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

Moderators: MEC407, NHN503

 #1040931  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
F-line to Dudley via Park wrote: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.
Yuck...this month-old update's got new errata on it, too, in addition to all the uncorrected stuff.

-- OOS trackage on the Fall River Line from the docks to the state line has disappeared. MassCoastal's restoring this to within 1/2 mile of the border for a new customer.
-- All of the Mass EOT-owned landbanked lines have disappeared, both the trailed and untrailed ones (Adams Branch connecting the two active ends, Falmouth Branch to Woods Hole, the entire Framingham & Lowell). But all the ancient stuff that's been abandoned 70 years, reverted to property owners, barely traceable on a map is of course still there.
-- All of the demolished B&M yards in Boston are still showing. The old ones in Somerville showing as active PAR haven't been active in decades, were sold years ago, and have been razed for Assembly Square. And, no, that's not OOS MBTA track...that's Northpoint. Very poor showing, guys.
-- CSX Saxonville Branch is still showing as active.
-- Newburyport Branch, Danvers Branch, Hanover Branch, Saugus Branch, and M&L north of Lawrence-Methuen town line are all landbanked now, not OOS.
-- THE SOUTH COAST RAIL TRAIN STATIONS DON'T EXIST!!!! Get those green dots off there!
-- The T owns the Dedham Branch, the Franklin Industrial, the BRB&L (not "Unknown") and that section of M&L marked "Local". The EOT owns all those random isolated chunks of South Coast lines that are still in CSX color. And a chunk of the Watertown Branch. MassPort owns the Southie port tracks. The state owns the East Boston Branch tracks marked red. PAR sold off that chunk of abandoned track in Haverhill to the city. The Worcester Line transfer is complete.
-- CSX Readville Yard is in the wrong location. It's south of the station.
-- Tewksbury Branch is not OOS. It's long gone.
-- Southbridge Secondary is EOT-owned, not "Unknown". This was correct on the 2007 map...what gives?
-- (as mentioned) That private ROW in Western MA is a trolley interurban that's been gone for 90 years. Nicely preserved ROW...not a RR and never was.
-- Nothing unknown about the activity status of the Mansfield & Framingham from Norton to Mansfield Airport...D-E-A-D.
-- Abandoned south leg of the Grand Junction wye in Chelsea disappeared on this map. That's landbanked for the Urban Ring.
-- There is no fricking way PAR is paying property taxes on as much abandoned ROW as is shown on this map. Guilford couldn't get rid of those title deeds fast enough when it abandoned these lines.
-- That's really cute the Arborway trolley is still showing up as OOS.


This should be a very nice map. It's so much more comprehensive than most state maps with all the GIS data and landbankings and abandoned roadbeds. And I can understand if the privately-owned property has incomplete records. But is it too much to ask that the state verify its own property ownership and STB filings? How did this end up having more errors in it than the one they put out 5 years ago?
 #1041329  by BostonUrbEx
 
Are there no maps of Rhode Island? I even tried to Google for one, but nothing. I would think RIDOT would be all over making such a map!
 #1047656  by MEC407
 
I've updated the top post to remove the dead links for NH and MA, and replaced them with new links that are working as of this post (05-21-2012).
 #1188252  by MEC407
 
Thanks!
 #1216316  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
CDOT updated its state rail map again for second time this year (URL unchanged). Very different organization...color coding per line instead of owner, and gives the official descriptive name for each ROW segment active and landbanked. Advantages: Shows many more lines with extant operating charters than before, and the descriptive names are very helpful (especially when one line has multiple segments with different names). Drawbacks: no longer shows owner, operator, or distinguishes between active/non-active status. Which makes it frustratingly less useful as a route reference.


Ironically, the one and only extant-chartered ROW omitted from the map is the New Britain Secondary, home of the billion-dollar busway. See...it was always a busway. The railroad was just keeping it warm for a hundred years until the busway awesomeness could germinate and bloom like a beautiful fragrant flower. :wink:
 #1237238  by YamaOfParadise
 
Going to point to the map I've been constructing in google's mapengine from various resources. Largely done thanks to the NYNH&H's and the NYC's valuation maps, though for the NYC I only have valuation maps that are effectively more detailed system maps. The B&A's section in the NYC maps is smudged beyond being legible in many points, so I had to cross-reference the lines with NH's valuation maps, and the sytem maps I had for the CV and B&M. Most of the source maps I have are easily findable through google. The NYC valuation maps are as a cluster of them sorted my regions in four PDFs; the only relevent one to this forum is the East Division one, however, as the B&A was all the NYC had in New England.
 #1242319  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
CDOT finally reinstates its rail ownership map: http://www.ct.gov/dot/lib/dot/documents ... 5-2013.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


(This is opposed to its rail line map which makes no distinction between active and abandoned: http://www.ct.gov/dot/lib/dot/documents ... r36x24.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
 #1264240  by MEC407
 
Maine's rail map has been updated for 2014, and now lists CMQR where MMA used to be.

http://www.maine.gov/mdot/utilities/pdf/railmap.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 #1266185  by MEC407
 
Thanks, I updated the post on the first page.
 #1278196  by F-line to Dudley via Park
 
VTrans has posted a state rail speeds map: http://rail.vermont.gov/sites/railroads ... .2_web.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. First official map of that kind anywhere in New England.

Covers NECR (excluding St. Albans-E. Swanton and the Burlington Branch) and VRS only, and shows passenger speeds regardless of whether the line has passenger traffic. SLR, CMQR, CN, and PAS did not contribute data to the state. Interesting because it logs all slow spots on the Vermonter, and shows some of the upgrade progress on the Western Corridor from Rutland-Burlington in advance prep for the Ethan Allen extension.
 #1278265  by Watchman318
 
jlaliberte wrote: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.
Great find. I knew that place near Railroad Ave. in Bowdoinham had to have been a rail customer at one time, but a couple of the tracks are now mostly just traces in the weeds when looking at it in a satellite view.
Snooping around on the linked page, I discovered I can get an idea of the location of cell towers, too. (Don't ask why I feel i need to know that. ;-))
Thanks for that link.

For those who'd like a "hard copy" of a map, look here: <http://mainerailgroup.org/map.php>. The current issue is dated Jan. 2014. I have an older one on a bulletin board, and it's about 21" x 27" (counting its borders). They used to be available with some rugged lamination, and maybe still are.