N&W Valuation Maps Now Available for Downloading

[NW Mailing List]

Abe,
This is like digging for turnips and finding GOLD!
Jim Cochran

On Thu, Apr 24, 2025 at 7:39 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> A good friend, whose business involves land and the records associated
> therewith, contacted me today and informs that NARA (the National
> Archives and Records Administration) is now scanning the railroad Valuation
> Maps and putting them on-line, downloadable, free.
>
> INDEX OF ALL RAILROADS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE:
>
> https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/562366
>
> INDEX OF N&W VAL MAPS AVAILABLE:
>
> https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/1501567
>
> These were the Valuation maps as submitted to the Bureau of Valuation of
> the Interstate Commerce Commission, and are dated 1916.  (The Valuation Act
> was one of the greatest boondoggles ever foisted on the taxpayers, and its
> reporting and bookkeeping requirement continued into the 1960s.)  I have
> seen correction dates as late as 1923 on some of the sheets.  And it is
> very convenient that the sheets themselves carry the "Real Estate Record,"
> i.e. the dates of parcel acquisition, grantor and grantee, and deed book
> location of the documents of conveyance.  That is, you do not need a
> separate Real Estate Index Book to determine land acquisition particulars.
>
> These are not wimpy little scan files.  The ones I have checked range in
> size from 17 megs to 28 megs each.  The original map documents measure
> about 56" wide and about 25" high.  If you download an image, it comes to
> you in JPG format at a pixel resolution of 300 ppi, which is excellent.
> Due to the file sizes, this is not a job for a cell phoneess... you will
> need a real computer to deal with the files.
>
> The "Radford District" maps (83 sheets) begin at Vinton and go west to
> Giles County and covers part of the Bristol Line.  The branch lines are
> covered, too.  Scale is generally 1 inch  = 400 feet.  The maps are marked
> with numerous revision notes made with yellow and red pencil.  I do not
> know if all Val maps for the entire N&W system are yet scanned and
> on-line.  Some segments of original Right-of-Way bypassed with line
> relocations are shown and identified.
>
> As with almost old map and document scans put up on host websites, the
> files are exactly as scanned, without any correction or enhancement at
> all.  So the images in the scan files are pretty desaturated and muddy, but
> readable.  They are easily enhanceable for color, contrast, brightness,
> etc,  in almost any graphics program, even one of the free image correcting
> programs.
>
> The one disorienting factor is that the maps were drawn "upside down,"
> i.e. North is towards the bottom... just like the current Norfolk Southern
> track charts *resulting in the necessity to read them from right to left !
> If anyone figures out why this was done, please let me know.
>
> I am attaching a sample taken from Section 10, Sheet 9.  This image is
> only a small part of the much larger map showing Roanoke Junction (later
> called Randolph Street,) the Roanoke depot, and Hotel Roanoke.  The image
> has had minimal Photoshopping (about three edits,) just to show you what
> can be coaxed out of these files.
>
> For my own Druthers, I wish the mapping had been done twenty years
> earlier, before the railroad became a well-engineered, double track
> heavy-duty pipeline.  But, then, I am only a grumpy old curmudgeon.
>
> Happy Map Diggin' !
>
> -- abram burnett
>  Turnip Activist, Blogger and Content Creator
> .
>
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