So exactly which cities will get trackside guides done on them?

[Anonymous]

Thought it might be fun to speculate which locations are on the official list of cities that Trains will do a trackside guide for. I read somewhere that 40 will be done, but not sure if that meant 40 total or 40 after the ones that had already been done at the time of the question.

Anyway, here's my guess, in no particular order:

1 Vancouver
2 Seattle
3 Portland (easy guess)
4 Sacramento/Bay Area(neither has enough by themselves, but perhaps a supersized geographic area would suffice)
5 LA
6 Denver
7 Omaha (another easy one)
8 Dallas-Fort Worth
9 Houston
10 New Orleans
11 Memphis
12 St. Louis
13 KC (too big for a guide? How about an entire issue? Since everythings up to date in Kansas City, they might as well go about as far as they can go.)
14 Twin Cities (sticking my neck out)
15 Milwaukee
16 Chicago (Does that entire issue count as such?)
17 Detroit (taking candy from a baby)
18 Toledo
19 Cincinnati (I'm post-clairvoyant)
20 Birmingham
21 Atlanta
22 Jacksonville
23 Charlotte (reach out to catch Hamlet, Salisbury, and the Clinchfield)
24 Baltimore
25 NYC area
26 Montreal
27 Toronto
28 Buffalo-Niagara
29 Pittsburgh
30 Cleveland

Now it gets more interesting

31 The most obvious is a Central Ohio. Columbus is somewhat sparse by itself, but kick in Fostoria, Deshler, Marion, Willard, and Greenwich, and you've got one of the best. Perhap combine with Toledo for a super Ohio issue, or split off Fostoria and Deshler to Toledo)
32 Central TX - San Antonio/San Marcos/Temple/Taylor/Hearne/Flatonia/Navasota - geographically one of the biggest, but SA is too sparse by itself, and the UP one-way streets make this conglomeration of lines and junctions suprisingly interesting, along with a variety of shortlines and big time rock traffic (a undercovered story unto itself)
33 Tennessee Triangle (Chattanooga-Nashville-Knoxville)
34 S. Indiana (Lousville-Evansville-Princeton-Indy)

The rest are kinda marginal, compared to the above, but still worthy IMHO:

35 Shreveport-Texarkana
36 Tidewater-Richmond and Norfolk combined
37 DC(really should be combined with Baltimore, otherwise each is a bit sparse, unless perhaps one goes wide to include the B-Line and Hagerstown-Roanoke line)
38 Philadelphia-Allentown (Philly is freight-starved, but passenger variety and history)
39 Salt Lake City (pretty much a one horse town, but enough route variety, Salt Lake causeway, Soldier Summit)
40 Harrisburg-Central PA (another one horse town, but shortlines and tourists lines)

Bonus 41 Winnepeg (hey, we're not exactly saturated with Winnepeg coverage)

Sorry Boston, but not enough freight. Man cannot live on MBTA alone.
Sorry Mexico, but it is still just too much of a risk to fan there yet.
Sorry Tampa, Phoenix, Miami, but there just ain't sufficient volume. Enough already with the overhyped Bone Valley, seeing it once is plenty.

So there's my 41. How close am I? Since this is so subjective, anyone else have a better list?


OBTW, 40 at 4 per year is 10 years. Would absolutely love to see that sped up to 6 per year.

[bowlerp]

Twin Cities a good guess, if published before NRHS convention there in late June of 2004. It would be too logical to have it out on the newstands or in homes by may or early June in time for trip planning. Maybe northern Ohio should be a combined issue including Akron and Cleveland, possibly Canton na dKent, but certianly out as far west as Berea and as far east as 150th street.

[Mikeygaw]

i would like to see Philly, especially since i live there. Oh, and in no way are we freight starved! There are many different spots to see freight trains from CSX and NS, you just have to know where to look.

[Anonymous]

Baltimore sparse? Let's see: 4 major rail yards (Bayview NS & Bayside CSX, Jessup CSX, Curtis Bay CSX), 5 railroads, major Amtrak station, at least 6 minor yards (Canton/PannMary, Mt. Clare A,B,C,&D, Mt. Winans, Amtrak Penn Yard, Greys Yard). One large museum, and 2 small. CSX Old Main Line, CSX Philly Sub, CSX Washington Sub, Amtrak NEC shared by NS, a belt line, MARC a booming commuter operation, light rail (double tracking program underway), Baltimore Subway, Canton RR line & Coal Pier. Baltimore Marine Terminal, Seagert Marine terminal. Patapsco & Back River RR. And that's just the city proper; there's more to see in the surrounding area: NS Port Road, CSX Brunswick Yard, Harpers Ferry, Maryland Midland RR, etc. Sparse indeed! Nor would I call Philadelphia "freight starved." Have you ever been to these places, or read any recent stats? And Mexico isn't much more risky than any givin American city; like anything, the risk rises and falls depending on how much homework is done beforehand. Hundreds of thousands of elderly Aericans have retired to Mexico in order to max out their pension money; if they can do it, I imagine a younger railfan could go there and live to tell the tale; I know I did. Baltimore, Philly, and D.C. aren't the railroad towns they once were, very few places are, but we do see a train or two every now and then.

[Anonymous]

If you don't mind having almost all UP action, I found Little Rock to have quite a lot to offer, at least in terms of interest, photography, and train volume. And it could use a trackside guide ... although maybe it could get lumped in with Texarkana or Memphis.

[Anonymous]

I would love to see a track side guide for Akron Oh. CSX running through the center of town. An amtrak that runs through in the early morning hours. Two shortlines (Wheeling and Lake Erie, and Akron Barberton Belt). Plus a Norfolk Southern. Less then fifteen minutes away. There's many pristine places to take pictures along the mainlines, plus two decent side yards. Just something I'd like to see but If you drive an hour you have cleveland which has larger yards and more traffic.
Andy

[JDV5th]

I'm stuck in Western Michigan, which is a great place to live, but due to Michigan's geography and the east/west flow of traffic across the country, we don't get much through traffic. Train watching here is a little on the sparse side. Can't wait til my kids get older and use the guides to take some road trips.

[Anonymous]

What about Oklahoma City or even Tulsa, OK? We have three of the biggest railroads BNSF, U.P., Amtrak, and a handful of shortlines! Plus not to mention the rail history we have here, what with the Rock Island, MKT, Frisco, and ATSF!!!

BNSF ALL THE WAY!!!

[Anonymous]

I know Buffalo will have one done as I know the guy who's working on it (Steve Koenig who regularly sends pictures to Trains and is editor of the NY state column in Railpace) and the guys who are helping him with maps and other items. All I know is that it will be thoroughly done and most importantly done correctly with the correct info. Can't wait to see it in the magazine although it won't help me as most of us around here know where everything is and such (we're a tight knit railfan community here in Buffalo).

[Anonymous]

Omaha..No way,never happen.....[#dots].
BNSFfan.

[Anonymous]

I wouldnt mind seeing a Milwaukee trackside guide done.

[Anonymous]

To JDV5th: If my memory is right, I know of a lot of Grand Trunk and IC and CP and other roads that pass through The wetern edges of Chicago and go around to the south of it to continue eastward and around the curve of Lake Michigan to head northward. There has to be a place to find what you are looking for. One good place to look is in: RailroadData.com it has over 5000 different webs to search for what you might be looking for. Try it, and have fun. Yours truly, ralph zimmer [e-mail]