Use of online services by the NZ Rail Maps project

As you can see with recent posts on this blog and on Facebook I have rejuvenated the old nzrailmaps site on Trainweb so that the URL to it can be used on all published maps as a single point of reference for all aspects of this project. In the past all of the content was hosted on that website. This was easy to do because I had authored my own site builder software that maintained all of the pages and it was simple enough to add new content, click a few buttons and automatically sync the updates to the site's FTP server. 

Since I no longer maintain that software and have no desire to use it now, and because the volume of content is much greater than what could be hosted on a free web site with maybe 100 MB of space available, the options I have considered are:

1. Building an entire website to host all the content. However this entails additional cost which I am not willing to meet.
2. Building a free website with Google Sites or another free webhost. Whilst there are pros and cons, such as built in web page builders in many of these systems, the space available is unlikely to be greater than I could access on Trainweb now.
3. The option I have arrived at is to use the Trainweb site as an index or portal of sorts, with most of the actual content hosted elsewhere. Many of the resources are graphical in nature, and as such can be hosted on sites like Google Photos, where the album design paradigm works well when scrolling through a set of map tiles. 

In total, the free webhost sites being used for NZ Rail Maps content are seven:

• Trainweb is where the web site is being hosted, and where the registered domain name points to as the first port of call for accessing project content. I have revised the site in accordance with the organisation of map content into 12 volumes covering different parts of NZ, and removed the old content. Some of that content will come back onto the site in future as time allows or be hosted on one of the other sites.
• Facebook is where the project has a page that receives posts and updates.
• Blogger is where this blog is hosted and this blog is where more in-depth articles are posted.
• Google Drive is where the GIS files are hosted for map development. 
• Google Photos is where map tile sets and other original content of the maps are posted for easy access and viewing. In order to provide a public gallery of the different albums that contain the various areas of content I have set up 12 collections, one for each map volume, on Google Plus.
• Scribd is where the produced PDF map volumes are stored for public access and download.
• Flickr is where some public domain or non-original resources are stored so that they can be downloaded at full size, which is not possible with Google Photos because of its storage limitations. Original resources produced by the project aren't at a high enough resolution to be affected by the Google Photos resolution limit of 2048 pixels, but most of the Linz historical aerial photos on Retrolens as well as those I have had scanned from Archives New Zealand are much bigger and would lose quality if they were placed on Google Photos.

From the inception of the project in January 2008 until early 2012 the project was solely represented in the Trainweb site. After that date I began to make use of other online resources and the website went into "archive" mode and did not receive any updates for more than five years. I used Bitly custom URLs and latterly a simple Flickr URL to reference individual map tiles back to some of the other online resource sites I have been using. However with Flickr problems of late and the discovery that registering and using a custom web domain is a very cheap option, it is now the case that www.nzrailmaps.nz will be the web address at the bottom of every map tile and used in a few other places as well, pointing back to the Trainweb site. 

I can't really register more strongly my disappointment with Flickr as a hosting option. Not only have there been issues with their failure to provide notifications of images being reported (in the case of other Flickr sites I have used), there is also their lack of ability to transfer a Flickr account to a new email address. So the custom Flickr site www.flick.com/photos/nzrailmaps will not appear in conjunction with any more aspect of the project because I'm going to shut down the email account that I use to log in to it (as I have too many email accounts now). I have set up a new flickr account (nz-rail-maps) to host the public domain content mentioned above, and only for that purpose, not for all of the content. As much of the content as possible will be hosted on more dependable sites. These problems have arisen because of Yahoo's many service capability failures and their having fallen well behind Google and other cloud providers over a long period of time. It is a salutatory lesson on how these online services hold all the cards and how few rights we really have as customers.

