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I just found out about rail carting. What is it? The US has thousands of miles of abandoned railway lines. Many of them in the Southwest are many decades old, but well preserved. While they exist technically intact you'd never safely run a train on these tracks.

Some of these rail lines have been reclassified as "hiking trails", although you'd need to be pretty hardcore to walk so far away from any road. The answer is rail carting.

Imagine a small platform with just enough room for a couple lawn chairs and a 6 HP gocart engine to be strapped on. No need for a reverse, just pick it up and turn it around to go home. Brakes are mostly optional.

Seems like a relaxing way to explore the back country or perhaps get to a remote camping site. I'm considering making one, but still exploring what abandoned railway is in my state.

One issue with such activities is that the rail lines might be abandoned but they might also technically be owned by rail services and as such railcarting might be classified as an illegal activity. It would be worth looking into the legal situation just to be well informed as to any potential risk you might be engaging in.

If there's an active community doing it I'd also contact and network with them. Chances are they might have some kind of organisation system so that two people railcarting on the same line don't end up slamming into each other and causing injury (esp whilst out in the middle of nowhere with potentially no support etc...).

Sounds like a real headache. If its abandoned then there's no promise the gauge will be even along the route. Wouldn't want to be stranded in the arsehole of nowhere because of that.

 Overread wrote:
One issue with such activities is that the rail lines might be abandoned but they might also technically be owned by rail services and as such railcarting might be classified as an illegal activity. It would be worth looking into the legal situation just to be well informed as to any potential risk you might be engaging in.

If there's an active community doing it I'd also contact and network with them. Chances are they might have some kind of organisation system so that two people railcarting on the same line don't end up slamming into each other and causing injury (esp whilst out in the middle of nowhere with potentially no support etc...).

Yeah which is why I'm jealous of the lines that are reclassified as hiking trails. Totally legal to be on.

Did this in France over the summer, there was a section of abandoned rail track about 7km long that you could ride along on electrically assisted pedal cars. Was a lovely way to see the countryside, really enjoyed it.

For the love of Pete, please make sure it’s actually abandoned and not just “poorly maintained and infrequently used”, because you do not want to be on it when several thousand tons of freight train comes the other way!

 Jadenim wrote:
For the love of Pete, please make sure it’s actually abandoned and not just “poorly maintained and infrequently used”, because you do not want to be on it when several thousand tons of freight train comes the other way!

Which is another good reason to connect with communities/groups already doing this. They will be more informed and up to date on matters like that and will also know safe/good places to go and likely even good ways to get started.

I’m surprised some “enterprising” individuals haven’t been away with the rails for scrap.

Where my grandparents lived in Edinburgh had the remains of an old rail line, long since turned into cycle paths. Doggos loved them, as you could go for decent long, level walks with lots of things to sniff.

Sounds legitimately awesome to me, albeit with a lot of ways it could go sideways.

I'm not sure if this is exactly the same thing but at Trainfest I met a club called NARCOA that does this in a more structured manner. Each member owns their own cart called a Speeder which is usually a surplus track inspection car. AFAIK, it's all very organized and safe.
https://www.narcoa.org/newsite/aboutnarcoa.htm
You can buy one yourself for $3-16k.
https://www.narcoa.org/forsale/4sale_want.htm