Abandoned Railroad Map of Florida

For my third static map of a state, I chose to create the State of Florida's abandoned railroad network in QGIS, instead of ArcGIS. I'm trying to learn the ins and outs of QGIS since I don't have a firstborn son to sacrifice to the ESRI corporation for the right to distribute maps on their platform, so this is another learning project for me, just as the maps of Illinois and Rhode Island have been. Even as QGIS is an open-source program, there are some things that it does that are far superior to ArcGIS, although the latter is probably a bit more user friendly in some ways.

Without further digression, here's the map!

Map of the State of Florida and its abandoned railroad corridors as of 2021.

The addendum that I add to this map is that while I'm reasonably confident that most, if not all, mainline abandoned railroad corridors are on this map, I am certain that not all logging lines are on this map. The State was heavily logged at the beginning of the 20th century, as were many other states, and as such, many small (and some even lengthy) railroad lines were established for the purposes of logging only, and were not used to haul passengers or other freight. For a better resource for logging lines, I suggest visiting Tony Howe's Mississippi Rails website, as he has created some incredibly detailed maps of those operations. Additionally, short abandonments may not be included either; particularly those less than a mile in length.

If you do come across an abandonment that is not shown on this map, or our abandoned and out-of-service railroad lines map, and you believe it should be, please email us at railtrace91@gmail.com, and you will receive credit for its inclusion on the map in the future!

Thanks as always for reading!


Location: Florida, USA

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