I was looking at a map of the Cotton Belt and other railways and have a question. Some of the towns serviced on the one are a solid dot, some of the towns on the line are a solid dot with a circle around the dot. Can someone please tell me what the difference between the two is?
Thanks
Without seeing the map, I’d have to guess – population?
Here is a link to the Cotton Belt map, any ideas?
http://www.american-rails.com/images/cotton-belt-route-system-map.jpg
That doesn’t sound like a hard question but then I went looking for railroad maps and only found one. This is the B&O. 
Some, but not all, are at the end of the line. My wag guess is a turntable.
On second thought I never heard of Carlos Junction and I am from MD. Pretty sure it ain’t the population.
Maps almost always have a legend down in one corner explaining line types and line weights and colors and text sizes and symbology and whatnot. Do you have the entire map? Any such legend?
Robert
The solid dots are railroad interchanges and freight connections. The clear dots are towns along the route, often with freight depots.
Rich
Doesn’t work for that B&O map. Some of the dots are dead ends or have no interchanges. For example, Eidenau is all B&O.
Eidenau was the site of a large railway junction (Harmony Junction).
Rich
A lot of the plain dots are railroad station names for places that may or may not agree with the names conferred by local citizens or political entities. Others might be a sign on a post far away from the nearest building. John Armstrong included a photo of one such with his White Pass and Yukon track plan. Another was an isolated helper spur on the N&W, the downhill home of a Y6 pusher.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I suspect those are stations with T/O and flag stops or interlocking towers in today’s world Control Points(CP).
A B&O ETT would clear that up.
But not an interchange point. All three legs of the wye there were controlled by the B&O.
I’m not the Op, My search for Cotton Belt kept turning up modern commuter lines. The B&O map was just what you see without any key to the symbols, however I did find a Pittsburgh ETT Is the E Engineers? time table.
Edineau was a T/O station.
oops forgot the link. It is interesting all in itself to those of us without real world RR experience
No,ETT is Employee Time Table…That gave us a lot of information on passing sidings and industrial sidings and their capacity from the derail to the end of the siding…It would also tell us what engines wasn’t allowed on that industrial track. The daily bulletin was more important because it gave you updated information like slow orders,MOW work areas etc.
CTC controlled train movements.
On the SSW map the stations with a dot are probably agencies (there is a station agent there) and the stations with out a dot are just stations (could be anything, but not a freight agency). All of the junction points have dots, but not all the dots are at junction points.
If you look at the Cotton Belt Route Map, and it is the Cotton Belt that the OP asked about, all of the solid dots are at interchanges and freight connections.
Rich
Hello all,
I just pulled out several maps of historic Colorado railroads.
Some of the map keys list the dots with a circle as a “Time Stop” that coincide with the trains schedule.
While some other keys list these dots with circles as junctions or interchanges with other railroads.
The single dots, or on some branch lines circles, denote a station; either a town or “whistle stop.”
While on yet another map the key denotes a large dot with a circle is a county seat while a small dot with a circle is a town or stop.
It seems that these markings can mean different things on different lines and the maps they published.
As has been posted before your best bet is to look for a map key or possibly a timetable which might solve the mystery.
Hope this helps.