60 mph.

Turns out, there's an especially avid railfan from Cleveland who documents his outings. He's 14 years old and he calls himself: ConrailForever, and it looks like he was in Batavia this past month getting footage of his railfanning escapades. Here's one of the videos we picked up off YouTube this morning:

Any railfans out there in Batavia?