All the Rail Lines in the US for TransDEM

[hminky]

Found this reference over on Elvas Tower Forum:

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...l_transportation_atlas_database/2014/polyline

Download Railway Network, the file has all the routes in the US in a .shp file.

In TransDEM load the DEM of your desired railroad area and the under Routes load the .shp file.

All the railroading in Southwest VA, Kentucky, Tennessee corner, zoom in to find the chunk desired.

Make a Trainz route from the desire area, that is the Interstate Railroad in Southwest Virginia.

Appalachia, Virgina

Harold

EDIT: The routes in MicroDEM:

 

[cascaderailroad]

VERY, Highly, interested !

What is Microdem, and where can one find: Microdem program ?
I found it here: http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdem.htm
How do you use Microdem to edit ?

The main difficulty is that Transdem is filling up my Peuney®™ Hard Drive (that has little disc space, all because of Trainz taking up 45% of my disc space).:hehe:
And that maps have to be meticulously manually georeferenced in at least 2 corners of each and every map.

I feel myself breaking down and buying the newest version of Transdem ... SOON !

With this data source, all I see missing is the map overlays, which is the most difficult part of making a DEM (although I am a bit of a Dunce about things). :hehe:

With this data source, I see rivers and railroads are all the blinding aqua colored lines ???

 

[hminky]

How do you use Microdem to edit ?

Just used MicroDem to look at .shp file. Couldn't find anything useful there.

Harold

 

[hminky]

I converted the .shp to a .kmz and am looking on Google Earth at the Millville, NJ area where I grew up and there are routes long abandoned showing up.

Same with Delaware where I am living now.

Neat!
Harold

 

[rwk]

I assume you're over 70 based on your name, I believe people stopped naming baby boys Harold after 1940 or so. Certain names are associated with certain generations based on their popularity and lifespan. The top 100 boys and girls names today are way different than 1950, that's for sure. I'm 40 and Robert has been a common name throughout the decades, but the old traditional names including John, William, David, George, Donald, Ronald, etc. are not used as much anymore on newborns, it's Tyler, Justin, Brandon, Jared, etc. that have become more popular. I'm not even going to get into how much female names changed from 1900 to now. Let's just say that Ethel, Edna, Diane, Linda and even Jennifer, Kristen and Kimberly are old fashioned now and Ashley and Brittney have taken over. If you read obits and compare the names of the deceased with the survivors and the deceased was old and it lists the spouse, siblings, children, and grandchildren the names will be different with each generation with a few exceptions. Fathers used to name their sons after them, usually the first born, not so much anymore, and mothers rarely named their daughters after them, and almost never today.

Why are there more rail lines in the eastern half of US than western half? I thought California had the highest population? The problem with this data is that if you load it into TransDEM it loads all of it so if you only need a certain area you're out of luck because you can't delete what is off screen and TransDEM throws up an error when trying to create the route, Path too complex. I don't know how you got it to work. I use the National Map Viewer to download maps and transportation lines for TransDEM.

 

[JCitron]

I assume you're over 70 based on your name, I believe people stopped naming baby boys Harold after 1940 or so. Certain names are associated with certain generations based on their popularity and lifespan. The top 100 boys and girls names today are way different than 1950, that's for sure. I'm 40 and Robert has been a common name throughout the decades, but the old traditional names including John, William, David, George, Donald, Ronald, etc. are not used as much anymore on newborns, it's Tyler, Justin, Brandon, Jared, etc. that have become more popular. I'm not even going to get into how much female names changed from 1900 to now. Let's just say that Ethel, Edna, Diane, Linda and even Jennifer, Kristen and Kimberly are old fashioned now and Ashley and Brittney have taken over. If you read obits and compare the names of the deceased with the survivors and the deceased was old and it lists the spouse, siblings, children, and grandchildren the names will be different with each generation with a few exceptions. Fathers used to name their sons after them, usually the first born, not so much anymore, and mothers rarely named their daughters after them, and almost never today.

Why are there more rail lines in the eastern half of US than western half? I thought California had the highest population? The problem with this data is that if you load it into TransDEM it loads all of it so if you only need a certain area you're out of luck because you can't delete what is off screen and TransDEM throws up an error when trying to create the route, Path too complex. I don't know how you got it to work. I use the National Map Viewer to download maps and transportation lines for TransDEM.

I'm 53 and named John so I must've been on the cusp!

Anyway, there are more rail lines on the East Coast because that's where railroads started in this country. Up here in the Boston area, the Boston & Lowell, and the Boston and Maine were amongst the earliest railroads in the US with their routes still in use today, albeit, merged together as the B&M, later Guilford and Pan Am, and trimmed a quite bit.

Regarding the technical side, I don't know but I'll have to give the shp files a try in TransDEM and see how this works. Interesting....

John

 

[hminky]

Did this one first since I had the DEM to do that small area circled:

It only works on small areas without a lot of extraneous routes. I am using TransDem(64 bit).

The real world is quite large. Here is the map in Trainz of the circled area of the Surrey, Sussex and Southampton Ry a narrow gauge logging railroad:

Harold

 

[JCitron]

Hi Harold,

Thank you for the link. I too just tried this with a direct download from the national data server using the area near me. It saves a ton of time placing tracks.

John

 

[hminky]

Works with the Track Spline function:

Harold