Does anybody have one of these? If so, what is it like? I saw an ad for for the “new” SPV atlas for ND,SD and MN, and wondered if they were any good.
I have the one that covers Wisconsin. It is ok, but I wish vehicle roads were included so I could figure out easier how to find places of interest. And a small amount of the info was out of date, but most of it was ok.
The next time I plan on taking a road trip to an area with which I am unfamiliar, I will buy the relevant edition.
I have the Texas one and they are interesting, though like it was said before the major highways, even if in grey, would help find some stuff. They are as up to date as the last revision.
I’ve gotten a bunch of them, and hope to get what I need to cover our trip next month.
You, of all people, Murph, won’t be disappointed.
What do you mean, by out of date, for example? I hope, being a railroad atlas, that it’s better than a DeLorme atlas. My S.D. map shows a lot of CMSt&P railroad lines.
I think the SPV Atlases are one of the best things that have appeared in years. Their accuracy is almost 100% and they save me a great deal of time at work. I wish they’d come out 30 years ago. I have one set at home, another at the office, and we give extras away to customers who really like them.
S. Hadid
I tried looking them up under ‘SPV Atlas’ and their website was not working. How do you get one? S. Hadid I’d love one!
Home page:
I buy mine through McMillan Books in Denver, but almost every large U.S. railroad book dealer carries them.
Murphy, nothing in printed form can be 100 percent up to date. The Texas volume shows an overpass south of San Marcos where the old MOPAC and Katy did not cross at grade. Both are UP properties now and no overpass can be see from vantage points that do not entail trespassing.
The volume with New York state trackage has several errors in the Poughkeepsie area. Even the second edition that put the Eastern New England states in a different volume still had errors in this area although some were corrected. My home town, Pontiac, Illinois, is listed as having a wye facility which has not been around since the IC and Wabash were abandoned. in that area.
Most pages are at the scale of 8 miles per inch. Metropolitan areas, when shown, are at 2 miles per inch, and sometime 1 mile per inch as was done for downtown Chicago.
Newer editions are coming out showing lifted electric/interurban lines. These volumes appear clutterd; I think I’d rather have clutter from major highways and have the old interurbans in a separate volume.
I reference the atlases all the time. The latest one out is Western Canada; I suspect that one will be added to the rest in due time.
Art
The publisher is “Steam Powered Video” in England. Most Railroad Booksellers in the US sell them. Try McMillan Publishing in Colorado McMillan Publishing
I’ve bought most of mine from Ron’s Books, a TRAINS magazine advertiser; slightly discounted, free but not speedy shipping.
Art
They are a good research tool to have around.
Their accuracy is more like 90%, but they are still better than DeLorme et. al. (garbage GIS) …Then again, I see glitches that others don’t. [Good but not perfect]
They (the folks across the pond) tend to get sloppy with rail lines that disappeared prior to 1960. They don’t always stick to the baseline rules that they established in making the books either (esp. regarding time frames) …At the scale that they are using, detail in congested areas can still get lost or confusing. Especially with line changes, etc…
It’s all a function of what you are using the map for. If I’m walking something out on the ground, Ive got a USGS Topo quad handy and would have looked at DeLorme beforehand. I don’t want the extra clutter which sometimes obscures what is really going on.
i have the great lakes east spv rr atlas and i say its great…the atlas used together with delormes gazetters makes chasin trains a breeze as well as finding those outa the way long forgotten former junctions, bridges,yards, and other neat things only a railfan would get happy about…
I want to chime in too - I have a couple of the SPV atlases, and I would buy them again, but I would agree that about 90% accurate is the correct number. In California, they have lines crossing each other sometimes three to five miles away from where they really cross. Lines that have been abandoned for some time are shown as active and some lines that are active are shown as abaondoned.
And, because there are no roads shown, it’s often hard to gauge exactly where they are telling you a line is.
That being said, knowing they aren’t 100% accurate, you will find they are a fantastic tool as long as you don’t get too frustrated when the crossing you were looking for turns out to be another five miles down the track. I do recommend them.
I saw someone’s older one tonite. They are neat. I’ll have to find a newer one now, dangit!, lol!
What does it take to become one of your customers so I can get some of those extra copies?
Despite the possibility of errors, I keep mine with what I carry when working on the train - it’s come in handy more than once to answer passenger’s questions about rail lines around the state. I like that they show the last operator of a line that is abandoned, although sometimes you have to extrapolate to figure out who originally ran the line.
I was wondering the same thing–I need four more just to be fully equipped for our upcoming vacation (the other four I already have).
Ack!! We must be doing something wrong. We give our customers poinsettias.[:O]
It sounds like the vote is all yeahs, and no nays. I’m ordering an atlas! Thanks![8D]
My personal experience is that I keep going back to them over and over again which is more than I can say for alot of books on my shelves. I seem to always pick out some long lost route that I didnt see in the first several viewings-alot of information and a good dollar value.