Railroad Links

https://historicbridges.org/

History and Overview

HistoricBridges.org was founded in June of 2003 under the name Historic Bridges of Michigan and Elsewhere by Nathan Holth. It originally began as a website that provided photos and information for historic bridges in Michigan and nearby places, giving rise to its original name, Historic Bridges of Michigan and Elsewhere. From day one, Holth placed a priority on photo-documenting bridges as extensively as possible, including both overview photos and detail photos which show the structural design and condition of a bridge. Also from day one, there was been a commitment to the advocacy of historic bridges, through public awareness efforts and communication with elected officials. Holth later teamed up with Rick McOmber, another historic bridge enthusiast and photographer, to expand the geographic coverage of the website. Holth and McOmber combined the costs of travel to make longer out-of-state trips, and the site rapidly began to cover surrounding states. At the same time, Luke Gordon, a historic bridge enthusiast with a construction and engineering background, joined the team. Gordon brought the technical knowledge and hands-on experience needed to allow the website to move beyond documentation and also provide consultation and advising services for historic bridges. By 2009, amidst the growing coverage area and range of services offered, Historic Bridges of Michigan and Elsewhere was renamed to HistoricBridges.org. The name is simple, yet reflects not only a strong web presence, but a range of features and services that are not restricted to a geographic location.

Today, HistoricBridges.org is the one-stop-resource for all types of historic bridges except wooden covered bridges. Wooden covered bridges are not a part of HistoricBridges.org because providing information and services on this well-known and extensively preserved bridge type would be redundant and a waste of HistoricBridges.org resources. HistoricBridges.org today remains a committed leader in providing information, photos, and consultation on metal and concrete historic bridges.

Historic Significance of Featured Bridges

The United States government and the 50 states define a historic bridge as a bridge listed in or officially found eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register of Historic Places is a listing that has specific requirements called Criterion that a bridge must meet to be eligible or listed. HistoricBridges.org believes that the National Register is a useful tool, but has some serious problems. Bridges that display an appearance and/or design not found in modern bridges may help give a community a sense of identity and origin, and they may tell us a great deal about our transportation heritage, yet may be ineligible for the National Register. Also, the National Register provides no clear indication of the varying significance of old bridges. Some bridges are more rare and significant than others and deserve greater effort toward preservation, however the National Register provides only a "Yes" or "No" finding for eligibility or listing. Furthermore, the way the United States operates, if a bridge is not listed or eligible, it is given no consideration for preservation by the federal government, even if the bridge offers some level of heritage value (even if not meeting National Register Criterion) and would be feasible to preserve... yet such bridges are instead demolished with no consideration given to the feasibility of preservation.

It should be noted that some communities in the United States have municipal designations for historic structures. In some cases, such as the City of Chicago's Landmark designation, the criteria for these listings is quite different from the National Register of Historic Places, and furthermore, these listings may offer greater protection for the designated bridge.

In Canada, heritage designations are largely handled by municipality-level designations. There are provincial designations as well, such as the Ontario Heritage Bridge List. Also, Ontario has a unique point-based system for evaluating the heritage value of historic bridges. Like the National Register Criterion in the United States, the Ontario procedure has its own unique faults and shortcomings, however as a point-based system it acknowledges a range of significances which the U.S. National Register does not.

HistoricBridges.org lists many bridges, ranging from nationally significant historic bridges that have one or more official designations, down to bridges that may have very little significance or might even be heavily altered from their original design, but still have something to tell us about the history of transportation or bridge construction.

Because of the wide variety of historic significance among the bridges listed on HistoricBridges.org, and because of the shortcomings of official designations, HistoricBridges.org instead uses a unique proprietary system to ***** the historic significance of bridges on the website, called the Historic Significance Rating (HSR). Click here to learn more about the Historic Significance Rating. This page also explains the range of bridges included on this website. Sometimes, a HistoricBridges.org narrative will discuss whether or not a bridge should be considered eligible for or listed in the National Register, but this is separate of the HSR rating.

As such, do not visit HistoricBridges.org expecting to see only rare historic bridges that are officially designated. At the same time, use the HSR rating to help sort through the bridges that are really important or rare versus those that are more common and less significant. Visitors interested in only rare and highly significant bridges should be able to use the HSR ratings to single out those bridges. At the same time it should be noted that HistoricBridges.org does pride itself in not including modern bridges built after 1970. In only a few cases are post-1970 bridges shown on this website, and when they are, they are clearly marked as modern bridges. This is a website about transportation past, not transportation present.

HistoricBridges.org's deviations from following systems like the National Register and exclusion of modern bridges sets this website apart from other bridge websites, as well as apart from the philosophies of other bridge experts and scholars. It is the intent that these differences do not diminish the usefulness and credibility of the content offered on HistoricBridges.org, but instead offer a new and unique perspective to the heritage value of bridges.
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
http://www.rrhistorical.com/rrpro/database.html

Index to Railroad Historical Societies

Introduction:
This index was prepared as an aid for the "Railroad Historical Database Project". It is intended to include the major railroad companies of the 1930-1950 era in alphabetical order, and the historical societies which cover them, where known. The railroad list is somewhat arbitrary, and has been augmented with short lines and contemporary railroads for which there are societies. For some railroads with no historical society, but with a museum dedicated to that railroad, the museum is listed. Links are provided to websites and E-mail addresses, where available. Some websites are indicated as "unoffcl." because they are maintained by members, but are not officially sanctioned by the society. Some individuals maintain private websites dedicated to the history of a specific railroad, and since these often provide much information of interest, some are listed although they are not historical societies as such.

