DATABASE NAME

     CANADA/RAIL:  Canadian Railroad Network

DATABASE DESCRIPTION

     Canadian railroad network, 1:1,000,000 base-map scale.

ORIGINATING AGENCY

     Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

AGENCY RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING DATA

     Bureau of Transportation Statistics

CONTACT

     National Transportation Atlas Databases
     Bureau of Transportation Statistics
     U.S. Department of Transportation
     Washington, DC  20590
     (202) 366-DATA
     Internet:  info@bts.gov

SOURCE

     1:1,000,000 Digital Chart of the World supplemented by
     editing performed by the Volpe National Transportation
     Systems Center

ACCURACY

     700 m (2,200 ft) root-mean square positional accuracy

TYPE OF GIS DATABASE

     Line database with nodes and links

FILES/SIZE/NUMBER OF RECORDS

     Two ASCII files

     1)   can_rail.pnt   node file contains node attributes and
                         locations
     2)   can_rail.lin   link file contains link attributes and
                         shapes for links

     Approximate size of files:    965,000 bytes
     Approximate number of nodes:  2600
     Approximate number of links:  3000

FILE STRUCTURE

     The files are ASCII-comma delimited.  Character fields are
     enclosed in quotation marks.

     The Node File

   FIELD  ITEM                TYPE      REMARK

     1    ID                  Num       Unique Identification
                                        number
     2    Longitude           Float     Longitude of node
                                        (decimal degrees with
                                        explicit decimal)
     3    Latitude            Float     Latitude of node (decimal
                                        degrees with explicit
                                        decimal)

     The Link File

   FIELD  ITEM                TYPE      REMARK

     1    "From" node number  Num       Node ID in can_rail.pnt
     2    "To" node number    Num       Node ID in can_rail.pnt
     3    ID                  Num       Unique identification
                                        number
     4    Length              Float     Calculated length of link
                                        (miles)
     5    Direction           Num       Defines link's direction
     6    N                   Num       Number of longitude-
                                        latitude pairs in decimal
                                        degrees
     7    Longitude of "From" Float     Explicit decimal} First 
     8    Latitude of "From"  Float     Explicit decimal} pair

          Long.-Lat. pairs    Float     Shape points of the link
          repeat N-2 times    Float     in pairs of long.-lat.

          Longitude of "To"   Float     Explicit decimal}  Final
          Latitude of "To"    Float     Explicit decimal}  pair

DISCUSSION

     The Canadian rail network was taken from the Digital Chart
     of the World.  The original source did not have any
     additional attributes and none are supplied here.  This
     should be used primarily for visual reference.