Have any of you tried using Wikimapia ? I’m starting to like it better than google. Which is odd since it is graphically powered by google, but I like being able to size the map larger , and wikimapia never forces you to endure the left margin “yellow page listing” of businesses that have payed to be keyed into searches foer some areas .
Add to that, I’ve found some mapped areas where wiki actually has higer rez for a given area than google will allow.
And having major buildings indexed on the map, as wiki does, is kinda cool.
In fact just today I was googling downtown Des Moines, and wondered what a couple large buildings might be , so I bounce over to wiki, and right there was my answer
If Wikimapia impresses you, you’ll fall out of your chair if you play with Google Earth now. It’s got a Wikipedia layer now, which puts a little icon on the map for any coordinates that have a Wikipedia article (or more properly, any Wikipedia article that has coordinates). Google Earth also gives you a lot more control over how you look at the maps (you can rotate, and change the viewing angle as well) - it requires a software download, but it is worth it.
On that note, I would recommend anyone here who knows a thing or two about trains to contribute to the rail articles on Wikipedia - a good place to start would be the project page for trains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trains
It’s easy to setup an account, and it’s awesome to contribute to such a worthwhile project. There are a ton of articles about shortlines, locomotives (e.g. SD60), and other rail related topics that need a lot of work.