I finally finished cleaning my office this weekend and I found a nice 36" x 48" US railway wall map.
I put the map on the wall just above my desk. What really amazes me is the lack of railroad lines in the west compared to the east. I am a map freak, but never really noticed the difference between east of Kansas City and west. Been spoiled I guess by living in the midwest where there were tracks every 5 or 10 miles, both east west and north south.
Ok, I understand there is nothing earth shattering in my ‘discovery’. I havent found the cure for global warming, AIDS, or world poverty, but the patterns of economic flow are very well defined by a look at a railroad map.
To restate the obvious, resources, population, and transportation networks are all inter-related.
There are stretches out west you can drive 150-200 miles on a “Main” artery/highway, not even a freeway, without traffic lights. And darn near without gas or potty stops…(and some places without large rocks or trees…)
A few years ago we drove US 50 west from Ely, NV. Billed as the loneliest highway in the country…at one spot, it seemed like the road ran 50 miles straight as an arrow, with nothing along the side of the road…
Some of the same factors confuse our congress…in discussions about leasing BLM lands for cattle, a few years ago, some legislators wanted to charge the same per acre in New Mexico for grazing cows, as they do in more verdant areas. Never mind that in New Mexico, grazing population is expressed in Acres per Cow, not cows per acre…
Thisis a decidedly male trait and may explain why males are less likely to ask for directions. They drive around until something looks like what they saw on the map.[:D]
I always enjoyed the maps of railroads that could be found in public timetables. In the 1950s, there were four railroads providing Chicago to St.Louis travel: Gulf Mobile & Ohio (ex Alton), IC (Illinois Central), Wabash, and C&EI (Chicago & Eastern Illinois). Each road used, on their maps, an almost straight line between the two cities as if there wasn’t a curve nor a dog-leg to be encountered for the nearly 300 miles. The tracks were not on top of each other, nor were they hardly adjacent.
I suspect drawing railroad maps for the railroads in a unique art form.
I, too, enjoy looking and looking and looking at maps.
…Chalk up another one who likes to gaze over a map…and especially one with railroads on it.
Ed, if you fly west of Chicago {perhaps you know}, you will after a half hour or so see why there are minimal railroad tracks beyond…Everything thins out…People and “things” and places of business, or much of anything else except grazing and farm land…
Clear different out east…{my home territory}, which has population scrunched on top one another compared to out on the plains, etc…so obviously less of transportation arteries are {were}, built and needed.
Branch lines were built to most of small towns 100 years ago and that added up to many in the east producing rail lines all over the place. Plus branch lines to thousands of coal mines in same area…
Beyond looking where all the rail lines were {or are}, on a map I really enjoy seeking out where they were actually in reality…An on site look.
I was looking at an area of an abandoned B&O coal hauler just this past week on Google Images. The line had 4 horseshoe curves almost end to end in an area just northwest of Friedens, Pa…The line was abandoned in the 40’s and much of it is still visible…Quite easy on the Google Maps…{Images}.
I agree with Art and others on the distortion of maps. The old OG’s had great maps, except they were basically distorted to give the individual road the appearance of a superior route.
Another regional carrier other than TPW with distortion is the :Missouri Illinois Railroad. Check it out! It appears that 2/3 of the state of Illinois exists below St. Louis. No make that 3/4.
EJE was pretty accurate. Of course when you are the “Outer Belt” how could it be a straight line from Waukegan to Gary via Elgin, Joliet, and the Heights?
Isnt it amazing there is not a rail line, except for a couple of isolated lines, between the BNSF Transcon line in Arizona and the UP ex Rio Grande line several hundred miles north in Colorado? That is about 280 to 300 miles.
Is the UP using the Rio Grande route for much traffic these days? Is it mainly coal? or do they run merchandise (boxcar or intermodals) on the route?
It is obvious that the UP owns the Central corridor of the Western United States with BNSF controlling the northern tier. Who has the better franchise? Would you prefer to have the BNSF’s or UP’s routes west of a line from Kansas City/Twin Cities?
Looking at things now, the Milwaukee route would have fit in well in the Up system and the Rio Grande/WP route with BNSF. However, as we know, there are no re-dealing in the merger activity.
