Historical Sources of Information - NE Ohio

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

System Map

When I began to develop the idea of modeling in southern to central Ontario, one of the key questions was what would a system map look like and how much area would I be able to realistically be able to cover in the space allotted me and keeping within my modular system.  My largest worry was that I would have no problems filling the layout with too many industries and not enough scenery, and that the layout would appear to have a very cramped feeling.

While my first ideas for a system map were actually drawn out on a Ontario Provincial road map, as Google has offered more services, I opted to convert my system map to an electronic version.  The system map has information embedded into each location, which supplements my KLR history, and allows a quick glance at prominent industries along the line.  I have also added the general ONR, CN and CP tracks as reference, and ultimately, more information about these lines will also be added.

Kawartha Lakes Railway System Map