Thanks Dan for the comments and leads.
In Minnesota we generally consider rail lines as structural Railroad Corridor Historic Districts, but we are considering how there may be archaeological sites or features within those districts. Perhaps if there is a gigantic district with redundant archaeological resources it could be more palatable to impact a small part of it, unless linear continuity is necessary for integrity. But as you say, defining the boundary between what is archaeological and what is structural can be difficult. That is why I am looking for reports that have tried to justify good definitions and make interesting arguments for evaluation, especially under Criterion D.
Sigrid
Sigrid Arnott
[log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2015 13:14:46 +0000
From: "Davis, Daniel (KYTC)" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Phase II Evaluations of Railroad Properties
Have you looked for cultural resource reports from the Surface Transportation Board? Abandonments of historic lines typically require Section 106 clearance through the STB, but most of what they are concerned with would be standing structures. I think everything I've seen deals with the resources from a cultural historic POV. Jim Pomfret with the Georgia DOT researched a similar question around 2002 via the TransArch listserve, and most of the responses seemed to indicate that state SHPOs wanted to look at railroads as historic structures. That is similar to the response I've seen here in KY.
At the state level, there seems to be resistance to define abandoned rail lines as archaeological properties, as these are long linear landscape features that may cross through multiple counties or even states; the short of it being that no one is quite sure how the record or track them, especially in GIS databases. There was an issue of the National Register Bulletin magazine (the issue currently escapes me) that dealt with railroads (or even specific pieces of rail equipment such as locomotives) as archaeological sites and Pennsylvania has a document for evaluating railroads as potential NRHP sites: http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/research_tools/20176/guidelines_for_documenting_and_evaluating_railroads/943356
Other National Register bulletins that may be of use would be NRB 18, 30, and 42 (they deal with historic landscapes, rural historic landscapes, and historic mining properties, respectively). If you haven't seen it, the FRA has a report on why most railroads shouldn't be considered historic, which is an interesting, if slightly lopsided read www.fra.dot.gov/Elib/Document/3102
We have a railroad context study under way here in KY, dealing primarily with a single county, but the report should include a (non-inclusive) outline of the types of structures associated with railroads, as well as a general framework for assessing the specific types of resources we might encounter as archaeological or standing structure sites on rail lines. It may be a while before it's complete, though, and our budget (sadly) was around 1/20th of what Minnesota had for theirs.
We do have a few railroad sites in Kentucky that have been recorded as archaeological sites, including an abandoned section of railroad near Richmond, in Madison County, and a portion of the Morehead and North Fork RR in Rowan County that included turnstiles, bridges, and associated buildings. Excavations were also carried out on a portion of the first rail line in KY (the Lexington and Ohio, incorporated in 1830), but that was due primarily to the unique nature of the rail construction - they laid down limestone sills (they looked like large sections of curb) and attached iron straps to the tops of the sills, on which the locomotive and cars ran, albeit poorly. Most of the rail line was later replaced with more familiar crossties and i-beam rail, but this was in an old section that had been cut off from the main line by the 1840s.
Personally, I think that railroads and their associated infrastructure should be considered as both archaeological sites and standing structures - the problem really comes when attempting to define the boundaries. In general (and if you're lucky), you may have only a short section of line and associated support structures left, so that makes defining your site boundaries more palatable for the agencies responsible for tracking site data. Abandonments typically require removal of track and a return to grade, so there usually isn't much left by way of integrity. As for the assessment - for archaeology, you will have to establish age and integrity first for any resource. The first you can usually determine fairly accurately (hey, they even stamp the date of manufacture on the webbing of i-beams), but integrity becomes the real issue. If you know the age, and the site retains integrity, the next step is trying to determine if the type of site you are looking at is unique or if the deposits contained therein provide or contain the means to answer significant research questions. What those questions are will vary by age of the site, it's location, and it's research potential - things you need to assess within the framework of a larger context. Minnesota has a pretty good one for assessing railroads, far better than what most states have compiled to date, so that puts you ahead of the game.
So there's some random thoughts, while I'm running low on coffee this Friday morning.
Daniel B. Davis
Administrative Branch Manager, Cultural Resources Section
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Division of Environmental Analysis
200 Mero Street
Frankfort, KY 40622
(502) 564-7250 or (502) 782-5013
KYTC Archaeology and KYTC Cultural Historic
|
