iam looking for a railroad map of ohio in the 50,s say 1957era… i would like to know what kind of industries were, around then. and were serviced by rail. iam interested in cincinnatti, columbus, clevland, and pittsburg. i know coal and steel were big back then but i herd that cincinnati was a big meat packing city at one time. i have tryed google but it wasnt much help. thank you
One place you might check is an online state government office, where periodic railroad maps may be archived. I have found such maps for Minnesota with state historical societies or state depts of commerce. Also check library image and map collections for the urban areas you mentioned- often there are special library collections relating to particular aspects of a local area that may have such maps. Fire Insurance maps from decades ago are also a resource, if located, and may also be part of particular library collections. And keep googling, with different search phrases. What does not turn up when asked in one way, may be close at hand when phrased differently. Cedarwoodron
Try this site. They have RR overall maps and track charts that list the industries and locations. You have to know which railroad you want to find information on, and they have more on some RRs than others.
http://www.multimodalways.org/archives/rrs/rrs.html
S&S
I suggest old Official Guides which have railroad maps.
You mentioned Cinincinnati, and Proctor & Gamble has long been a large industry there.
Google a lot of various search terms. I’ve done that for SC and it’s amazing what I’ve found. The down side is there is a lot of fascinating stuff out there that you can spend all night on that has nothing to do with railroading (lots of history). One example in SC is the textile industry. Because of the rapid changes, there have been some university projects to capture the history from workers before the last of them die out. You can probably find the same about industries in Ohio by looking at odd and ends.
Operations Special Interest Group - Industry darabase: