Re: Another day on the Madera Sugar Pine Grades

On the way out I snapped a quick picture of an area that appeared to be the location of a passing siding on the main spur:


Here's another picturesque shot of the MSP mainline on the north side of Chowchilla Mountain:


On several of the large cut fallen trees I decided to count the number of tree rings. I found that most were about 80 years old. There's Ponderosa Pine & Cedar, but very few Sugar Pines in the current forest.

Since we had a little spare time and Gary was new to this whole railroad grade exploring, we stopped at multiple locations on the 20 miles out to Chowchilla Mountain road (and a side trip to show him the Crow Mountain incline) to walk the grade and look for any interesting artifacts.

At one point I spotted what at first appeared to be a big piece of pipe standing near the grade:


Here's another photo of the artifact on its side:


It stands about 2.5 feet tall and about 1 foot in diameter.

Can anybody guess what it is???
(the small round object next to it is unrelated)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2019 04:09PM by Dave Peterson.