STB Line Map Resource

[Blazeman]

Your taxes at work. For current day modelers, track the various main lines and branches.

https://stb.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41

[nkalanaga]

But beware:  It shows some lines that aren't there!  Or, at least, as far as I know there is no railroad running south from Durango, CO to the New Mexico line, and hasn't been for over 40 years.

[delamaize]

I think it shows abandonments also, Because it shows my Sub, The NP's Prairie line, which has been abandoned since the late 1980's, and the rails were pulled in the late 1990's....

[C855B]

Oh, lordy. That data is old.

Many years back I wrote mapping software that used core geodata sets from the USGS, which were generated by some poor soul(s) poring over topo maps with a digitizing puck. Topos were not updated all that often to begin with - 15 to 20 years was typical. Then, TIGER map datasets from the Census Bureau were generated from these USGS sources in 1990. Since the important stuff to them was address data - roads and streets - railroad data, already old, was taken as-is and not paid attention to. My software combined the USGS and TIGER data, but it still didn't help the RR accuracy.

So I sort of know the data, and am in no way surprised the railroad vector sets used in that interactive map show tracks gone for 30 or 40 years. My local reference is a line pulled up (completely!) in 1988, and it is on that map.

Your taxes at work. ...

Not at all. This is an amateur effort by an individual who doesn't (yet) understand that the baseline data requires correction and update, something the government doesn't necessarily see a pressing need to spend money to fix. Corrected data is already being sold by private companies, who take the core set and spend their money to fix it. If you've priced updated mapping data in the commercial, industrial and local government markets you get an idea of how expensive this correction is.

EDIT: Hell, this map shows the Milwaukee Road Western Extension, which was gone in 1982. Interesting map, maybe fun to peruse, but given that it's just RR lines with no other references other than random city names, and those RR lines haven't been updated since the 1960s or '70s, it's not much use as a reference.

[parkrrrr]

And even for tracks that still exist, it gets the ownership wrong. For example, it shows the CFER line through Fort Wayne as belonging to CSX. NS uses that line under contract, but I've never seen a CSX train here.

[wcfn100]

It also shows the ATSF track in Colorado Springs which was abandoned in '72.

Jason

[C855B]

Wow. This map shows the SP narrow gauge from Laws (Bishop, CA) to Keeler! It was abandoned in 1959. It keeps getting better.

The map might be interesting as a historic research vehicle, but I'm afraid the dates of the core data are all over... uh... the map.   Seriously, the topos used to build the base dataset each had their own dates, and these were never resolved in any uniform manner. Consider the map an interesting curiosity at best.

[eric220]

The map definitely shows abandoned lines. For the most part, the abandonments that I saw were color coded grey. I did find some errors, though. The SF BART Bay Point line is shown only as far as the Concord station. The extension to Bay Point, which opened in 1996, is not shown.