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by nerdponx 1379 days ago
The northeast US is also dense with abandoned lines that can never be rebuilt. I assume they are not on the map because they've been built on top of or otherwise completely ripped up.
2 comments

Rails to trails is actually a (somewhat subversive) way for rail right-of-way to be legally preserved.

From a practical/political standpoint, it'll be interesting to see the backlash when a railroad attempts to start exercising its right to reclaim some of these properties, which are largely and falsely believed to have become community property.

Also, on OpenRailwayMap some abandoned lines only show up at very close zoom levels. I see a lot of that in Illinois.