I am planning a cycling trip to Wyoming and Colorado and wonder if anyone knows if there are decent maps published that show roads and railroads so that I can plan my route to see as many trains as possible when I am over.
Thanks in anticipation
Jamie Guest
There are excellent atlases of railroads all over the country – there is an ad. for the company that puts them out in Trains magazine. Put those together with a good set of topographic maps and you should have no trouble at all!
The USGS (United States Geographical Survey) has wonderful maps that show all physical characteristics of the land, including height above sea level, degree of slope, that sort of stuff. They used to be free back when i got mine (in the 80’s). Here is their site:
Happy trails.
The Delorme atlases for each state work for my railfanning.
They show major and way minor roads, 4wd tracks, railroads, abandoned railroad grades, topo, type of terrain. forests etc. All done in a more informative method than USGS maps. Can’t begin to tell you how the Pennsylvania atlas unlocked the East Broad Top’s secrets for me. I explored every inch of the property in about twelve weekends with minimal effort and no poison ivy!!! We’d camp at the west side of Ray’s Hill where the Eastie came out of the tunnel, bridged Great Trough Creek, and headed for Cook’s and Robertsdale. The old train order station there still had two-and-a-half walls and most of the roof when we started, but three years later was a flat pile of rubble. Our campsite was about fifty yards north. where an earlier admirer, possibly the EBT agent had nailed a rude single plank bench to a tree overlooking the tumbling and musical Great Trough… We slept under the pines, on their soft and slippery needles, bathed in the chilly creek, and exploded the river rocks that lined our pm and am fires. Ahhhh!!! We called it “Our Special Place” and it was just a quarter of a mile from the nearest road. The last time we went there, someone had “cleared” the timber and left a bare clay caterpillared mess… So sad!!!
The gazeteer section of the atlases advise bike routes, campgrounds, historic sites and museums, recreational sites, scenic routes, natural features, wildlife refuges,etc.
One of the newsmagazines several years back credited DeLorme for opening up the environment to the general public’s pent-up curiousity. Suddenly you could know what’s there, plan a trip, and do it economically.
The SPV railroad atlases show no highways and roads, only railroads, but do they ever!!! Almost every feature of the railroads, down to type of yard, cp’s, signals, detector’s, abandoned lines, predecessor names, etc.
Armed with these two atlases you can find everything. Colorado/Utah’s available from SPV but I don’t know if Wyoming.s
I also recommend the De Lorme Atlases although Colorado’s highway map also shows the railroads. Some of the newer editions of the De Lorme atlases show the railroads more clearly.
After you’ve done your research (using the topographic maps and SPV atlases to make notes on the DeLorme maps that are essential). I’d suggest taking along only the pages, or pieces of pages, that you decide upon, as the entire books are a bit bulky (this is from a person who bikes to work with a 35-pound backpack). I’m not legally allowed to suggest photocopying the pages [}:)][;)].
Check out Terraserver.com It has aerial photos and topo maps for virtually the entire country. You can find landmarks, roads, railroads, bridges, etc all in the same site.
Dave H.
Rix…Sleeping on the soft pine needles in the rough terrain near and around the EBT remains…Weren’t you concerned of creepy, crawly things…Some not too friendly in that mountainous terrain…Wow.
Modelcar, never happened!!!
The scary part was crossing the creek on an 18 inch wide girder with rivets on top and serious (forget an ambulance) injury below. After that the campsite was like your rocking chair. Very peaceful. When sleep didn’t come easily, we’d get out a flashlight and traipse back up to the old TO station and imagine ghost trains and telegraph key poundings. The cicadas helped.
Vegas? Come east sometime and we could have fun!!!
Rick