Jan 18 2009
Free Maps for Your Train Layout
FREE Maps for your Train Layout
Free maps can supply super detailed information on buildings, streets, and railroad structures for your trains to run through on your model railroad. It is possible to select plastic models or scratch-build your train layout using these authentic, free, historic maps.
The Sanborn map company (which is still actively in the map business) prepared very detailed maps for insurance companies. The insurance companies would use these maps to determine the amount of risk they were taking by insuring a property. They were very useful in establishing how much a property or fire insurance policy would cost. The maps had amazing level of detail.
Sanborn maps showed the size, shape and layout of individual buildings. Most of the buildings showed the materials (wood, brick, stone, or metal) used in constructing. Most also showed the number of windows on each floor of the building. The maps showed the number of floors or stories of the building. Many of the buildings indicated what activities went on inside such as residence, storage, business. Many had business names such as bank, tobacco shop, railroad shed, etc.
The purpose of this level of detail was to determine if the building to be insured was next to a horse barn and wagon shop or a stone hotel building. Barns with hay, or wagon shops with wood and machinery posed one level of potential fire loss and a stone hotel building would be another.
The Sanborn map company is still active. The maps are the heart of its business and are subject to copyright protection. If you require a map that has been produced in the last 75 years then you should probably contact them to purchase a copy. Some libraries have added modern Sanborn maps (by purchase) to their collections. These maps are generally available for reference only.
There are many Sanborn maps available online for free. A keyword search based on “Sanborn maps” and the area of geographic interest will produce many results. Most of these are maps that have had their copyright expire (older than 75 years).
To get a feel for these wonderful maps and just one example of what is available you can visit the Princeton University repository for Sanborn maps on the web. They have maps organized by counties and towns in New Jersey. The maps are updated every few years and the level of detail changes over time. Since these maps were done by different professionals you will see minor differences and real changes over time. So check out several years worth of maps for your location of interest.
Each location and year has an index map and a series of detailed maps. Look at the index map first to get oriented and select the detailed section you want to view. As further example I’ll point you to Newark, NJ Sanborn maps. You’ll notice that Princeton University library has organized the maps by year and pages. Not all the map sources have an organized page like this. Many simply jump directly to a map in their collection. The index map has the Sanborn Symbol Key. This is extremely helpful to the model railroader because it identifies number of widows, wall materials, thicknesses, and much more. To see a detailed map page as an example you can look at year 1909 - sheet 80 to see the railroad branching near an industry with great detail. Make sure you zoom in to the purple building and see each section of the building being identified as to what kind of shop was operating there.
It is possible to built an entire downtown location based on these free maps alone.
Have fun!
Trainguy
