Talk:Burlington and Northwestern Railway

Map needed

All of the publications I've seen about the B&NW-B&W system used the map that seems to have been drawn by Ben Hur Wilson for his article Widening the Narrow Guage in The Palimpsest, vol. 13, no. 4 (Jan, 1932); page 158. This map is a good starting point, but there are some challenges:

• It's not up to Wikipedia graphic standards.
• It would be nice to highlight dual gauge trackage.
• Two of the other railroads should stand out from the background a bit:
  • The Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern, where the B&NW had running rights.
  • The Iowa Central, because of the competition with the B&W.
• Other lines crossing the system need to be there, but distinctly in the background.
• The Lost Creek Railway should be included.

The only map I've found that shows the Lost Creek line is the 1895 map of Mahaska County, Iowa in the Library of Congress map collection. The only photo I've seen is Lost Creek Fuel Company Shaft, 1896 in the collection of the Mahaska County Historical Society. This clearly shows dual gauge trackage in the yard at the pit head, so the entire line must have been dual gauge. There was also a dual gauge connection to the Long Brothers' line on the west city limits of Oskaloosa, but I can't find any documentation of that mine aside from that it existed vaguely in that area and was served by the B&W.Douglas W. Jones (talk) 15:38, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Ahah! Found the map showing the line to the Long Brothers mine. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Oskaloosa for 1910 in the Library of Congress map collection shows this spur leaving the B&W line just before it crosses 7th Ave, then paralleling the Rock Island tracks down the center of 7th until it crosses the Iowa Central wye before turning southwest to parallel the Iowa Central to the location the Iowa Coal Mine map shows the Long Bros mine. It's not more than about a mile of track. Probably won't show on a system map, and no dual gauge or running rights seem to have been needed. Douglas W. Jones (talk) 01:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• Another map, Springer's Outline map of Oskaloosa in 1890. this precisely locates the Long Brother's Mine (a dot labeled "coal shaft") on the southeast side, but the track crosses the wye differenty from the 1910 map and parallels the Iowa Central on the other side of the track. Speculation: Both maps are accurate, the crossing of the wye was changed when the Burlington line was extended beyond the (by then closed) Long Brothers mine. Douglas W. Jones (talk) 16:27, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

The Ben Hur Wilson articles in the Palimpsest are in the public domain! The University of Pennsylvania Online Books Page says "The first copyright-renewed issue is February 1948 (v. 29 no. 2). We know of no actively copyright-renewed contributions." Here, we're concerned with Vol. 13, No. 4, where the copyright expired, without renewal, in about 1960. Douglas W. Jones (talk) 15:50, 28 June 2020 (UTC)