SUGGESTION: Railroad Map Archive

[arop]

I suggest you to have a Railroad Map archive on this site. I think it would be helpfull for gamers and mapmakers to have some real railway maps avaiable on this site. I can contribute with some, and I know where to find more (from the whole world)

[Hawk]

Let's see what others have to say on this.

[cheminot]

Real maps or scenario ones. I have scanned most of european RR by countries. There is about 45 of them. All free for the asking.

[arop]

I mean real maps. When building a real world rrt3 map, I always try to find an older railway map, showing most railways now closed down, example: I have access to a collection of maps covering each of all US states in 1948 (McNally). In fact I'm doing a lot of research when building a map about a region in the real world (maps, google satelite maps/photographs taken on location, geography and historical event information from the Internet (if any avaiable). On contrary, building fictional maps from the scratch, having the full "artists fredom", I often start with drawing a sketch showing the railway system I would like to build, adding a coastline, some rivers and a few terrain curves, using MS paint (bitmap) and later photoshop (tga) before I go to the RRT3 editor

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

That sounds like a pretty good idea. I think it would be really helpful, and I could contribute a few local ones.

[cheminot]

Good for you!!!
That is a way to do it. It also helps with the spelling.

[Hawk]

For those that have maps and would like to share them, upload them and I'll take a look and see what we have.
Then determine what to do with them.

You can use this post for info on uploading. viewtopic.php?f=81&t=2824

[Hawk]

Well, thanks to arop, I have added a new section to the web site - Real World Railroad Maps. 106 so far.

http://hawkdawg.com/maps/rr_map_index.htm

If anyone has more, feel free to upload them. Package them up in a zip/rar/7z file and upload them using this link: http://hawkdawg.com/hb_sub/upload-page.htm

[cheminot]

Just checked the new map archive thread, looks good!
But the european section contains countries that are not: Syria? etc.
Is there a copyright issue?

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

I wanted to help but first I got errors when uploading, and more errors when posting to say that! I doubt this will even go through. Really mad right now, I'll explain later.

[Hawk]

I got the rar file the first time. The second time you got an error because you tried to upload the same file again, and you can't overwrite a file with the same name that's already in that folder.
Then I downloaded the rar file and you tried again, successfully, then again you tried and got the same error by trying to overwrite the file again.

It looks like you tried 4 times and I got it the first time.

[nedfumpkin]

Is this just for RR maps or do we want to include historical maps too? I have a bunch on my hd of all kinds.

[Hawk]

Historical railroad maps, of course. I really don't see a need for just plain ol' historical maps, since these maps are being added in case anyone wants to use them for map creation, and this site is about railroad stuff.
If they show the rail lines on them, that's great!. I would suggest to anyone though that you browse the maps already added so you don't duplicate any, unless you have a better detailed version.
They are sorted alphabetically to make it easier to find what you're looking for.

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Edit 1: Oh wait! Even historical maps without the rail lines shown can still be used to create RT3 maps, can't they. Of course, then I'd have to change it from Railroad Maps to just plain Maps, or create another map section.

[nedfumpkin]

Next question, I have a bunch of Pennsylvania maps from the mid 1800s that cover railroads, canals, mines, minerals, flora, etc of various kinds. Would it be better to zip as one package rather than a gazillion individual maps?

I downloaded them to recreate an accurate map of the Lackawanna Valley from 1840 onwards. So they are kinda geared towards a specific time.

[Hawk]

Yes, it would be better ad easier to zip them up and upload them via the file submission page.

http://hawkdawg.com/hb_sub/upload-page.htm

[Wolverine@MSU]

I have a HUGE collection of RR maps downloaded from the Library of Congress. The only drawback is that they are in Mr. Sid format (not Sid as in Sid Meier, but the map reader application). Would these be appropriate for uploading?

[Hawk]

Can they be converted to a format more generally in use, like jpg?