If you were to partial out the lines west…in other words you are US Railroad czar, how would you divide the lines?
MP173, sometime take a look at the railroads that once criss-crossed the SW Wisconsin quadrant, and take a look at a current map. You’d be shocked at the miles of track that have been pulled up and scrapped through abandonments over the years.
I too am a map junkie. I have MicroSoft Streets & Trips road maps on my laptop and use it to find rail lines. A click turns a map into an aerial photo.
Same with Railroad Map, which shows all rail lines in the U.S. and provides information like current operator, which RRs have trackage rights, historical ownership and density so when I watch trains away from home I can find the busiest lines. Plus, a click will transform the screen view into an aerial photograph.
Ever notice that on the topographic maps that the old rail lines are still mentioned? I have a Delorme Atlas that still shows the WM (abandoned) along the Yough River, still listing the tracks that are active as the B&O. The map was purchesed new 2 years ago to get the back roads for railfanning and fishing. Any older one might be able to show the original rail lines. Just my 2 cents worth.
…Squeeze…And the WM you note is now active as a Trail as you probably know…Have walked over the great steel Salisbury Viaduct there near Meyersdale, Pa. on that former WM route. So glad the route has been “saved”. Viaduct roughly 2000’ long and 100’ high. Now has beautiful concrete floor and great chain link fence for safety. Beautiful view from up on it…
April 1986 issue. I didn’t have a copy until good forum buddy JeffHergert sent me a copy, which I keep stored away in the envelope he sent it in.
For quite some time now I’ve been keeping an eye on the DeLorme Atlas of Iowa, and have noticed that until this past year, it showed highway and track routes from around 2000. Now it’s been updated to 2005, so I would surmise from that that they update each state every five years or so.
I’m going to do an independent study class on creating a map of the change in the rail infrastructure here in Norman, OK over time. It should be interesting, going from one track, to building a yard, an interurban line, sidings for industry, and eventually getting back down to one track again. The map of the month is the first thing I turn to when I get my new issue of Trains every month.
I, too, enjoy maps of all sorts (they definitely have the edge over asking for directions!), and concur with all of the comments made so far about the fascinations of timetables, Official Guides, and the DeLorme atlases (Brian, I carried Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska with me on our trip last October).
I think the SPV series of railroad atlases is a must-have for any map-oriented railfan–at least get the ones of the areas you’re interested in (I had three of those along with me, too–because Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska are each in a different volume!).
I think that a lot of my basic knowledge of railroads was obtained from maps at one time or another, and I suspect that it gives me a bit of advantage over some of my coworkers at times. Most of the hump conductors, and a lot of the yardmasters have little or no idea where Stanley, Selkirk, or Conway are–yet we are blocking cars for these places every day. I even had a conductor tell me that Omaha and North Platte were right next to each other!
I have never really considered purchasing since I have about 30 Official Guides in my possession. Plus, I like to collect the DOT maps of each state…those usually have the railroads listed. My favorite is a 1945 Indiana map. Things have changed a bit since then!
On the wall of my office are the following:
The aforementioned US Railroad map.
1991 Illinois DOT map (it was put up when I started my sales career and had to plan trips)
Chicago Terminal Distric Map (CORA), which is a great detailed map of the Chicago area.
These three maps are covering wallpaper…which is a world map the entire wall.
What time frame are you looking at? If you’re talking about the present, I’d say your original comment is, sadly, right. Things are too far gone in the west to rearrange. If there was a second northern transcon in the form of either ex-NP or MILW trackage I (as RR Czar) would have split the D&RGW and WP lines from the UP as a condition of the SP merger and allowed them to go to the BNSF, then allowed the additional northern line to the UP. As it was, I was a little surprised that the BNSF didn’t push for more at the time. Even if they didn’t want a central corridor route, I’d have thought they might have gone for ownership of the WP west of Keddie to own their own Pacific Coast route.
Now, push the time frame back to, say, the early 1970’s-with the MILW still intact-and you have another set of possibilities. 1960, with the Rock Island still in one piece and the BN not yet and things get even more interesting. Care to jump back to the Depression? Or the USRA in WWI? (I know, I know, we can go all the way back to 1826 and just call everything the Baltimore & Ohio.)