Steam era Pennsylvania route builders

[rick1958]

Sorry if this is old news, but I just "discovered" it and thought it would be worth a mention. If you go to the Penn Pilot website, you'll find the entire state has been cross-grid aerial photographed various times since the 30's. Just enter the location of interest, then the time frame desired. each red dot that appears is a photo, interlaced with the surrounding photo's so the entire state is covered. It's certainly not Google Earth quality, but it's a lot better then not knowing what was there before that man made dam was filled or housing development bulldozed in.
Oh yeah, BTW, for the best resolution available, download the high res maps instead of just viewing the pop up.

 

[Railwoodman]

Thanks for this info . Could always use good web info

Matt

 

[RPearson]

Much appreciated Rick. The earliest photos of the area I'm interested in are 1937 to 1939 about the end of the time frame I model. The next group are from 1957 and 1958. Every little bit helps. Google Earth only displays historical photos of this area back to about 1990.

Just as you described and you can zoom in to see local place names. You can also preview the photo before you download it.

Bob Pearson

 

[rick1958]

Glad you found it useful Bob. I was chatting with a guy about a long-gone Reading Branch, when he asked if I knew of it.
You were the first person I thought of and the EBT was one of the first places I checked out. Also being an aviation buff, I can only
imagine the planes used in the 30's to accomplish this. Very impressive for the time period.