New York State Railroad Map!

No sign of the Kingston portion of the CMRR.

Has the NYSW between Sangerfiled (sic) and Chenango Forks been officially abandoned? It's OOS, yes, but then again, the Newton Falls branch of the MHWA is also OOS as is the LBR.

In a more perfect world, you would have OOS track colored in a different color, and formally abandoned but still existing track in a different color yet. I'm not holding my breath waiting for perfection, so you can take your time.

Nitpick: The line running from Sanford (now known as Calcium) onto Fort Drum is a government-owned property, although CSX does provide the service.

RussNelson wrote:No sign of the Kingston portion of the CMRR.

Has the NYSW between Sangerfiled (sic) and Chenango Forks been officially abandoned? It's OOS, yes, but then again, the Newton Falls branch of the MHWA is also OOS as is the LBR.

In a more perfect world, you would have OOS track colored in a different color, and formally abandoned but still existing track in a different color yet. I'm not holding my breath waiting for perfection, so you can take your time.

Mia culpa on the CMRR in Kingston.

The NYS&W went through the STB and obtained a formal discontinuance of service in 2008, which allows the railroad to abandon service, but does not permit salvage of the tracks. Neither MHWA or LBR have taken those formal steps to cease service (which is not to imply that the tracks are passable.)

The issue of how to show OOS vs. abandoned is always difficult. Part of the issue resolves around having the resources to follow up on the abandoned lines to determine when the tracks come out. For this edition, I punted and changed the legend!!!

tree68 wrote:Nitpick: The line running from Sanford (now known as Calcium) onto Fort Drum is a government-owned property, although CSX does provide the service.

I discussed this in relation to earlier maps, but I'll repeat it here. The map depicts what railroad operates the rail line. If right-of-way ownership were shown instead, you would find very unusual results, such as all of Metro-North's operations east of the Hudson River being owned by Midtown TDR Ventures, LLC and many upstate shorlines owned by county industrial development authorities.

RAy

nyswray wrote:Mia culpa on the CMRR in Kingston.

Your penance shall be to volunteer for them one weekend! Hard work affixes a memory.

The NYS&W went through the STB and obtained a formal discontinuance of service in 2008, which allows the railroad to abandon service, but does not permit salvage of the tracks. Neither MHWA or LBR have taken those formal steps to cease service (which is not to imply that the tracks are passable.)

Which generates the odd result that better tracks are abandoned while worse tracks are still "in service". But you need to have some criteria.

The issue of how to show OOS vs. abandoned is always difficult. Part of the issue resolves around having the resources to follow up on the abandoned lines to determine when the tracks come out. For this edition, I punted and changed the legend!!!

Well, sure, that's where the value of VGI (Volunteered Geographical Information) comes in. Professional geographers can have doubts about the quality, but on the other hand there's OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia as existance proof that volunteers can do good work. Would you have been able to include all the abandoned railroads in New York State without my work? Not likely. Not because you lack the skill or the interest; simply because your employer is not likely to want you to go so far afield from your mission.

The newest SPV RR Atlas has all them lines in it now.

What a great resource! I have a couple of related questions:

1. I know CSX would be opposed to revived commuter service on the West Shore for reasons stated here many times before, and the proposal has never really advanced. My question is did the Piermont branch ever physically connect to the West Shore? How much of that is intact? IS that the one that runs due north of Spring Valley, or is it the stretch continuing north where the PV line takes a west turn. Where does the old "Northern Branch" I've heard NJT wants to revive come into NYS?

2. Regarding the West Shore, CSX has an active branch off of it running south from Newburgh with an abandoned stretch connecting to the PJ line north of Harriman. It appears this is a short stretch. How realistic would it be to reactivate this, and run passenger service to Newburgh, minimizing the impact on the West Shore? Is this what they are considering using for Stewart AFB? It seems like you could serve Kingston and maybe New Paltz, too?

3. I think regardless of whether or not TZB rail service ever comes into existence, the PV line should be extended over the Piermont to Suffern.

4. It's nice to see the Put in there. I was wondering about the lower portion of it. It seem the spike that starts in the N Bronx and heads toward Yonkers is the Getty Sq branch? However, there's also a spike that comes off just above that branch towards it heading South. The two do not seem to connect. I know at one point there was an alternate routing of the Put through the Rockefeller estate, but this doesn't seem to be it, nor does that appear to be in there. Also, wasn't there a branch of the Put to an industrial concern north of the Getty Sq branch? Not sure where that is, either. I know these are hard to represent in this scale, so I am certainly not criticizing, just curious and wondering if my memory is still serving me well.

RussNelson wrote:Well, sure, that's where the value of VGI (Volunteered Geographical Information) comes in. Professional geographers can have doubts about the quality, but on the other hand there's OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia as existance proof that volunteers can do good work. Would you have been able to include all the abandoned railroads in New York State without my work? Not likely. Not because you lack the skill or the interest; simply because your employer is not likely to want you to go so far afield from your mission.

