RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.
Todd's Railfan
Guide to
MASON CITY IA
along with Nora Springs and
Manly
In General
Getting Here
Maps
Sights
Signals
Floobydust
Nora Springs
Manly
The two maps are available HERE and HERE as a PDF.
This is the only vintage map I could find of the area.... a
USGS index map from roughly 1920
Iowa Traction
the Union Pacific Yard
the ex CNW Depot
the ex MILW Depot
the ex M&StL Depot
the IC&E Yard
Diamond - Clear Lake Junction
Diamond - Bear Trap Junction
the Stockman House
the Park Inn Hotel
UP's relay cabinets on 19th street.
Well placed electric cables for the IATR.
Frank
Lloyd Wright's Park Inn Hotel
A 2 color, color light signal for southbound UP traffic crossing the diamond.
US&S manual crossing gate switch at signal 1.
10 miles to the east of Mason City is Nora Springs where
the IC&E services a few local industries. Just east of here is a distant
semaphore. This train, where the head end was east of "downtown", was in
the process of dropping off a couple of cars in Nora Springs. New: FEB19/2010, DEC09/2013
I have given Nora Springs its own page here.
About 10 miles north of Mason City is a junction between the UP and the Iowa Northern, the signals are for a UP siding south of the
junction. The track ends here in Manly at the former Rock Island yard, and no longer goes any further north into Minnesota.
Since working on this page, I have done a guide page just for Manly, located here
The police station and a static display in Manly.
We chased this train from Nora Springs, and it passes by bunches of old out of service searchlight signals
What's left of the Rock Island yard... not much... and me by a street sign with my name on it
Disclaimers:
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my
indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit
is always given! Please be NICE!!! Contact info is here
Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.
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