Is KMZ really still the best way to go?
Good question.
I'm only a hobbyist with GIS, so I can't really say or speak to how practical of a format KML/KMZ are in production.
But that's a really good question.
Re:OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble
by SOLAR_FIELDS on Saturday February 17, 2018 @11:15AM
(#16401284)
I work in GIS.
KML/KMZ is decently useful as an interchange format and simple rendering but almost all web GIS software has better support for GeoJSON. It’s richer and easier to work with.
I’ve never worked on a GIS system that used KML/KMZ in prod for rendering. It’s usually shapefiles, PostGIS Geometry, ESRI’s proprietary GDB feature, WKB/WKT or GeoJSON on the backend being served up to clients.
I have used it as a lightweight way to deliver simple data in the past though for use cases where there was no proper client renderer (we would just tell the end user to download google earth and open up the file)
Thanks for the offer, I got 75% through writing you an email and finally managed to get some data exported via https://overpass-turbo.eu/, so I'll work on that for now. Thanks though!
https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/railroad-kmz
A brief google search came back with this; I haven't inspected the data or even tried to use it to see what it contains, but the page description indicates it may not be exact routes you are looking for-but it's a start. Implementing the data is a bit more work in order to display route maps, something like the previously mentioned MapBox does this very interactively.
My email address is in the profile, feel free to shoot over an email if you'd like some help with it. Depending on the complexity, I can probably devote a few cycles this weekend to show you a one-off map with railway routes, and show you how it's done.