Railway symbology in d3.js
This example visualizes railway routes and contour lines in Canada’s Rocky Mountains using a custom d3.js rendering. Geographic data from a TopoJSON file is projected and drawn with SVG paths. The railway is emphasized with an animated, patterned stroke that suggests movement along the track, while contour lines provide topographical context. The visualization uses d3.v4 to load and process the JSON topology, compute the projected paths, and apply the railway symbology, resulting in a stylized map that highlights the route’s relationship to the terrain.
AI-generated descriptionThis is an example of how to achieve a railway style symbology along topojson features. Shaded areas represent track structures such as tunnels, bridges, and avalanche sheds. It is hard to see at this scale, but portions of this section are double or triple tracked.
The area shown is the big hill near the British Columbia - Alberta border at the conntinental divide in the Rockies. The hill features twin spiral tunnels built in 1909, replacing a stretch of track that exceeded a four percent gradient. See Big Hill on wikipedia.
Data is from NRCan's geogratis data extraction service. This block uses d3v4.