i was recently looking at the old san francisco belt line on google maps you can see the old round house ( corner of sansome and chestnut ) but not much more… does any one else ever look at google maps and try to locate interesting locations any sugestions of interesting places to look at for example following the rails from niagara falls south of looking at the huge rail yard at fort worth peter
I use it to see where some of the ‘older’ unused (removed) spurs are here in my area and see what kinds of places (buildings / companies) they went to so I can possibly model those places.
My wish for Google satellite images is that they would put a date on the images. I’ve looked up some addresses on Google and found a forest where there ought to be houses! You never know exactly when it is you are looking at.
I also wish they’d do the whole globe (or at least rural areas in North America and Europe) in high resolution. I already know what downtown Dallas looks like!
I used it to finally get an idea of where tracks ran for the RR I’m modeling.
Even though the tracks have been pulled up, if you take time and study the terrain, you can follow where they used to run.
And I’ve also taken “trips” along the Joint Line in Colorado, the Savannah riverfront, and other places that are special memories to me.
It’s a neat program. And pretty amazing when you think of it.
If you run out of info on Google, give YahooMaps a try as they sometimes have different views of the same area. In my city, the eastern portion is high resolution in Google, our area in the west side is very low definition. In Yahoo, I can actually see our house!
I have used Topozone quite a bit for some of the research I am doing for my book. You can trace the rail lines, both existing and abandoned on this service.
Try these 3D maps.
I used it quite a bit to see where the tracks used to be along the Boston and Maine. Most of the tracks were pulled long ago in the area that I am modeling. I used data from the local Historical Societies and was able to trace where the ROW is. I don’t model in an exact replica, but is gives me a good starting point.
I even went as far as to print the Google Maps and referenced USGS maps. That gave me some elevations to model too. The USGS maps show the cuts and fills that were done to build the ROW.
The hard part that I found is that with the tree cover and the length of time since trains ran on the tracks, it’s hard to see where the ROW is. So at some locations I’ve been playing connect the dots!
This Spring my family plans to take some day trips and a GPS and map some of the trails by hand.
Milwaukee was just added to Google Maps “street views” where you actually get clear photos of street scenes by address! I found my own house and street, the house and street where I grew up, and so on. The day they drove down and took the photos (and it is a constant streaming photo, you can look up and down the street and to either side) a well known landscape outfit had their truck parked at the neighbors.
It is a bit creepy – my wife does not like it at all – but it might offer some railfan and modeling knowledge opportunities.
Dave Nelson
I’ve used it to do some virtual rail fanning of where I grew up in Ohio. Followed the tracks all the way to the big yards next to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Big airports look pretty neat on those maps too.
I have been using google earth extensively to research ROW in northern New England. Maine and Massachusetts both have really excellent images. New Hampshire and Vermont tend to be lower resolution.
There are some interesting places to look in New England… unfortunately I dont know how to provide google earth links…
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Portsmouth NH: Yard and Newington Industrial area. Includes roundhouse and interesting yard track arrangement.
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Portland Maine: Rigby yard and the wharf area… includes old roundhouse still in use. Also nearby there is a small paper mill still in operation making specialty papers.
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Lewiston/auburn Maine where Guilford interchanges with the Saint Lawerence and Atlantic. Engine terminal, interchange, and some interesting industries.
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Any of the paper mills in Maine. They are big and feature some nicely visible track.
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Dragon cement plant and the barge loading area in Rockport Maine.
There are numerous interesting yards and interchanges in Mass… mostly higher res images.
I combine my viewing on google earth with enjoying images on http://photos.nerail.org/
Outside of New England I have enjoyed checking out the huge Coors brewery in Colorodo. I also tried tracing the Port of Tillamook Bay railroad but the resolution of the images in Oregon was poor.
Chris
I have used Google Earth to look at railroad facilities near where I live from above before going out to photograph live operations. I also used it to help be decide how to configue my shelf switching layout.
Sometimes I’ve used Google Maps and run into the lower limit lack of image, only to switch to Mapquest and find sharp images at the same and closer magnifications. Both are useful for chasing present and past railroads in the US.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I’ve used Google Earth frequently to help figure out general designs for certain types of facilities. Most recently, I’ve been looking at intermodal facilities for one of the members of our modular club.
I also like looking at places on the former Santa Fe lines in Texas. In Temple, for instance, you can still see where the turntable pit was.
And on an off-topic note, if you look at the Alameda Naval Air Station in Alameda, CA, and zoom in on one of the runways, there is what I suspect to be a MythBusters episode being filmed. [:)]
There’s a large yard in Greenfield Ma. It also has what looks like a working turn table. I,m not sure which RR owns this yard.
Chris,
If you look just to the North and East of the Coors Brewery you’ll see the Colorado Railroad Museum! You can smell the hopps from the Museum.
Several years ago I used the maps that were available to trace the Pekin Line on the Santa Fe from Streator to Pekin and learned quite a bit that I didn’t know at the time. There was a wye at Ancona at one time.
I also wish that there were dates on all the data.
Just for information. Area 51 is blank. No data available. In the middle of the desert where there isn’t an airbase that is on the space pictures. Can’t imagine why.
Doug
Online imagery is a fascinating tool if you can get the best combination of data. Especially if you can get Bird’s Eye View on Live Maps.
There’s a section of my home town. Judging from a major construction project down the road, the picture was taken in the summer of 2007, so its fairly recent. The trackage at the upper half of the picture is CN and Buffalo & Pittsburgh at the bottom. But it wasn’t always that way, and the sharp eyed can see that already. There’s some bridges where fills would have made more sense, or no bridge at all should exist.
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=11&Z=17&X=1484&Y=11309&W=3&qs=|butler|PA
Well, if we dig up some earlier maps, it turns out at one point it was a junction between the Bessemer & Lake Erie (now CN), B&O (which was Chessie and now B&P), and PRR (PC, Conrail, and now nothing). There was a wye, yard, interchange, and at least one spur that’s now gone. The yard was gone in my memory but I still remember when the occasional Conrail train showed up further down the line 18 years ago.
I used Google Maps and other such products all the time.
It really is amazing what you can tell. The tracks I’m looking at were pulled up in the 50’s, yet there still is evidence showing up! Even through simple farm fields there are lines on the map showing the old ROW. When I got out walking in these fields I can’t see any evidence beyond a treeline here and there. Only with the perspective top-down can I find this evidence.
I don’t know what I would do without these maps. It was certainly the starting point and continues to be my number one tool in my research.
You can follow the line over TEHACHAPI LOOP trains are clearly in view… i like to follow rail lines that are shown in the TRAINS MAGAZINE using the article and following the line is so interesting peter