Up until now, all of the maps on Abandoned Rails have been tied to an article. A map couldn't stand alone by itself -- it had to have an article associated with it.

Recently, Tim Thorp emailed me about 10 maps that he created for various abandoned railroad lines in Minnesota to be posted to the website. However, not much information was known about these lines, if any. Since maps were always tied to an article on the line, and since these particular lines didn't have any information accompanying them which could be posted in an article, I couldn't very well post empty articles on these lines that simply held a link to the map.

To facilitate Mr. Thorp's hard work, and to post these maps to the website, I now have "stand-alone" maps; that is, maps that are not tied to any article, and just show where an abandoned rail line once traveled. There may still be points or pictures along the route, and there may even be a bit of information about the line. But other than that, only a map exists of it on the website.

To the Abandoned Rails visitor, it may seem like nothing has changed -- the maps show up in the Atlas and in the Yard; on the gallery pages, a new map icon has been added, and the stand alone maps are indicated as such (see the Minnesota page. But, surprisingly, a fair amount of time had to go in to get stand-alone maps to work. In doing so, I have considered some restructuring of the programming code that may be in order. But alas, that is for a later time.

All this to say, look for more stand-alone maps in the future, as I still have numerous maps yet to be posted from Mr. Thorp. Better yet, create your own map of an abandoned railroad line near you and submit it to me! I will be happy to post it to the site.