If you don't like the idea that your railroad maps are a few black lines on a white piece of paper, you now have an altrnate map. Google has bought a company named Keyhole and created Google Earth.
With a free download for interfacing software, you can get areial maps of most of the planet. The software is free but the hardware to run it really needs to be current. If you want to see if your computer will run the software, go here and check the requirements and the information for video cards.
My laptop is a 1.8Ghz system but it can barely run this software. I will try it out on my desktop system and see if it runs better.
One of the more interesting things you can do with the software is making up location points. 
The map can have points located on it where you can indicate the various points and what ever realating data you want to add. You can use little icons which are definable too.
Currently, I am adding alot of indicators which I am also including other date for the locations like: Phone Numbers, Printer designations, track lenghts, and anything else I can think of that might be relivent. Even better, once I am done, I can export "My Locations" to a CSV file and I can post it here. Sharing data should be easy this way.
Once I get my locations input, I will speak more on this.
One big But!
One of the main things here is, It's free, It's Interesting, and It's Useful. I recommend you look over the site and install it. The only caveat is that Google wants to also install it's browser tool bar. 
This is a fairly intrusive piece or software which reports back to google every time you go to a website. I recommend you do not install the Google Toolbar. I really don't like anyone knowing where I go on the Internet. Maybe you don't care, but I do. All I want to say is to think before installing the toolbar.
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