Railroad yard finds...close to home and what is it?

kevinstang

Just thought I post a couple of things I found in my back/side yard which used to be part of a passenger rail yard. Went out last Friday night and right at dusk found the 1947 Canadian maple leaf penny. Called it a day, having done the yard many times I was suprised to find it near the stump of an old apple tree. Theres alot of trash in the yard from the train era, bar area- bar across the street that is and having once been an old tractor dealership. On top of that one of the local old timers told me that the side yard was used as a scrap metal collection center in WW2- lots of junk. Anyways on Sunday I decided to go out and dig another strong but funny signal I had hit around the apple tree on Friday, brought the big shovel and ended up digging down over a foot or so and found the hunk of iron below- with nothing better to do I dug it up, it was in the ground (vertical)upside down from how its shown in photo, so it took some time digging it out, but I got it. Now what the heck is it? Looks like something I remember seeing around the rail yards before, maybe a sign stand? (it stands about knee high). Also shown in the photo with the Canadian penny is the flattened US penny I found a couple of weeks ago, must have been placed on tracks years ago, only the "of A " in America is visible.

Zulan

Sounds like a fun place to dig

That big hunk of medal looks to be the leg to a bench. You know the old wood bench.

kevinstang

You could be right, I was told that inside the depot (where I live now) the one entire end of the building was once lined with wooden benches inside. The first purchaser after the railroad (I was told by some old timers), broke the benches up and used them as firewood.

goldrush00013

Wow, that's a huge chunk of iron to pull out of the ground!

Cool pennies! The flattened one is really cool! Not sure I've seen one dug before.

BTW- Nice coin ring in your sigline. I happen to make those!

CoinOnTheCob

kevinstang, Where abouts are you? I live in Roseville California and have a lot of railroad land near me.

kevinstang

I am in upstate NY, other coast. Talked to someone who stopped by today and he thought maybe the iron piece was part of a step up device for getting into the freight cars, you never know. I can usually dig the tie plates for the rails and odds and ends spikes etc. . The land directly behind ours was the site of the older depot (depot I live in was built around 1914 to replace an earlier one). I helped my neighbor (the one who owns the site of old depot) find an arrrow he lost while target shooting once in his yard and I had tons of hits hunting in all metal mode, he said the previous owner ( a long time owner of property), told him it was full of junk from when they changed the tracks and tore down the old depot. Will have to see if someday I can get his permission and hunt it again.

kevinstang

Maybe i followed your directions, read about making them last winter (coin rings) and gave it a try on a beat up 67 Kennedy, took a couple of hours ( I didn't use a spoon- body shop hammer instead). Side note- I am off tomorrow for the weekend camping, hope to hit a spot that last year yielded several early wheats- 20's and 30's and alot of trash, but this year I have my 4 1/2 sniper coil and hope to weed out some better finds- it was a beach/pavillion site for many years. Years ago I found a 46 rosie there as well. Looks like the weather will be cooler and now I just hope the ground won't be to baked from all the heat this past week.

BBQnBLUES

Kevin;

I believe that iron support was once a shoe shine foot rest....

kevinstang

Would be about the right height, but I don't there were many shoe shine boys around here... farm country- at one time was one of biggest turkey supply/farming areas in NY state. Someone else local thought it may have been some type of step up for getting on the freight cars.