West of Effingham, Illinois, US 40 makes a wide curve and passes over a railroad track. An earlier alignment of the road was left behind when the overpass was built.
Here’s what all of this looks like from the air.
Humorously, on the ground this alignment looks like this. I can hear the chatter at the highway maintenance garage now: “I know! Let’s get drunk and go stripe some road!”
There are a couple houses on this little stretch of road. I wonder what the owners think of the hilarity at the end of their front yards.
It’s a time-honored tradition in road realigning to just bury an old alignment under a mound of dirt to build the new alignment.
All of these photos are from two visits I made here in 2007.
I’ve driven the National Road from its beginning in Baltimore, MD to its end in Vandaila, IL. To read everything I’ve ever written about it, click here.
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Last updated on 26 March 2020 by Jim Grey
If I’m stating the obvious here, I apologize in advance. :) My guess is they’re using that stretch to train the stripers. :) Beautiful shots, though. A strange kind of zeitgeist.
Oh, sure. All I can say is that the OCD runs strong in me, and I would have to move if they did this in front of my house.
We used to see something like this when I lived in New York State–paint stripe test–but they also used to label it with a sign.
No need for a sign when you practice on a little road stub like this one! Only the one family that lives on it, and roadgeeks like me, ever go back there.
Yup, it’s undoubtedly a testing/practice road but I sure did enjoy the laugh!
Like I said, I hope the road dept. never does this on any road I live on!
That’s funny. I hope no one is drunk and try to stay between the lines.
Isn’t this how a drunk driver sees the road ahead anyway? :-)
You can’t mix up the mustard and mayo, you have to stay between them :D