Rail Atlas Europe..

[Big Jumby 74]

I have most of the Baker Rail Atlas books of UK, which were very handy for marking routes covered, without going in to too much detail, which suited me. Just wondering if anything similar exists for Europe. I am keen to record routes I covered in Europe some years ago, albeit my notebooks etc have long since vanished, and a lot of my travels were 70's/early 80's, much of it behind the iron curtain as was. Thankfully my (aged) memories of same are still clear, and I regret to this day not being braver than I was with my camera, but those who may also remember those times may understand my reticence in that regard. Check points still in situ, armed guards everywhere.....a tad nerve wracking for a couple of teenagers on a bashing trip
Thanks in advance for any tips as to best Rail Atlas style book(s) that may exist?

 

[jamesontheroad]

Yes, M.G. Ball's European Railway Atlas and its various regional editions. Buy them digitally or on paper here: https://europeanrailwayatlas.com/

 

[Gloster]

Schweers + Wall, a German publisher, produce some atlases of various countries: they are highly detailed, far more so than Baker, but not cheap (although I consider that they are worth the money). Platform 5 Books/Publishing will probably have the best variety: .platform5.com .

 

[blackfive460]

Schweers + Wall, a German publisher, produce some atlases of various countries: they are highly detailed, far more so than Baker, but not cheap (although I consider that they are worth the money). Platform 5 Books/Publishing will probably have the best variety: .platform5.com .

+1 on that.
Well worth the money and they seem to be updated fairly regularly too.

 

[dutchflyer]

Schw+W are really the best. Most cost around 40-50€ new. They can often be found on offer as used via some german sites. But if that is worth it with the new Brexit import etc rules I have no idea for Brits.
The swiss also produce a few, but these are even more costly due to sky-high Swiss Franc.
Online also offers with some diligent search good finds: the openstreetmap series, based as open source (like wiki) has for some countries special public transprot maps.
I think that due to high demand the interrail/eurail site also has some feature to allow passholders to mark the routes they have travelled on, not sure if that is limited to those having indeed bought and used a pass or not. I have seen several such with blogs in german forums.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I know where you're coming from and that it's not the same as an actual atlas in your hand but you could screenshot pages from openstreetmap (load the transport layer rather than the ordinary map) or openrailwaymap. Then use a basic graphics programme to highlight them. Depends how extensive your travels were.

Firefox browser allows you to screenshot pages, and flickr photographs for example, which are otherwise protected from downloading. Right click and 'take screenshot'. I don't support abuse of copyright and such like but if someone has uploaded it, I do think it fair game to take a copy for future personal reference because things do disappear over time - people cease to be members, fail to pay fees, use up their storage allowance, sites like skyscrapercity delete images in posts after a while etc.

 

[etr221]

OpenRailwayMap is based on Open Street Map, but railway oriented in various styles, and global - though I do wonder how accurate and up to date some areas are going to be.

Regarding Schweers und Wall (whose atlases do set the standard: highly recommended), the company appears to be defunct, but their web address www.schweers-wall.de now leads to a page https://www.ekshop.de/buecher/eisenbahnatlanten/ on the Eisenbahn Kurier site, with some new atlases on offer so I assume EK took over S&W after they folded.

 

[Gloster]

My guess is that the company is still going even though Hans Schweers died in 2011, but all sales are done through Eisenbahn Kurier. But, as said above, Platform5 seem to sell them.

 

[etr221]

My basis for describing it as defunct was a business intellignce website (Firmen Wissen) saying it was 'liquidated'. The web address they gave for S&W had been redirected to EK (who I think were doing a lot of sales of their atlases, and decided it was a line they wanted to continue)