If you’re reading this on Facebook or on our Groups.io project group then welcome to our new web site. NZRM Project is developing this site following a decision to migrate to a full web tile maps system for providing NZ Rail Maps content over the Internet. As Volume 1 of the entire maps project is currently under development, the web site is hosting this volume as it is updated, and will also host the previously produced volumes 5 and 6 as soon as they are able to be migrated to the site.

The development of the new web site is proceeding extremely well although it is in its early stages. Because of this, the schedule for developing Volume 1 has been relaxed until the end of 2020. This allows for the work of updating the maps themselves to proceed concurrently with web site development work as it is far easier to make design changes to just one volume at a time than across multiple volumes. Hence the intention is to finalise the web maps design in Volume 1 and then only at that time begin migrating the other existing volumes (Volume 5 and 6) to the new site, as well as commencing production of the next project volume to be produced after Volume 1.

The new site was initially set up with a different web address from the current site (hosted on SmugMug) to enable both sites to function independently. However, Project has now decided to close down the SmugMug site before the end of the current billing cycle which has about three weeks to run. Access has therefore been removed to SmugMug and www.blog.nzrailwebmaps.nz now gives access only to this site. The Volume 5 and 6 map tile image albums will be temporarily migrated to Google Photos over the next few days and the links to them on the home page will be provided when this has been completed.

NZRM Project is very pleased about how this development has snowballed over the past week and believes that you will find the web map format extremely easy and versatile to use. Project is committing to developing a document format for the maps to enable offline use, which at this stage is expected to be e-doc as well as hardcopy. Project expects to make a charge from sale of document volumes to help fund the costs of operating this web site.

Thanks for supporting the NZ Rail Maps Project.