 Modern internet technology, like Google Maps, has revolutionized doing prototype railroad research. Let's research the Reno, Nevada area in Google Maps to show how this NCO Trackplan article can come to life with modeling insight. I do a search in Google on RenoNV and then click on the small map image to get a full-page map of Reno, Nevada. I want to follow the NCO branch in the NCO article, so I zoom in until I can find railroad tracks. Ah, here we go. Here's some railroad tracks on the map and what looks like a branch curving off to the north. Let's zoom in a bit more. The satellite photo view is better, so I switch to it by clicking satellite. Okay, I can see the railroad tracks. Zooming in some more. Nice. I can see where the branch leaves the main and goes past the ironworks mentioned in the article. If I zoom in just a bit more, I get an oblique angle view, making it easier to identify the track and structures. This view is perfect for railfanning on your computer. The article talks about the old NCO brick station. This looks like it right here. If I click the right mouse button, control click on a Mac, I can select what's here. I get a map pin. If I hover my mouse over the pin, I get a pop-up that allows me to select a street view. Yep, that's the old NCO station alright. I can drag with the mouse and look all around. Talk about amazing technology. Railfanning a location from my computer has never been easier. I can view a complete 360 and if I want to move to a different location along the street, I just click. I can look back and see the railroad crossing or I can move around and look back at where the branch curves around off the main, including looking at it from different viewing angles. If I right click, control click on a Mac, I can exit the street view back to the oblique overhead view and then zoom back out to the farthest oblique view. Okay, let's railfan some more of the branch by following the tracks. Right away we see the tracks cross over an expressway on a bridge. We can once again do a what's here to get the street view and look around a bit. We can look back the direction we came from or we can look to the right of the bridge crossing the expressway. Hmm, can't see much with those bushes in the way. Let's zoom back out and keep following the tracks. If things are in shadow, the tracks may seem to disappear for a bit, but we just keep moving along and eventually spy the tracks again. Here are the tracks cross valley road and what do we find? A turnback loop. Turnback loops or blobs is there also called are rare on the prototype but common on the model. The tracks here go around an apartment complex. Now there's an interesting scene you seldom see modeled but here it is. Tailor made for a model railroad. Let's keep going. Looks like we're crossing another expressway on a bridge. Let's see if we can do a street view and look around some. Here's the railroad crossing and looking to the right we can see the branch continues upgrade. Looking back to the left looks like there's a cross street here that might give us a better view of the bridge. Let's work our way down the street to get a good view of the bridge. Just a little farther. Yes, that's a great view of the bridge. As you can see Google Maps makes it easy to follow a track route and then find a nearby road to do a street view and look around. So back to the oblique satellite view and let's keep following the tracks. We know from the street view that this is probably upgrade. This here looks like a spot with a possible small bridge. But for now we'll keep moving and come back and study this later. Here's a couple of industry spurs and here's another turnback loop blob around more housing. Two prototype turnback loops on one route. Nice. Makes modeling this route look attractive. That's for sure. So let's see what other fun things might exist on this branch. Not much so far. And here we go under the freeway. Yet another turnback loop. Although there's not much in the middle here. Three turnback loops. Talk about a route that's just made for modeling. So let's keep going. Doesn't look like there's much along here. Back under the freeway. And now this looks interesting. Let's study this a bit closer. Looks like the track crosses Virginia Street and then feeds several industrial spurs. Let's zoom in closer so we can study the details. Notice a pile of rail here and a short sighting with some tank cars. And a spur that curves up to service what looks like an LP gas company. Then looking south we see a short double track spur serving this industry. And a much longer spur serving this industry. That could make for some interesting industrial switching on a layout. So let's see what other goodies we can find on this branch. Doesn't look like much out here. Pretty empty. From the article we know the branch here breaks off into two routes. One to the northwest to the old western Pacific main and on to Portola. The other north to an industrial park. Let's follow the route to the industrial park. Here the satellite caught a train on the line. Continuing on up the line it crosses back over Virginia Street. Curves under the freeway and crosses over Silver Lake Road. It continues on north then curves left around an industry which includes a spur that looks like it goes into the building. Continuing on goes past the JC Penny warehouse which looks like it had a couple spur tracks at one time that curved into the warehouse but since have been removed. Continuing on we pass another industry with a spur track filled with several cars. And this leads us to some of the most interesting track work on the entire branch. Talk about track work tailor made for a model railroad. One route is a Y that leads off to a warehouse area with a couple of switchback spurs including one that's a 90 degree curve. Then there's another set of tracks east of the Y that also form a complex looking switchback that goes to another industry. And finally we have another spur that crosses one leg of the Y. The Y area I notice has two different colors of ballast. There's like light colored ballast and a darker almost black colored ballast. The spur crosses one leg of the Y goes across a low wet slew like area on a causeway and into an industry that splits into a double track spur. The track next to the building has two loading docks and the track farthest from the building looks like a chemical tank or unloading area. Talk about something that would make for a very interesting industrial area on a model. This is one of those cases where who needs to freelance the prototype is just so darn interesting. Okay let's finish looking at the rest of this industrial branch. Now this is curious. It looks like the prototype put in an extra switch for an industry that is maybe expected to be built but isn't here yet. Let's keep looking. Here the track starts to curve west and splits one spur going to this large warehouse. And then the other track continuing on to the west splitting into some double track and then looks like we have another turnout for an industry that's not there yet. And that's the end. End of the line. As you can see you can use Google Maps to study railroad routes and to get a whole raft of insight about a prototype right from your computer. While this is the most valuable if you're a contemporary modeler there's also a lot you can learn about older routes including locating old building foundations and the like. So give Google Maps a try for your prototype research. You'll find it a rich goldmine of prototype insight.