Toledo.
The more I research it the more I like it.
First I looked at Cleveland and then at Cincinnati, but the cons of both outweighed the pros.
Now I have had to go in and re-design the blog again because I have moved on to the next major city in Ohio.
Toledo has all of the elements I've been looking for from the get-go. It has a union passenger terminal which was used by four lines; NYC, B&O, C&O, and Wabash. In addition to that, the NYC Water Level Route ran right through it. Toledo had a terminal belt railroad that in addition to those four railroads also interchanged with NKP, PRR, WLE, Ann Arbor, and DT&I. It is a Great Lakes port city with a large river (the Maumee River) navigable by large Great Lakes freighters.
In addition, the Toledo area is flat. Where railroad right-of-ways crossed over each other, it was either a level crossing or a man-made overpass. Really, with only a few exceptions the banks of the Maumee River and tributaries are the only natural terrain features in the area.
Sanborn Maps.
I discovered a depository of Sanborn maps online. You can find it at Digital Resource Commons Ohio Link . You can search for cities in Ohio and you can also refine the searches to look for specific locations within the city. The one thing I don't like about the site is that the maps are not arranged in any sort of logical order. You have to use the search engine to find what you want and there is no browsing tool for map searching. There are also multiple maps for a specific location spanning several decades so you have to watch out that you are not pulling up a 1904 map when you want a 1951 map of the same spot. Another thing I don't like is that all the maps are in JPEG 2000 format (.jp2). This format will not display in any of the readily available Windows-based photo viewers. There is a free image viewer called FastStone Image Viewer available online though that is actually a very nice image viewer and it will display the .jp2 files. You can then convert them to any other format you like. I like .bmp format because it doesn't distort as you zoom in like a .jpg does, but they are huge files and don't post well on blogs.
Here are a couple samples of the Sanborn maps from Ohio Link:
This is Toledo Central Union Terminal circa 1951, right after completion in 1950.
The more I research it the more I like it.
First I looked at Cleveland and then at Cincinnati, but the cons of both outweighed the pros.
Now I have had to go in and re-design the blog again because I have moved on to the next major city in Ohio.
Toledo has all of the elements I've been looking for from the get-go. It has a union passenger terminal which was used by four lines; NYC, B&O, C&O, and Wabash. In addition to that, the NYC Water Level Route ran right through it. Toledo had a terminal belt railroad that in addition to those four railroads also interchanged with NKP, PRR, WLE, Ann Arbor, and DT&I. It is a Great Lakes port city with a large river (the Maumee River) navigable by large Great Lakes freighters.
In addition, the Toledo area is flat. Where railroad right-of-ways crossed over each other, it was either a level crossing or a man-made overpass. Really, with only a few exceptions the banks of the Maumee River and tributaries are the only natural terrain features in the area.
Sanborn Maps.
I discovered a depository of Sanborn maps online. You can find it at Digital Resource Commons Ohio Link . You can search for cities in Ohio and you can also refine the searches to look for specific locations within the city. The one thing I don't like about the site is that the maps are not arranged in any sort of logical order. You have to use the search engine to find what you want and there is no browsing tool for map searching. There are also multiple maps for a specific location spanning several decades so you have to watch out that you are not pulling up a 1904 map when you want a 1951 map of the same spot. Another thing I don't like is that all the maps are in JPEG 2000 format (.jp2). This format will not display in any of the readily available Windows-based photo viewers. There is a free image viewer called FastStone Image Viewer available online though that is actually a very nice image viewer and it will display the .jp2 files. You can then convert them to any other format you like. I like .bmp format because it doesn't distort as you zoom in like a .jpg does, but they are huge files and don't post well on blogs.
Here are a couple samples of the Sanborn maps from Ohio Link:
This is Toledo Central Union Terminal circa 1951, right after completion in 1950.
And this one is an area just north of the terminal and is where the NYC, B&O, and Wabash all had freight houses. There is also a NYC locomotive servicing facility and a Great Lakes Terminal warehouse (basically a non-RR owned freight house).
These maps are giving me lots of planning ideas. I think I will finally be able to come up with a track plan that has the elements I want and fits in my space.
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteCongrats on finding a "winner" location. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
BTW, the Toledo Terminal RR was also used by the Detroit and Toledo Shore Line ( according to some info I read yesterday). The D&TSL was a joint Grand Trunk Western / NKP venture.
I've found that most Sanborn maps have a "master grid" page that can help identify the "tile" map you're looking for. With Akron broken into 5-7 "districts", finding the master grid for each area helped immensely!
Tim
Awesome stuff Jeff! Four freight houses all near each other and a small engine facility? Can't ask for a better set up to model. Now how about that B&O/NYC ore dock :)
ReplyDeleteThe 2015 issue of Great Model Railroads has an article covering Doug Tagsold's Terminal of Toledo layout set in 1979 which very much worth reading. I can probably let you "borrow" a digital version of it, if you don;t have the magazine. They also mention the October 2014 issue of Trains has a large map and I assume an accompanying article of the Toledo Terminal RR.
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