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Trains GIS Mapping:

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  • Member since
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  • From: Denver / La Junta
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Trains GIS Mapping:
Posted by mudchicken on Sunday, March 10, 2019 11:11 PM

Dear Mssrs. Styffe & Johnson....

I know a little bit of artistic license is allowed, but for pete sakes...the historical 1945 sketch on pages 31-35 of the April 2019 issue is stretching it.

(1) Colorado Midland from Leadville to Basalt was State Hwy 105 by 1924. The Aspen Branch was a county road by 1922. (CM, Glenwood to Newcastle would be another story from 1965-75)

(2) What about the Cimmarron Cuttoff wh was still there until '42 with Farley to Colmor incomplete.?

(3) The AV District Branches (Hawley, Fenton, Big Bend, and May Valley? (plus the too small to show Las Animas and Lamar connections)

(4) The Florence to Canon City branches ....for that matter the Stone City Br that ATSF got at the failure of Colorado-Kansas-RR

(5) SFR&E*, NMC, NWP, CaSou and the other pieces that ATSF had their fingers in? (like StL-KC that became CRIP)

(*) Cluster of branches at Raton, Hot Springs Br (LV), Madrid/Cerrillos Branch et al

The mapping does not support the storyline in other places. Geez.

....and then there were all the busted dreams.....(like the busted line from Canon City to past Salida)

I imagine Diningcar can add to the list.

 

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
  • Member since
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  • From: Kenosha, WI
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Posted by zardoz on Monday, March 11, 2019 5:56 PM

Precision Scheduled Reporting.

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Posted by tree68 on Monday, March 11, 2019 6:17 PM

They should get in touch with some of the folks who post on the Abandoned Rails FB page.  They seem to be pretty good at finding obscure lines to post pictures of (or at least, where they were).

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by Convicted One on Monday, March 11, 2019 6:32 PM

mudchicken
The mapping does not support the storyline in other places. Geez.

I've often found that irritating in past issues. There will be a nice feature article accompanied by a nice map, but you'll have (some) locations mentioned as an integral part of the article that are not shown on the map.   Grumpy

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Posted by Bruce Kelly on Monday, March 11, 2019 10:31 PM

When I submitted my first articles to rail magazines in the early 1980s, whatever reference maps I mailed in with the package had my notations on them indicating locations that were pertinent to the story and necessary to be included on whatever map their artists produced. Some magazines where better than others when it came to carrying that info through onto the published map.

During my time as Associate Editor at Railfan & Railroad, 1988-1996, it was standard procedure for Editor Jim Boyd to hand me a copy of the text and photo captions for each of the next issue's feature articles. I would then make sure the locations mentioned in the author's writing wound up on the maps I drew in pencil, and those drawings then got handed off to artist Walk Lankenau.

While Walt perfected those maps in pen & ink, I would typeset all of the map "callouts" (names and identifiers for cities, towns, sidings, geographic landmarks, tunnels or bridges worth noting, etc.). The galley sheets of those callouts were then run through a waxer, and I had the honor of hunching over one of the tables in our art room for hours, trimming each of those callouts from the sheet with an X-Acto knife, placing and aligning them on Walt's final maps, and then locking all of those callouts into place with a couple passes of a rolling wheel. Then off to the printer with the rest of our page layout art boards to be captured on film, exposed onto plates, and brought to life as ink on paper through the modern miracle known as the offset web press.

Ahh, the joys of magazine production in the days before we all went to desktop (computer) design and digital imaging. Back then, as it should be now, we made every effort to produce maps that showed the locations mentioned in the story and photo captions. Not just for the sake of the average reader, but for anyone who might hit the road with one of our stories in hand and go off to railfan that featured place for themselves.

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