Your picture is actually of active, well-used railroad tracks. Old unused tracks are rusty and weed-grown. If the rails are shiny it means that trains pass regularly and knock the rust off. If there's no weeds it's because the railroad actively sends out crews to maintain the tracks.

[–] Nitrate55@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 1 year ago

the railroad actively sends out crews to maintain the tracks.

Damn, the railroad spawns its own crews for maintenance? That's crazy

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was just in Japan and even some of their active rail lines have huge 4 ft tall weeds growing in the rail yards

[–] alcamtar@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Weed control is a fairly new thing but not an environmentally friendly thing. Maybe Japan doesn't like spraying pesticide all around.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't surprise me. In Germany the largest customer for Roundup/Glyphosate is DB, they spray that shit over around all rails.

[–] BlackRing@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

So THAT'S what looked off... And reminded me of where I moved out of...