My name is Rashawn since i was kid there was a Penn Central line that ran 87th and damen to 127th Eggleston the right of way has been abandoned and all the rails have been pulled up. If anbody can remeber the tracks crossed at 119th Halsted and there was an crossover with the metra electric. If anbody can help me , I need pics or maps or any info to help me recreate this old right of way I believe it was a branch line to connect with industries in the area.
Antbankks,
A good starting point is to go to MSN.com and look at maps of Chicago. These are satelite images and will show this ROW from a few years ago. Google earth is another but I use MSN.
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Chicago Collection should be at your public library in Chicago. You could call them and ask which branch has this map collection. This shows maps of all blocks of the city in different times. For Philadelphia these are roughly 1900, 1920, 1940, 1950 and even newer.
The maps show trackage and shows building outlines next to them. The building outline shows type of construction, number of floors, water tanks, and many other details.
I know that others who model Chicago have even more ideas!
Adding to what the previous poster suggested, if you want historical aerial photos or maps, I have found the best source of information to be Microsoft TerraServer:
http://terraserver-usa.com/
I just looked up the intersection of 87th Street and Damen Avenue in Chicago, IL and they have a topo map from 1978 on there, although it appears the railway line in question was removed by then (you can clearly see where it was, however). I have found the best site for current aerial images to be flashearth.com -- here is that same intersection:
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=41.735841&lon=-87.672867&z=15.5&r=0&src=msl
Jamie
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RDG1519 if you can further assist me please give my email address to anyone who is familiar with the sanborn collection because i need those maps I currently live in charleston, mo. I wanted to do the old Missori Pacific branch which ran through charleston missouri to serve the local grain elevators and a small freight depot the right of way was pulled up in 1994