Portable Freight Rail maps

HooverDam · #1 Posted: **Jan 30, 2009, 6:54 PM**

Does anyone have a good suggestion on where one could find and purchase a map or book of maps that has all of the freight rail lines currently operating in the US? Specifically west of the Mississippi, and it would be helpful if it were fairly compact.

Sorry if this is a super stupid question but Ive done some googling and only seem to be finding historic maps.

Cirrus · #2 Posted: **Jan 30, 2009, 7:24 PM**

Do you have a printer?

I can email you one. I have a GIS layer with all the rail lines in the country.

HooverDam · #3 Posted: **Jan 30, 2009, 7:26 PM**

^Mines currently broken, but I have access to one. Send me a PM and Ill give you my email address.

WonderlandPark · #4 Posted: **Jan 31, 2009, 12:14 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Do you have a printer?

I can email you one. I have a GIS layer with all the rail lines in the country.

Then export it as a jpeg for all of us to see here....

sounds cool.

theWatusi · #5 Posted: **Jan 31, 2009, 12:46 AM**

west of the mississippi eh?

These are the big two:

UP

BNSF

theWatusi · #6 Posted: **Jan 31, 2009, 12:52 AM**

Hey just found this...might be helpful

http://cnebusiness.geomapguide.ca/

Cirrus · #7 Posted: **Jan 31, 2009, 5:31 PM**

HERE is the pdf I sent him.

Mr Downtown · #8 Posted: **Feb 13, 2009, 8:26 PM**

Cirrus's map, presumably from the USDOT 1:100K "railroads" coverage, has a number of problems for any serious railfan. There are a number of discontinuous segments, nothing is labeled, and most of the data appears to have been digitized from 1:100K topo sheets that are decades out of date. This is not to diminish his or her effort in projecting and exporting the PDF.

The regional atlases from Steam Powered Video are excellent.

I haven't seen these regional maps from Lone Mountain but they look promising.

At one time there was a map called "Railroads of the Continental United States" published by Railroad Information Service, but it no longer appears to be available.

Justin10000 · #9 Posted: **Feb 13, 2009, 9:39 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Do you have a printer?

I can email you one. I have a GIS layer with all the rail lines in the country.

I am assuming it's in .shp format? Do you have Rail lines in Canada too?

urbanfan89 · #10 Posted: **Feb 14, 2009, 2:19 AM**

This documents all the railways in Canada, though it is somewhat out of date: http://proximityissues.ca/english/maps1.cfm

jaybyrd21 · #11 Posted: **Jul 24, 2012, 3:06 AM**

Ruckmapping.com has a digital copy that can be opened in Google Earth of operating US freight rail. There is a fee, however.

llamaorama · #12 Posted: **Jul 24, 2012, 3:45 AM**

Quote:

The regional atlases from Steam Powered Video are excellent.

I own a US one and a Texas one. They are outdated now, but are usually really good.

IMO there are many things that are usually desirable in a rail atlas:

Labels for current and past owner of tracks
tunnels and bridges
abandoned tracks
differentiation between common standard gauge and electrified
a level of detail that shows every industrial lead or spur.
labels for yards, stations(actual passenger ones and on-paper ones known by rail dispatchers), control points, junctions, anything that's notable really. Both for that kind of railfan who owns a scanner or just people like us who probably read the Railroads.net forums to interpret the rail-speak like "The Glenwood sub between MP 141 past Rose Jct is getting double tracked".

A map of tracks is nice but nothing beats a really well put together collection of information.