I often wonder about the possibility of combining my varied interests to create something more meaningful, more lasting, than any one avocation ever has the chance to produce. Last night while looking at my partial schematic of the former Reading & Columbia Railroad that runs through Lititz I thought the text labels on the diagram might be more understandable if I rotated them 90 degrees. This felt like the first time I thought about the railroad as a designer, not simply a rail fan. Within a short time I transformed my barely serviceable sketch into an a more lucid and artful interpretation of the subject at hand. I don’t expect that a “map” like this could matter much to anyone else, but I feel compelled to pursue the idea a bit further, and to eventually take it into the letterpress shop.
Stay tuned.
I don’t think I have ever been there in person as I am from Pittsburgh, but one day while bored, I played around with GOOGLE MAPS Satellite I stumbled upon what appeared to be the remaining path of a railroad from Lancaster and traced the spurs, through Lititz and Ephrata. I looked it up to find it was the R&C RR. If I am able to trace the line on a satellite map, there must be remnants, even if just old raised right of ways.
Thanks for the comment, Robert. I noticed that the image for this post was missing. I just fixed it; it’s a small version of a map of the old Reading & Columbia Railroad that I made a few years ago.