Your work has been very helpful in identifying abandoned lines that were missing from the map (and there are still a few you have that are missing from mine and vice versa), but in no case did we copy your line work directly into the NYSDOT data set. We have used it as a general guide, in combination with high resolution aerial photos, county real estate parcel data, old USGS maps, Sanborn Fire insurance maps, and railroad valuation maps to try to get the line work as accurate as possible (our data is at a scale of 1:2000). Preparing this map (and the GIS data behind it) is a labor of love for a few individuals (myself included), and most of the work on the abandoned lines occurs on off hours.

RussNelson wrote:No sign of the Kingston portion of the CMRR.

I can understand why the CMRR-Kingston segment might not appear, since it's open been opened in the last year or so (and its only a little more than a mile), but the CMRR Mount Pleasant-Cold Brook section has been open for a couple of years now... but maybe no one reported it to the DOT for inclusion? It does add three miles to the map, however. I'm not losing any sleep over it, though. Hopefully the data can be added for the next edition.



-otto-

All this info and maps are very informative / thanks to all.

nyswray wrote:Preparing this map (and the GIS data behind it) is a labor of love for a few individuals (myself included), and most of the work on the abandoned lines occurs on off hours.

AHA! I knew it! So you in fact ARE as crazy as me! I just want the best possible map of railroads in New York State, and I want it to be available to all railroad historians. Is there any way we can collaborate more closely?

My own system for map-making just uses a bunch of lines, with no more structure than that. My system has no good way to make a switch, for example. It doesn't have a good metadata system (I never metadata I didn't like). So I've decided to move all my railbed data over into OpenStreetMap, so that it will be accessible to everyone, both to fetch and use, and to contribute to.

Don't get me started in the applicability of GIS systems to cartography!

One of the things I've REALLY wanted to have is a way for non-cartographers to contribute their information about the current state of railbeds. My system just wouldn't work for that, but OpenStreetMap can ... if I put an appropriate interface on it.

RussNelson wrote:

nyswray wrote:Preparing this map (and the GIS data behind it) is a labor of love for a few individuals (myself included), and most of the work on the abandoned lines occurs on off hours.

AHA! I knew it! So you in fact ARE as crazy as me! I just want the best possible map of railroads in New York State, and I want it to be available to all railroad historians. Is there any way we can collaborate more closely?

I don't think the NYSDOT map is made with historians in mind, and that the abandoned railroad data is just there for context. The map is really meant as a tool for transportation planners to focus on active and current operations. The fact that the abandoned lines are on there at all is a nice touch.

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:

RussNelson wrote:

nyswray wrote:Preparing this map (and the GIS data behind it) is a labor of love for a few individuals (myself included), and most of the work on the abandoned lines occurs on off hours.

AHA! I knew it! So you in fact ARE as crazy as me! I just want the best possible map of railroads in New York State, and I want it to be available to all railroad historians. Is there any way we can collaborate more closely?

I don't think the NYSDOT map is made with historians in mind, and that the abandoned railroad data is just there for context. The map is really meant as a tool for transportation planners to focus on active and current operations.

Please forgive, but I'm a dreamer. Where the railroads once went, railroads could go again. Well, not *everywhere*, but of course given other GIS data that NYS has available to it, AND a map of abandoned railroads, a transportation planner could find the railbeds most likely to be reusable ... as utility ROWs (e.g. in Freeville the Ontario Midland Auburn Branch is now a wastewater line), or as trails (best place to put an environmentally degrading activity like ATVs or to a lesser degree snowmobiles is on land that's already compromised), or (dare I say it??? I dare! I dare!) new railroads.

RussNelson wrote: a transportation planner could find the railbeds most likely to be reusable ... as utility ROWs (e.g. in Freeville the Ontario Midland Auburn Branch is now a wastewater line),..... or (dare I say it??? I dare! I dare!) new railroads.

Ontario Midland never ran far outside of Wayne County. I believe the branch line you refer to in Freeville, was the NY,Ontario and Western (NYO&W), or the "Old & Weary". It ran through Groton, Moravia and Owasco as it approached Auburn. Later the LV took over these lines, and abandoned the Auburn Branch between Moravia and Auburn.

What is the history of the line in Niagara County, it runs from Lewiston to the Falls Road (around Cambria). It seems to bypass the Indian Reservation. It's preplexing as I have never seen it before. Any information? Also, why are'nt any interurbans included?

Flat-Wheeler wrote:

RussNelson wrote: a transportation planner could find the railbeds most likely to be reusable ... as utility ROWs (e.g. in Freeville the Ontario Midland Auburn Branch is now a wastewater line),..... or (dare I say it??? I dare! I dare!) new railroads.

Ontario Midland never ran far outside of Wayne County. I believe the branch line you refer to in Freeville, was the NY,Ontario and Western (NYO&W), or the "Old & Weary". It ran through Groton, Moravia and Owasco as it approached Auburn. Later the LV took over these lines, and abandoned the Auburn Branch between Moravia and Auburn.

I think Russ is referring to the New York & Oswego Midland RR, the forerunner of the NY&OW.