Hi all, Do any of you have some advice on searching (using google) for track plans of prototype railroads? I’m not sure what the actual companies call their track plans, but from what I’ve found so far, that keyword doesn’t seem to work. Specifically, I’m looking for the Red Wing MN and St. Paul Minnesota Milwaukee Road maps (along with the interchange of the C&NW in Red Wing). Thanks for your help! Tim
I use railroad maps in a search. Below you might find one or two possibilities. Railroad topographical maps is another possibility. Successful searching is a learned art. I am still learning after 10 years of searching for info.
If you want possible up to date, try Google maps.
Rich
Prototype track plans are relatively rare. But you can often find out quite a bit from alternative sources.
Sanborn insurance maps sometimes show (or at least show a fair approximation of) where tracks ran. Can be found here, but you need to access them from a library that has a subscription to the Sanborn service:
URL: http://sanborn.umi.com/cgi-bin/auth.cgi?command=ShowLogin
For Minnesota, the online visual collections archive of the Minnesota Historical Society is also a great resource: (searching for Red Wing pictures between 1930 and 1980):
http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/results.cfm?Page=3&Digital=Yes&EndDate=1980&Keywords=Red%20Wing&StartDate=1930&SearchType=Basic
Some nice pictures for layout inspiration
River front 1936:
As others mentioned, you can use several resources. Terraserver and Sanborn maps are quite good. St Paul will be a little tough as the MILW has a lot of track in the St Paul area over about 10 miles of main line!
Red Wing is quite well documented(I have actual ‘station maps’ of the town that were copied by MNDOT). Tha C&NW trackage was actually CGW trackage and there was a lot it as well as MILW trackage in Red Wing. What ‘era’ are you looking for?
Jim
Good luck trying to find something that does not exist. I use Google Earth to locate a rail yard or something, then zoom in so I can see the general layout of the tracks. Prototypes don’t use track plans, they run the rail where they have an economic reason to do so, generaly from town to town with sidings along the way for trains to pass, possibly double track if traffic is high enough. Larger yards may have a wye, from time to time there is a diamond crossing where another railroad’s main will cross. From either a siding track or a yard area there will be industrial spurs or interchanges to other railroads or branch lines, depending if there is somewhere to go.
It’s all about necesity and many railroads have been either in business for over 100 years or are using right of ways that are over 100 years old, so much of the modern trackage will be running along the older railroad’s route. For example if you wish to know where the old timers used to run, the look at the modern route, it’s probably the same. You can back date a modern rail line by adding in water towers on the sidings and maybe a roundhouse, but the general trackage will be the same. I routinely see modern trains running on rails dated in the 1920’s. Remember railroads are cheap, not thrifty, so if anything is working it will not be changed.
So in a nutshell, think about why your model railroad exists and build accordingly. If you are following a specific prototype, then your job is easier as all you have to do is condense the general route they took to fit your space and desires. It’s really not that hard, it’s easier to do than to explain.
That is great news! I’m modeling early '70s Red Wing and St. Paul. I remember there being lots of track through town serving many grain industries and warehouses (including the Red Wing Pottery) and would like to see just how expansive the lines were in this area…(my memories of the exact locations and industry have faded over the years). Thanks
Great! Thank you Rich, I’ll give it a whirl!
Awesome resources! Thanks a bunch Stein!
Actually they do. They have extensive blueprints and surveys of every single foot of property they own. Unfortuantely they aren’t in the public domain usually, since the railroads retain them for as long as they own the property. The other problem is they are HUGE. I have a copy of a plan for a proposed mini hump yard, its about 2 ft wide and about 25 ft long when rolled out.
Generally the most common source for track plans are historical societies. Next see if there is a ZTS, SPINS, CLIC, spotting, switching guide available for your area from the historical society or on e-Bay. They normally aren’t scale but do show all the tracks and may tell what industries are located on the tracks at the time the map was made (which may be different 5 years either side of when the map was produced).
The most difficult resource is the valuation charts done in around WW1 when the government nationalized the railroads (forming the USRA). They did an audit of the entire railroad system, every building, all the track, everything. All the records are in the Library of Congress. But you have to spend some time learning how to read the filing system, then know exactly what you want to look at and then have to go to the LOC to see the information. And it will be over 80 years old, so it is nowhere near current.
I don’t know if this would help much, but I have seen several employee timetables on a couple of railroads that show the basic track layout to detail the locations of spurs, sidings, yards, stations, etc. They aren’t precise elevations, but are designed to give operating crews a general idea of where everything is located.
Another source are railroad “profiles”, which are maps of the main tracks tha show the main track as a straight line across the page and note all the switches, sidings, some yard tracks or spurs, bridges, curves, overpasses, signal locations, and other information. They are sometimes found at historical societies, railroad paper dealers or e-Bay.