It can be noted that many organizations called "... Railroad Historical Society" are oriented more toward current operations than to historical research, and indeed function more as "fan clubs". This is often true of the many local chapters of the National Railway Historical Society. Most NRHS chapters are regional in scope, but a few are dedicated to specific railroads.
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
http://rlhs.org/Reference/research.shtml


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Directory of Railroad History Research Locations

Major locations for railroad history research with websites and some email addresses are listed here.

Details about many of the locations are in Thomas T. Taber III's The Railroad Historical Research Reference Guide, published in 1993, and its addenda. For information about doing research on the Internet, see David W. Mattoon's guide at the Lake Forest College library special collections department.


Notes: Email addresses are sometimes those of individuals, and subject to change. If necessary, see website for up-to-date email contact addresses. Some email links point to web pages containing inquiry forms. Addresses in the table are generally mailing addresses. See website or use telephone contact for visiting directions.
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
https://virtualrailfan.com/

By the numbers...
54 CAMS
33 LOCATIONS
19 STATES
4 COUNTRIES

Who we are...
Virtual Railfan is the premiere provider of LIVE train cams from some of the busiest spots on earth. Our camera network captures hundreds of trains per day from all over the world. No matter where you are and what you’re doing Virtual Railfan will bring the trains to you! Come and see what millions of railfans are talking about, sign up for a membership today.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOIkT9bq-1N2BvrsBjhNlag

The live feed YouTube channel...
939

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
https://virtualrailfan.com/

By the numbers...
54 CAMS
33 LOCATIONS
19 STATES
4 COUNTRIES

Who we are...
Virtual Railfan is the premiere provider of LIVE train cams from some of the busiest spots on earth. Our camera network captures hundreds of trains per day from all over the world. No matter where you are and what you’re doing Virtual Railfan will bring the trains to you! Come and see what millions of railfans are talking about, sign up for a membership today.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOIkT9bq-1N2BvrsBjhNlag

The live feed YouTube channel...
939

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
Excellent link, I’ve used a couple of those.

P.s...a bit cheeky I know but I think I’m right in saying that the railroads forum no longer has a host, your name has popped up a few times and you have certainly put the work in on keeping the RR thread going...any chance you could PM Mike or Ami offering your services. Being a host isn’t difficult and it’s a good way to give something back to CWT. :thumbsup:
 
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http://www.rypn.org/

The Railway Preservation News (RyPN) website is dedicated to the preservation of railroad history, including documents, artifacts and infrastructure. Towards this end RyPN will:
1) report on items and issues of interest to the railroad preservation community; and educate the public to the past and current impact of railroading on the history of this country.
2) identify and document railroad documents, and collections of documents...
3) identify and document railroad artifacts, and collections of artifacts...
4) identify and document railroad infrastructure...


(Editor's note In my opinion, RyPN is the best and most comprehensive railway preservation site on the web. Highly reccomended! An excellent resource for railway preservation info.

http://www.railroaddata.com/rrlinks/Railway_Preservation/
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. I do these pages because I love spending my time doing them - although I do a reasonable amount of research to make sure the information presented is accurate! :smile: :smile:

Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them. For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.

If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while, an error may creep in, oooooooops, oh well! :smile:

My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.

BTW, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous and/or other stuff.

Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit is always given! BE NICE!!! Contact info is here. Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.

https://www.railroadsignals.us/
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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
http://www.frograil.com/index.php

Trainwatching Sites

Railfan, railfan--where do you go to see those elusive trains?
Here are over 3,470 fun and, hopefully, productive places to watch trains. The emphasis is on "fun," as the objective for most railfans is to enjoy themselves. If you're visiting a town, and want to take some train pictures, then you need to know where to go, and most traditional railfan guides give you this info. However, there is more to life than just taking pictures of trains (especially if your spouse and family have accompanied you on this trip!), so it's also pretty nice to know where a neato Bed & Breakfast or motel is, a good place to eat, etc.
This site is set up by state and city, as is reasonable, but I've also included the date I visited the site. In those cases where contributors have sent me detailed information, I've included the date that info was sent to me. Why include these dates? Some railfan guides I've seen are more than 15 years old--have you ever driven out of your way to visit an engine facility which obviously has been gone since before the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central?
Information which is not from me personally is credited with the source. This includes material sent to me and included on the state/city pages, as well as information which Web authors have allowed me to hotlink directly. When you click on a city/site which takes you to another web site, please take a moment and explore that site; you'll probably find much of interest, besides just a guide to one site or city.

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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/index.php

Welcome to RailroadForums.com
RailroadForums.com a railroad discussion forum and photo gallery.


Railroadforums.com is a free online Railroad Discussion Forum and Railroad Photo Gallery for railroaders,railfans, model railroaders and anyone else who is interested in railroads. We cover a wide variety of topics, from the latest developments in today's railroading to the early days of railroading.

RailroadForums.com has plenty of useful features including the ability to subscribe to threads, post private messages, add graphics and enhanced text to your messages, be notified of replies, use custom avatars user signatures private messages, buddy and ignore lists and more! All features are free, and there are no pop-up ads or other annoyances. Some discussion forums charge several dollars per month for the same features, here you get them all for free!

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Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Hoping most of these links are still active, I want to know if this posting could be pinned at the top of the Forum threads. For new visitors and members it is too valuable to be under two pages of recent activity. If any forum members here know how it would please me greatly and be beneficial to the group et. al.
Thanks,
Lubliner.
 
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