So I have developed a ficticious railroad, pieced together the history, and decided on the route and interchanges. The town names are all real towns in the midwest.
Does anyone have a suggestion on a low cost (also read as very low cost or free if possible) way to create the map?
It would be cool if it looked like one of the old-timey 1940-1950 public timetable system maps but not as critical as cost. I have been looking at MS streets (or whatever it is called now) but thats $40 for a one-time project. I was hoping to find a low-cost software that would allow me to search by location, place a marker or the like, then draw in the “tracks”. You used to be able to do that online but they have “improved” the sites so much you can’t do that any longer.
I am hoping to avoid having to draw it by hand (mouse) on a blank outline map but that may be the best option. Also, I would like to be able to see the intermediate cities and towns as they will become part of the overall system and that becomes a ton of work on a blank map.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
In my (very large) community - one of the ten largest in the United States, I might add - and no it’s not LALALAND - it ain’t even in CACALAND - I can’t believe I said that - here in the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west we have a map shop and gallery and they handle a great many (blank) maps. Several years ago I was exploring a fiction that Santa Fe and Mopac had merged sometime in the 1960s-1970s era - believe it or not such a thing was considered and a distinct possibility; who backed out I don’t know; what I do know is that Santa Fe eventually tried to crawl into bed with SP but got caught by the ICC which shook a shame-shame finger under her nose; eventually, of course, she was allowed into the loving arms of the big green machine.
With this in mind I went to my map shop and bought a rather large map of the US; this one, in addition to having the states defined, had navigable waterways delineated on it - you would be amazed at what the Corps of Engineers defines as a navigable waterway! They had other maps with other delineations on it - considering how I used this I would probably have been better off getting the one with every county in the U.S. specified. Mine had several communities designated on it but these were more for geographical reference and in no way were necessarily major communities i.e. Ft Scott, Kansas but not Wichita. I rejected the one with counties because that’s all it had on it - county deliniations.
Once I had this thing in hand I mounted it to to a sheet of poster board and then got a sheet of (thin) plastic as an overlay. I then went to town with a grease pencil - and a lot of cleaner - and sketched out what I thought the Missouri Pacific Santa Fe Railway would have looked like - or Santa Fe and Missouri Pacific if you would prefer.
I checked your profile but I have no idea where Avon, In is located - I can’t find it on my gazateer of road maps. If you are anywhere in the Chicago area - or if you have reason to travel there on any ki
Bryan,
I know the cost can be a factor, but I don’t think you can beat Microsoft Mappoint for its flexibility and ability to add lines and such representing right of way. (It’s also quite handy for those of us who are directionally challenged!) Using the text box in the program would allow you to add names to fictional towns wherever in the U.S. you decide to create them. The advantage of using this product is that you can export the files to any other MS product and visa versa. That means that it would be easy to transfer the map itself to any paint or photo program and play with the look of the final product, adding colors and a distressed look reminiscent of old time maps. You might ask around to see if you could borrow a friend’s computer with Mappoint installed or check out the local library to see if they might have a copy you could use. Another option would be to just scan a copy of a map of the area you are modeling and import it into a paint or photo program and add your towns and right of way that way. I sure your local Kinko’s or copy shop could assist you with that for not much money. Good luck. I think creating the historical background for your railroad is one of the most fun and creative activities you can indulge yourself in.
Mike
I have simply photocopied road atlases and drawn in my system map with a pen. Since the highway system has more or less paralled rail lines, it makes it easy to draw plausible routes for both the modeled and unmodeled portions of my fictional railroad.