Have you ever wanted to trace an abandoned ROW on a mapping website, especially ones that have been gone for decades? Have you hit dead ends or lost the trail? I found a map that traces the abandoned lines across the country--not sure how accurate it is, as it is crowdsourced, and subject to inaccuracies, especially where development and highways have wiped out the original ROWs. Enjoy! https://www.frrandp.com/p/the-map.html
Great find! Moose found a couple of other websites: Open Railway Map: Description: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenRailwayMap Website: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/ The Mississippi Rails: This website has .KMZ files depicting various railroads that you can download to use in Google Earth. Looks like a one human effort! Database of .KMZ files: http://www.msrailroads.com/Google_earth.htm Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/ Google Import Help: https://support.google.com/earth/answer/7365595?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop
Excellent additions here, Moose! I'll add Rail Guide, an Android app I use: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.railguide.rg_free&hl=en_US&gl=US You can see historical (fallen flags) as well as modern day lines, mileposts, subdivision names, etc. Here's a couple screenshots.
It's sketchy in places for sure. He's got the Carolinas covered pretty well and other southeastern states too. It must be a lot of work to research and populate these sites.
Thinking of old lines, I came across this book today, given to me by a late friend. It was published by Kalmbach in 1944, one of a 16 book series on U.S. railroads. It's 14" x 10-1/4" with 20 pages of really nice photos, including a number of long-gone shortlines. Being a war year, I was surprised by its 1944 publishing date.
