I was on google earth last night looking at the old Greenwood Lake branch of the Erie. It was amazing to be able to see where the right of way had been and you can still see where it is today. Has any one else used it to look in on the rails?
Yes. I do a lot of bicycling on rail trails, and in May plan to cycle the Great Allegheny Passage from McKeesport (Pittsburgh) to Cumberland MD. http://www.atatrail.org/ The trail follows the river most of the western end, so it is quite easy to pick up. There is an operating RR on one side of the Youghiogheny River, I believe the old B&O. The Capitol Limited still follows it. I believe the trail is on the abandoned Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, but I am sure someone will corect me if I am wrong.
…Tenspeed:
You should enjoy your upcoming trip acorss the Allegheny Trail which is constructed on the ex. Western Maryland RR ROW. It travels through some rugged eastern territory.
One thing you are going to find of interest is a large viaduct…The Salisbury viaduct. It is located between Garrett and Meyersdale, Pa. The viaduct is about 2000’ long and in some places 100’ high off the large wide valley floor it crosses. It also crosses the ex. B&O RR, now the CSX, new route 219 highway, a river, old 219 and a large valley of farm crops. Beautiful view from up on it. Viaduct has concrete floor and proper side protection on top…A real nice job of converting it.
CSX is a rather busy east - west line that roughly follows along the opposite side of the river as the Trail does. And yes, that’s the route of the Capitol Limited. The routes cut through and wind about getting across and through that area of the Alleghenies.
We were just up on that Salisbury Viaduct in the past 2 years or so…One can get a good view and take some good photos from up on it.
Most assuredly. An interesting feature is the ability go tip the view down and “fly” a rail line… Hopefully they’ll get more and more of the terrain up to the high resolution level. It’s no fun following a line with detail that almost lets you count the ties, then dropping off to where you have trouble telling the difference between a road and a stream…
I was just looking at UP in Ogden UT nice you can see the ties. I then went to Altoona PA and tried to find horseshoe curve and the reselution was terrible. I hope they are able to approve it in the east. It looks like in the West has better coverage than the East.
Some of the images in Google Earth are excellent and some are terrible. This is not a regional thing. If you go 10 miles in either direction from a poor image you may find a good image. MapQuest also has photo images and their image may be good at a location where Google’s is poor, and vise versa.
…cstaats: Try Flash Earth if you care to visit Horseshoe Curve. Then go a bit south west and take a look at abandoned Muleshoe Curve route.
Fun, isn’t it?
It works for the western deserts too, of course. Along with modern main lines, one can trace out abandoned mining routes across miles of uninhabited sand, scrub vegetation, and rabbit holes.
Favorites of mine: Tonopah & Tidewater and Barnwell & Searchlight in California and Nevada. Forget most of the Las Vegas & Tonopah, however. Major portions of its right-of-way got made into U.S. Highway 95!
…Try to follow the line {UP}, from Las Vegas to Boulder City {was that called railroad pass}, right before one got to B C…and on down to the top edge of the Colorado River canyon at Boulder Dam…It was used to bring in supplies during the dam’s construction.
So it dates back roughly 70 years. I haven’t tried to follow it lately {totally}, on a satellite image program but some years ago doing some work out that way I drove up and down Rt. 93 quite often and strained to find it {ROW}, as I drove down towards the dam. It even has a few tunnels {not visible from Rt. 93}, up a bit from Lake Meade water line that was part of it. I imagine housing projects have covered much of it by now though.
I am trying to find the Milwaukee Roads line though the Cascades I know it runs paralell to I-5
Ummm… Is the topic title supposed to be “Railroads from Google Earth”???
I’ve used both the Google satellite views and TerraServer to view aerial photos, and “follow” former railroad r-o-w. I’ve also created a few rail-trail maps from said aerial photos, see the Bicycling section of my website for a few of them.
I fat fingered it should be from. I am not able to find the Milwaukee road throough the cascades but with all the trees it is not surprizing.
cstaats: Find a town on the system that you know the Milwaukee went through. Then look for the railroad features you recognize of being a railroad…fills and cuts, gentle curves and all railroad features you can think of and possibly you will find the RR and if you do simply “ride” it to the area you are wanting to see.
Item: I did go to Google Earth and went out to the airport…{the small one of 30 some years ago}, at Boulder City, Nv. and then east a bit beyond the builtup addition and found the RR that served to haul supplies down to the building of Boulder Dam. Beyond the addition mentioned You can see a sharp horseshoe curve, plainly visible…That is the remaining ROW of that 1930’s RR to the Dam. It has about 5 or so tunnels between there and getting to the Dam. I had mentioned in an above post of wondering if it was still visible. I had seen it {right at ground level}, 30 some years ago while driving down rt. 93 many times.
great thanks for the tip
I was looking at the Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken. Amazing I remember taling the train into the station daily it is great to see it again.