See what's inside "Railroad Maps"

Think of our new publication “Railroad Maps” like a musician’s greatest hits album. We’ve taken your favorite maps from Trains magazine’s “Map of the Month” series, updated the modern-day ones with the latest information, and collected them all in one place.

Plus, we’ve prepared four new illustrations exclusively for “Railroad Maps.” The artwork you see here shows one of the new maps in progress: a detailed guide to the railroads of Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., prepared by Trains magazine’s contributing illustrator Bill Metzger.

If you’ve ever wondered what goes into creating a Map of the Month, here’s how we do it, using the Seattle map as an example.

First, we begin with topographic landforms (illustration 1) and decide how much area the map should cover, leaving room for insets, in case there are locations we want to emphasize in detail.

A second stage (illustration 2) shows all of the insets drawn in, plus all of the rail lines color-coded by operator.

Once all the lines are drawn in and labeled, we can fill out the space with fact boxes containing information on railroad history and operations (illustration 3), along with labels for all place names, interlocking names, and geographic features. The whole process can take a month or more.

“Railroad Maps” contains 45 detailed illustrations that help tell the story of North America’s railroad. For easy reference, we’ve divided the maps into four chapters.

Chapter 1 on “Railroad Mergers” has a map of each Class I railroad, with lines color-coded for major predecessors (illustration 4, below). We’ve updated all of these maps to 2013. We also have maps that show you what happened to some classic railroads from the past, including the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Milwaukee Road, the Southern Pacific, and an all-new map tracing what happened to the Burlington Route.

Plus, we’ve included the map Trains readers voted as their all-time favorite: a 3-page foldout showing the family trees of each Class I railroad, with more railroads added specifically for this new publication.

Chapter 2 on “Railroad Engineering” looks at tonnage, operations, and infrastructure. You’ll see maps that compare railroad tonnage form the 1980s and today, maps that compare how much double track the U.S. had in 1950 and how much it has today. We have a tonnage map of the CSX system (illustration 5, bottom). And you’ll discover the steepest grades and highest summits of 50 historic U.S. railroads, which of today's U.S. rail lines are protected with signaling systems such as centralized traffic control or automatic train stop, and which routes are subject to the worst weather in the U.S.

Chapter 3 on “Railroad Places” contains our new map of Seattle, along with maps of other important railroad gateways, such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, plus an all-time guide to Union Pacific’s mountain crossing of Sherman Hill.

Chapter 4 looks at “Railroad Commodities,” both freight and passenger. We compare U.S. intermodal yards by volume, locate the top coal mines and power plants in the U.S., untangle trackage in the phosphate-producing region of Florida and the wheat-growing provinces of Canada, plus compare coal traffic out of Wyoming through the 2000s.

In addition our passenger maps compare the number of passenger trains running just before Amtrak with the Amtrak system of May 1, 1971 and the system of 2013. You’ll find trains-per-day map of passenger and commuter operations on the East and West coasts, and discover where U.S. passenger trains run the fastest. We also trace the historic routes of North America's dome-equipped streamliners and the extent of brand-name fleets such as Missouri Pacific's Eagles and Rock Island's Rockets.

You can find “Railroad Maps” on newsstands that carry Trains, or order your copy today for $9.95 (we’ll throw in free delivery) by clicking here.

What’s your favorite Trains magazine map? Tell us below!