One of the tremendous resources offered by the Internet is the
wide variety of historical information that it contains. From searching
for historical photos of a building, to finding old fire insurance maps showing
building and property layouts to listings of businesses in city directories,
the possibilities seem to be endless. I would like to share with you a
website that I found while searching for historical maps of the downtown
Cleveland area. Stephen Titchenal maintains a website which
provides high-resolution digital images of historic maps and documents,
many of which also can be seen in places such as the Cleveland Public Library.
The website has a lot to offer anyone interested in the history of
Cleveland and northeastern Ohio, as well as Ohio railroading in general. Included
in the website are many straight line track diagrams (Grade Profiles),
locomotive, car, and building diagrams, railroad property/valuation maps,
timetables, historical topographic maps, and a small assortment of pictures
(taken from the Cleveland Press and Cleveland State University collections).
Most of the items found on his site will be helpful in understanding and modeling specific
railroad lines in and around Cleveland, as well as northeastern Ohio. For
example, he has posted timetables (both employee as well as passenger) for
various railroads including the New York Central, Pennsylvania, and the
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. Track diagrams include the Baltimore &
Ohio, CCC&StL system track chart, Conrail, N&W, Nickel Plate, Penn
Central, PRR, and W&LE.
The site also offers such unique items as the 1884 coal field maps
of Ohio, the New York
Central System ICC Valuation Map Indexes as well as valuation maps of the NKP. Many of the digital images
on the site have high resolution versions, however you will need to download
and install a free DjVu browser plug-in. DjVu provides greater detail and
faster viewing than typical web-based images.
The website can be found at: http://www.railsandtrails.com/default.htm
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