CTTRAXMAP
Breaking
News, 2/4/2012! CTTRAXMAP Debuts! In response to a recent suggestion, we screwed up our courage
and put the trolley lines on the Google Earth map, for at least two reasons. First, these lines are sometimes
confused with railroad tracks in a particular area where the two ran close together, e.g. Cheshire, and second,
the urban and interurban electric lines were an important transportation network in their own right and sometimes even shared
track with the steam railroads. For now, we have done only major routes between towns. There has been no attempt to place
the line on the correct side of the street or highway, to include trolley stations aside from an occasional POI, or to follow
short private ROWs. In cases of doubt, we have routed tracks along major arteries between urban areas and the cities themselves
may be sketchy and have a line running along a wrong street here and there. That's where YOU come in. Give us feedback!!
Let us know where we are wrong and we will edit. Meanwhile, the fourth file in the CTTRAXMAP sidebar is CT ST RWYS. Follow
the orange paths and take yet another ride back into history!
This map, like this website, is a work in progress. It is an effort to create a geographical framework
for the station annotations and illustrative material on Track 16. The primary purpose is to accurately
locate all the railroad stations in the state, as well as rail lines, current
and abandoned, and additional points of interest [POIs].
Recently we went a step further and created path sets by railroad company and by date, so you can now identify when main lines, branches, extensions and later realignments were completed. We have
also distinguished between track still in the ground [blue] and abandoned [red]. The orange paths are trolley
lines, added because tracks are tracks (and they are fun!), because we wanted to make clear which they
were when running in proximity to the railroads, and because the streetcar and interurban system was itself an important transportation adjunct and rival to the steam roads.
The only thing you need to do to use this handy map resource
is to download Google Earth, if you do not have it already on your computer.
It is a safe, popular, and acclaimed Web mapping tool that is FREE, takes up little space on your hard drive, and enables
you to open geographic files. We have stored our map data at Google Sites to make
it universally available on the Internet.
Follow these simple steps:
1. Click here to download Google Earth.
2.
UNCHECK the boxes offering to install Google Chrome. You don't need it for Google
Earth.
3. When the download is complete, click
this link: CTTRAXMAP.
4. Click on the Download link on the Google Sites
page and save it to your desktop.
5. Click on the
CTTRAXMAP file now on your computer. It should open automatically. Otherwise, right-click the file and
choose Google Earth as the program to use.
6.
Double-click on the Earth globe to pull it toward you and rotate it to Connecticut. As it comes in closer, you will see paths, station icons, and pins marking points of interest.
Follow lines of interest on the map or double-click on items
in the sidebar list to take you where you want to go. Keep the map open and switch back and forth to
Track 16 and read our research on particular stations.
7. Upon exiting
Google Earth, you will be asked if you want to add this temporary data to your 'My Places' file. You can say 'yes' to
keep the map, but we actually recommend saying 'no' to encourage you to go back to Google Sites to
download the most recent version, since we are constantily tweaking and revising. The other advantage to
doing this is that avoids overlaying a newer version on the old one, which causes duplicate data, paths,
labels, etc. and gets very confusing. We are numbering the revisions very simply by Arabic numerals. If you still have CTTRAXMAP4
and CTTRAXMAP5 is available, download the one with the higher number.
8. If you did
not keep the old map, just go go back to Step 4 and get the new map. If you did keep the old map, OPEN GE
FIRST, right-click on My Places, locate the CTTRAXMAP, right-click on it, click 'Delete'
and go back to Google Sites to get the newer version. If you run
into trouble at any time, delete everything in My Places and just download the newer version.
9.
A WORD OF CAUTION. Keep any map data sets you have created in SEPARATE files so when you delete our map,
you don't discard your personal work.
ENJOY! This
is easier than it sounds once you have done it! FEEDBACK is invited and appreciated!! SOME
NOTES ON USING THE MAP! There are now four sub-files:
1. CT RR Stations; CT RR POIs; 3. CT RR Lines; and, CT ST RWYS.
Station locations are shown by the house icons and zooming in CLOSE should show you the actual side of the track or crossing quadrant where the station stood. This attempt to clarify
exact locations is ongoing. If you know something is amiss or
feel it needs to be clarified, email us.
If ** follows the name with the a station icon on the map and in the index list, it means the structure is still standing at the original location. If it has
been moved, it is marked by a pin, an indicator that is used for points of interest
[POIs] other than stations.
There are more specific instructions on the map with the introductions to each of the four sub-files.
