Looking south along the D&R from 6th Street. A recent train addition along this line is a BNSF tie train that hauls railroad ties from this area over the D&R and UP using trackage rights. The BNSF tie train that ran August 14 from here was going to Sterling, Colorado.
This is the northern part of the 5-mile D&R. UP's main line from North Little Rock to Oklahoma and Kansas (the Van Buren Sub) is beyond those trees. The D&R runs from North Dardanelle, Arkansas (on the Arkansas River) north to Russellville.
Here is one of those yellow cement crossing poles, put here in the 1930s and still standing. This is 6th Street in Russellville.
Same photo as the previous one, but under-exposed to highlight the yellow.
Here's another of the yellow crossing poles, this one on 10th Street. Doesn't this scene look peaceful and remind you of times long ago in rural America?
Old ties....this line has been recently upgraded.
This is D&R's tie-in with the UP. D&R's track is the closest one. The Russellville Missouri Pacific depot museum is about 4 blocks ahead.
Here's a history of this 100+ old shortline:
The line was initially chartered in 1883, and the company reorganized under its present name in 1900. When originally constructed, the railroad carried cotton and other agricultural products. The predominant traffic shifted to coal by 1900, thanks to extensive semi-anthracite coal production along the railroad. Coal production along the D&R ended by the mid-1950s. At one time, the railroad owned the Dardanelle Pontoon Bridge and Turnpike Company, which operated a pontoon bridge (for wagons and later automobiles, not trains) across the Arkansas River at Dardanelle. The D&R was also a leader in the trend for railroads to branch into other transportation modes, owning a highway subsidiary from 1919-1960. The highway subsidiary, Dardanelle Transfer Company, operated both bus and truck service over an expanded territory much larger than was served by the railroad itself.