Railroad network

This map is created by extracting the railroad network from Open Street Map. This shapefile was then clipped in order to make it fit within the boundaries of the City of Cape Town.

We consider the railroad network a connector corridor because it generally has an uninterrupted green edge along the side of the railroad itself. It must be noted that this does not mean that this edge is flowering, and even less so with indigenous plants. However, it is a continuous stretch and there is a green strip, and this particular network is of extremely high potential to create a continuous corridor.

It is worthwhile to look at the status of the railway edge in your area, to understand the potential as an ecological corridor. When relevant, it might be worthwhile to chat with your station manager and discuss options to introduce indigenous and locally suitable species in this space as well.

IMPORTANT NOTE: when calculating the length of the railroad in a certain area, the number that comes up might be surprisingly high. This is due to the fact that the shapefile contains individual tracks, so what might be seen as a single train line could have 2-4 tracks and thus have a much higher length. So be careful to look closely at your map to understand the situation best (and of course don't shy away from some in-person verification!).

Map author

Open Street Map volunteers

More information

https://www.openstreetmap.org

Items inside this map

Our online maps are based on so-called shapefiles. These shapefiles contain different objects (such as lines, polygons, or points). Each object might have an own name and information (for instance, a map could contain all the different wards in Cape Town, each of them represented as an individual polygon).

Below, we list all of the objects that are available within this shapefile. You can click each object, and see this object on a separate page - with an option to download the associated shapefile details. For some maps these objects can be very interesting - for others it is not so relevant. We leave it to you to decide!

Name
Railway network
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