NZ Railmaps website launched

As a result of discovering a domain name in NZ can be had for only $20 a year, I have registered nzrailmaps.nz for use with the project. Anyone who remembers this project over its entire 10 year history will recall that it started with a website hosted on Trainweb.org. So I have dusted off that website and it will be located at www.nzrailmaps.nz. As has been made clear up to this point we have content stored in various places on the internet and I will be evaluating to see where to store that content, whether it can be stored on the website itself, or whether to keep it in other places as is currently the case. At the moment my feeling is to keep hosting content in other places but link to it from the web site. So the web site will be a place that you come to to find content, but the site will link to other web sites that store the content. This is necessary because there is presently too much stuff to store on Trainweb with the space allocation I can get for free, and there is also a question of how I could host some of the nifty features that are managed for free on the likes of Google Photos on my own site.

This may possibly change later but the main issue for me is that I do not want to spend a lot of time maintaining content on a web site when that content can consist of hundreds of images that have to be stored in some kind of system that makes them easy to scroll through like a photo album on Google Photos can be. When I first set up the Trainweb site I used a custom website builder that I had developed in Delphi to maintain the site so that it was easy to use. When I put the site into freeze five years ago, I stopped developing the software that maintained it. I won't be returning to the use of the software. There are some possible options like using a custom domain name to host a blog and some other things you can do with your own domain name, but I don't want to do anything that costs additional money, so using the free services that I have used up until now at Blogger, Flickr, Google Photos, Google Drive and Scribd seems to be the best option for hosting major content.

The site now has pages for the major areas that will be covered by the site. These areas correspond to individual volumes of PDFs that will be assembled for maps in the future. These areas are North Auckland Line, NIMT, ECMT, MNPL, PNGL, Wairarapa Line, Nelson Section, Stillwater Ngakawau Line, Midland Line, Main North Line, Main South Line, Otago Central Railway and Kingston Branch. So the volume scheme is changing again hopefully for the last time. The NAL volume was the first one ever produced and was followed by the PNGL one. I also began assembling other volumes and in fact have recently created and uploaded one for the Nelson Section. My guess is that Otago Central and Kingston (which are closely linked) will be combined into a single volume which makes a total of 12 volumes of maps. 

As of right now the plan is, of course, to finish the Otago Central volume of maps in conjunction with publicising the project. There is planned to be a series of three articles in the NZ Railway Observer starting with the November/December edition which is due to be released in six weeks (NZRLS now publishes six times a year instead of four) and continuing through the two subsequent editions. No other articles are planned but the map content will continue to be revised as I work towards the expected completion timeline which will wrap up this project after 12 years, which means the end of 2019. I have been working quite hard this year to make the most of having plenty of available time that I don't expect to have in subsequent years and that also affects the schedule, so I have one eye on the clock at present to ensure I have worked out how to make the best use of the remaining months of this year. Because of the available Retrolens aerial photography I am focusing on drawing some major yards with the rest of this year and then tidying up the main part of the maps which in most cases were finished a long time ago and will take less work to complete. In most cases making use of Linz aerial photography is the way that the maps will be finalised.

So that is how things are expected to come together from here in. At least I can now list a single website address instead of maintaining a list of multiple links and if there are problems with a particular subhosting site (as there has been with Flickr) I can just change some links on the website. 

Otago Central Railway [36]: Ngapuna

Ngapuna is the first station past Middlemarch at 70.08 km. It has historically been a small station with a shelter shed, loading bank and a stockyard. This changed little during its life, possibly only the platform was lengthened. As the station closed in 1979, the site was cleared. The Rail Trail Trust has obtained the original station building and returned it to the site; the loading bank remains in place also.

Middlemarch to Ngapuna. Note the ballast siding just north of the 42 mile peg (Tisdalls).

 The overall station layout.

 The main facilities of the station.

 The station building is more or less at its original site, although the platform was removed post closure.

 Looking into Ngapuna from the south. The 70 km peg extreme left.

 Looking into Ngapuna from the north.

At the Middlemarch end of Ngapuna is this culvert, which was extra wide because both the main line and loop crossed it. This view indicates that the main line was actually to the left.

Tisdalls Ballast Pit was between Middlemarch and Ngapuna, just north of the 42 mile peg. It was closed in 1934 when the pit opened at Hyde. There was a siding as well as a water tank for locomotives.