Our June 2024 update to the Abandoned Railroad Map

We have recently updated our map image of abandoned railroad lines across North America. As there is no singular source of abandoned railroad corridors across the United States, let alone other countries, this project, now over 8 years in the making, is a way of creating an interactive, crowd-sourced repository for where abandoned railroad corridors exist, and we are incredibly proud that this map and data have been useful to numerous individuals and organizations, who are looking at ways of reusing these rights of way, creating trails, and re-linking urban and rural communities through alternative modes of transportation. There is an incredible opportunity within this data to rebuild strong, vibrant communities after the mistakes, intentional or otherwise, of transportation policy in the mid-late 20th century.

You can view information on each single line on the interactive version of our map here:


Though we've rebranded to Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit, rest assured this data will continue to be available, and many thanks to our volunteers who have added numerous lines both in the US and abroad in the last year!

Thank you as always!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Underwater Water Slide: Fly Over at Durinrell TikiBad

Image
Have you ever wished to experience being transferred from one pool of liquid to another via a pipe? Had you visited the Dutch water park known as Durinrell , also known as Tikibad before 2010, you would have had the chance. Half water slide, half war crime, this was a unique water slide that was filled to the brim with water, leaving riders completely submerged throughout the journey. Image:  XtremeRidesNL Known as the Fly Over was an underwater water slide, which is exactly how it sounds, and transported riders from one pool to another using the water as propulsion. Built in 1994, riders dove underwater to access the slide, using gravity to transport them upwards via the Communicating Vessels Principle . Riders would be completely underwater for about 15-20 seconds. This is how I imagine those 15-20 seconds felt like while riding the slide. The slide was built to drain water in five seconds or less in case a rider got stuck in the slide or had a medical emergency, but the threat tha
Read more

Choum Tunnel: The Monument to European Stupidity in Africa

Image
Scars of European colonization are located all across Africa, although some are more obscure and strange than others. With that in mind we come to the Choum Tunnel , built in Mauritania when it was controlled by the French. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary railway tunnel, however, one look at the local geography and you'll find yourself asking what its builders were possibly thinking with creating the project. Choum Tunnel in Mauritania. Unknown photographer. The Mauritania Railway was being built in the early 1960s, and was planned to connect Nouadhibou to Zouérat to exploit the iron ore reserves at Zouérat. That route still exists today in largely its original state, with the exception of the tunnel. Image: Ammar Hassan via Atlas Obscura The easiest route required running a short section of track through the then-Spanish controlled Western Sahara , but rather than pay Spain for the land and other concessions, the French engineers instead chose to tunnel under a hill sp
Read more

Railroad Vocabulary: A List of Words and Phrases Used in the Industry - Updated February 2024

Image
As somebody who enjoyed watching trains, but was not an employee of the railroad industry ( at least growing up ), when I would interact with railfans and historians, there was often a lot of technical jargon that applied only to the railroad industry thrown back and forth that made it difficult for a newcomer to understand what they were talking about. For example, what is a dinky? It's actually a passenger train. This non-inclusive language seems to keep the loop closed to members of the community, and to uncouple (no pun intended) that technical jargon and help make it easier for people to communicate with people in the industry, I am creating a list of railroad vocabulary that I'm hoping will make the industry more transparent.  BNSF 2361 . Image: Matt Flores While I ultimately believe that such technical jargon has no place outside of perhaps technical communications between employees, I know quite well that I alone am not going to stop people from communicating in a non-i
Read more