Found the following, thought some of you might enjoy:
http://nrhsoldnorthstate.weebly.com/uploads/8/3/1/6/8316405/national-1931.jpg
Interesting map. Thanks.
Seems that UP was nothing more then a Regional Bridge line back then
The Rand McNally maps were always interesting, I was unaware that they went that far back. Two interesting tidbits that I noticed: no through route on the Rio Grande west out of Denver and the Key West Extension is still operating.
Key West extension was destroyed by Hurricane in September 1935.
And the Dotsero Cutoff, which saved 175 miles, had not yet been constructed. The east end of the cutoff has two names–Bond and Orestod (spell it backwards).
I understand that the name “Dotsero” comes from its being the beginning point (.0) of a survey what was then known as the Grand River.
You may also have noted that the map is not quite accurate in its location of some junction points, such as the junction of the line from Salisbury-Asheville with the line from Bristol-Chattanooga-Memphis.
Most of the maps in my 1957 Official Guide suffer the same fault.
In Virginia, the RF&P is shown as “SAL, ACL”. This will never do! Also, the C&O, north out of Gordensville, is shown tying into the RF&P at some unidentified point rather than the Southern mainline in Orange.
But, it is a neat map! Thanks for posting.
I’ve often wondered if map makers didn’t insert “error bombs” into their work just to catch copy right violators who might duplicate their work and claim it as their own?
Showing non-existent towns, or errors on railway details for maps distributed exclusively for highway use, stuff like that.
Note that it is a ‘nominally straight line’ map - the railroads between end points are anything but straight, as such it cannot be geographically accurate.
This map is intended for informational consumer use only by whoever purchased the map in 1931. It is interesting and probably got the mileage from the Official Guide or the railroads themselves. I would certainly not consider these maps to be geographically accurate. Neither were maps pubished in the Official guide either. They might have shown every railroad station of the railroad but were far from geographically accurate. Rand McNally did publish an atlas of individual states which were both geographically accurate and showed all railroads and who owned the trackage. I have a Rand McNally World Atlas 1967 Imperial Edition which shows railroads in all 50 states.
I’ve also noted that the map depicts the mileage between Detroit and Chicago to be identical for both the NYC as well as the Wabash, don’t think that is true.
And, it also shows the mileage between Buffalo and Chicago to be shorter routed south of Lake Erie than the route north of Lake Erie, and it just seems I’ve always been told that the northern route was shortest? (or was that just Buffalo-Detroit?)
I have a Hammond World Atlas from 1953 that also includes rail lines - in fact, it shows no highways. It’s also got railways illustrated from around the world, but I’ve never really looked closely at those pages.
I suspect that the distances were “official” and used for establishing rates. Trucking companies use the same thing today regardless of actual mileage driven
The D&SL “Moffat Route” to Craig had been in service for about 20 years by the time of this map, but apparently that dead end route didn’t make the cut. The short Dotsero cutoff mentioned, that joined it to the transcontinental network, was completed 3 years after this map.