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  • New England State Rail Maps

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England

Moderators: MEC407, NHN503

 #449717  by NHN503
 
Last edited by MEC407 on Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:32 pm, edited 9 times in total. Reason: updated CT and VT
 #452161  by sullboat
 
I thought folks might like to see some historical maps, for comparison:

Maine, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/Maine_1895.jpg

New Hampshire, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/nh_1895.jpg

Vermont, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/vt_1895.jpg
 #964320  by openlens
 
I've been looking at the track diagrams / mp in timetables. Very handy. Does VRS have an timetables? Haven't seen any mention of them.
 #976077  by StewartP
 
sullboat wrote:I thought folks might like to see some historical maps, for comparison:

Maine, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/Maine_1895.jpg

New Hampshire, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/nh_1895.jpg

Vermont, 1895: http://www.sullboat.com/vt_1895.jpg
Cool - love to compare the historical maps to present day.
 #979521  by BostonUrbEx
 
Ian MacMillan wrote:Massachusetts
JPG: http://www.massfreightandrailplan.com/m ... tewide.jpg
PDF: http://www.massfreightandrailplan.com/m ... tewide.pdf
This domain has expired; should probably be replaced with this PDF, courtesy of pumpers's post: http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/ ... htRail.pdf
 #1014369  by jlaliberte
 
Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have online GIS rail data that can be loaded into Google Earth as KML files, making exploration quite a bit easier than with the black lines of the default railroad layer which cannot be changed. The data itself seems to have varying levels of completeness or accuracy, CT has quite a bit omitted, Maine seems to have more.

Maine Down towards the bottom under "Transportation Networks".

Connecticut. Towards the bottom, there are a couple different KML files to choose from.

The Massachusetts Google Earth format data is available through its OLIVER GIS viewer. The viewer itself is rather slow and clunky. In order to download a rail KML, select and activate the "Railroads by Type of Service" layer under Infrastructure > Trains > Railroads folder at the right. Then hit the "Launch the Data Export Wizard" button on the top toolbar. At step four select Google Earth under the "Vector data output options" and give the file a name. Complicated but I think its worth it.

Load the files in GE, then right click them under Places, go to properties, and change the color settings to something more visible. For some reason doing that to the Mass. data causes pin icons and labels to show up, so I set their size as 0 to get rid of them.
 #1035613  by MaineCoonCat
 
jlaliberte wrote:Then hit the "Launch the Data Export Wizard" button on the top toolbar.
If you don't see this button, you need to hide the "Available Data Layers" pane by clicking on the >> in
the upper right corner.
 #1040712  by MaineCoonCat
 
jlaliberte wrote:The Massachusetts Google Earth format data is available through its OLIVER GIS viewer. The viewer itself is rather slow and clunky. In order to download a rail KML, select and activate the "Railroads by Type of Service" layer under Infrastructure > Trains > Railroads folder at the right. Then hit the "Launch the Data Export Wizard" button on the top toolbar. At step four select Google Earth under the "Vector data output options" and give the file a name. Complicated but I think its worth it.
Looking at the viewer, and in Google Earth, is that a segment of the Milford & Uxbridge street railway line shown running southwesterly off the G & U just northwest of the Bancroft Park grade crossing in Hopedale?
 #1040753  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
papabarn wrote:
jlaliberte wrote:The Massachusetts Google Earth format data is available through its OLIVER GIS viewer. The viewer itself is rather slow and clunky. In order to download a rail KML, select and activate the "Railroads by Type of Service" layer under Infrastructure > Trains > Railroads folder at the right. Then hit the "Launch the Data Export Wizard" button on the top toolbar. At step four select Google Earth under the "Vector data output options" and give the file a name. Complicated but I think its worth it.
Looking at the viewer, and in Google Earth, is that a segment of the Milford & Uxbridge street railway line shown running southwesterly off the G & U just northwest of the Bancroft Park grade crossing in Hopedale?
Yeah, there's lots of kooky old things showing up on that map...like the old trolley interurban in Becket, Otis, and Blandford. Or the old Fitchburg RR roadbed in Royalston. And incorrect ownership on some things like abandoned lines and the blotches of CSX red still existing on the South Coast lines.

Map really needs some cleanup. I'm a little disappointed that the 2012 update (http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/ ... tewide.pdf) still has a lot of the same errors as the 2007 version.