I’ve been getting a few reader referrals over the last couple of days from a blog I’d never seen before. It had a rather intriguing and promising Intertube domain, railmaps.blogspot.com. Naturally I wanted to check it out. The site was kind enough to recommend me to its readers and I hoped to repay the favor. The author focuses specifically on Australia.
About Those Rail Maps
I wouldn’t normally feature a blog with a single post. These sites come-and-go as people grapple with the extended commitment necessary to provide content over time. It’s difficult to predict what people will want to read. I think I saw somewhere awhile ago that the average number of readers per blog is less than ten. How’s that for throwing out a wildly reckless and irresponsible statistic without attribution or support? The larger point being, however, that the ratio between time commitment and readership isn’t very favorable. It can be discouraging.
One has to have a true devotion to a subject bordering on obsession to find enough motivation to keep it going month-after-month. In that context I have high hopes for the blog I discovered. It complements the well-established Australian Rail Maps. And that website has existed since 1996.
They cover other forms of transportation too. Take a look at the astounding level of detail on their National Public Transport Map. I don’t think they creators of this site will have any problem populating a blog. So I look forward to following their progress.
I have a particular soft spot for Australian geo-oddities (type Australia in the search box and you’re sure to see a bunch of articles). I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because the land seems so foreign to me with all the reddish outback earth, unusual marsupials and overabundant eucalyptus. I’ve only been there a single time and I remained on the eastern coast so I’ve barely scratched the surface. I do hope to be able to return someday, maybe when the kids get a little older.
UPDATE: I did return to Australia in 2018.
Every Town in Utah
The next site is C N UTAH. That one I found as a link from an intermittent blog I read called “Every Whatever” that no longer exists. C N UTAH has a simple mission.
“Our goal is to visit all the towns of Utah and take a picture of their town signs to prove that we were there. We think it will take some time, but it should be fun along the way.”
I love websites where people with a focused determination set out to experience every item conceivably related to an amazingly esoteric topic, to become the absolute acknowledged worldwide expert of that discipline. Bravo. And don’t we all want to have some fun along the way, too?
They haven’t posted since October, but it does get pretty cold in Utah during the winter months. I’m hoping they reactivate the site with the onset of warmer weather.
UPDATE: Both blogs seem to be defunct. Railmaps last posted in 2014 and C N Utah last posted in 2012.
Random Thought
I’m particularly happy today because the last speck of snow finally melted from my yard this afternoon. Spring is on the way.
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