Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps with B&M Trackage

Discussion

These are indexes to the Sanborn Map sheets that include B&M trackage. Right now I have only done Massachusetts. The actual maps you have to get elsewhere (the Library of Congress has a "complete" set, others are available on-line at various places, or at state and/or local government facilities).

I reviewed more than 15,000 sheets to compile these lists for Massachusetts, so I'm sure I missed the odd track here and there, or otherwise had "senior moments". If I completely missed a town, let me know.
In particular, in East Boston, Holyoke, Lowell and Worcester I am unsure who owned certain tracks, so if someone could enlighten me, that would be appreciated.
I can also use some help cross-referencing "village" names with the political town/city names (e.g. although it doesn't have B&M trackage, Cochituate is part of Wayland [although it is included in a couple years with Natick maps!])
Please let me know of any typos and/or corrections or suggestions at (remove the quotes) "ken" [dash] "akerboom" [at sign here] "rochester" DOT rr DOT com (hopefully that is obscure enough to confuse the spammers, but not you). I will update the "history" section at the bottom when I make changes.

If anyone is interested in compiling the lists for New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, I would be glad to do the work to get them on the web, but someone else has to compile the actual lists.

Other Notes

• Based on the Sanborn maps microfilmed for the Library of Congress
• Covers ALL the dates for each city.
• I do NOT list the index/key maps if they had trackage shown - just the sheets with "detailed" maps
• For the most part, I do not list skeleton maps
• With few exceptions, I only included sheets that actually showed trackage.
  Sheets that only had notes like "abuts tracks" or "tracks adjacent" were NOT included.
• Years with a "-a" indicate maps originally at the Bureau of Census, that had corrections pasted over them, so they may be slightly different than the originals (same year, but without the "-a")
• As each file says, the sheets with tracks are ROUGHLY in order.
  In particular, the "insets" ("detachments" in Sanborn parlance) may be mislocated and/or assigned to the wrong railroad.
• While the following towns may (or may not) have had B&M tracks running through them, the tracks did not appear on any detailed views (track may or may not be shown on the key sheet):
  • Ashby
  • Deerfield
  • Middleton
  • Montague
  • Northfield
  • Rowley
  • Rutland
  • South Hadley
  • South Hadley Falls
  • Sunderland
  • Westminster
• If 2 years are listed in one line (e.g. "1924 and 1946 Maps"), that indicates that the later year's maps (e.g. 1946) are derived from the earlier year. In addition, (for this example) both the 1924 and the 1946 maps have B&M trackage on the same sheets. (if the later year has track on different sheets, then I listed the years separately)
• As many others have noted, these were maps for insurers. So trackage shown (in particular, the exact location, number of tracks, and switch locations) is somewhat suspect, and should be confirmed from other sources. Also, for the later maps (after 1930 or so) Sanborn did not completely redraw the sheets - they just issued pieces to paste over the original maps to show changes. Hence tracks do not always line up, or may have gaps. If tracks were removed, they may not be completely removed from the sheets.
• In the lists of sheet numbers, 2 numbers separated by a dash does NOT indicate all the sheets between the numbers - it just means those 2 (or more) sheets are roughly perpendicular to the main order listed
• For the "Includes" sections in the notes: I do NOT list North/South/East/West/Center/etc. of the "base" town name
  For instance, Acton includes North, South and West acton, and Acton Center.
  Note some of the "Includes" may only be for a few specific years.
• For the "See Also" sections in the notes, the "See Also" towns may only include maps for a few specific years for this town.
• The "LoC Link" column links to the Library of Congress Sanborn map page for that TOWN - you will have to go from there (note as of Dec, 2020, not all maps have been digitized!!!)
  Note the Library of Congress is now scanning (in color!) their Sanborn maps

I hope you find this useful...Ken Akerboom

Massachusetts

History