Nostalgia & History > Copper River & Northwestern RR - Alaska

I'm trying to find a half-way decent map.

I've got a few copies from old official guides with poor resolution and also two books about the CR&N Railroad also with poor maps.

Google search has not yielded any better results.

Anyone out there have anything ?

This might be a duplicate of something you have already seen, and its not very good:

http://www.r2parks.net/CR&NW.html

I'd also suggest spending some quality time on the following site, if you haven't already found it.

http://copperiverry.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-start.html

This appears to have the same map as the first link, but it has individual pages for various parts of the railroad going up the menu bar on the right side. There are usually several pictures, a combination of some historic and a few modern, in each section, plus a few vintage movies. Fascinating site.

This being said, I was able to trace out the vast majority of the grade on Google Earth. Some of the grade is gone entirely, some parts are very obvious, and there are several sections where the available imagery is way too poor to see anything.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Thanks for the above and yes I saw that map and so far it is the best I've come up with.

You can get low detail maps from the Milepost, which is the traveler's guide to the Alaska Highway and other routes. The segments from Chitina to McCarthy are covered as part of the McCarthy Road. McCarthy to Kennicott is also covered. The segment from Cordova to the Million Dollar bridge is covered, but only in the pre-2010 editions. I have the 2017 edition and although the mile log is still included the map is gone.Then there are several USGS topographic maps that show the grade. The Valdez map covers a 40 mile segment somewhere southwest of Chitina. The McCarthy map covers a segment from about 40 miles west of McCarthy to Kennicott (end of track). Valdez B3 covers an 8 mile portion of the route. Valdez B2 covers a 16 mile portion of the route. Cordova covers the route from Cordova to a point about 10 miles beyond the Million Dollar Bridge. I got these maps from the University of Alaska, which was the custodian at the time.