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| Inside the app, a listing for the fabled Big Ten Curve |
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Regardless, the special juxtaposition of railroads in Colorado hasn't escaped Jim Wrinn and the editors of Trains. Mr. Wrinn in particular is a notable fan of the narrow gauge! With regard to the app, he has said,
The Colorado Railroads mobile app enables you to search by attractions near you, to find them on a map, and to mark your favorites. You can plan a trip to Colorado, or let this app take you to new places if you’re in the field.And he's right. If I had unlimited resources and abilities to design a mobile app for Colorado's railroads, I would have a hard time outdoing this one.
The main screen is set in portrait mode and it doesn't switch to a landscape format. This can be limiting for some users, especially if they have accessibility requirements, but I found I could work around it.
The home screen is the main menu and all the options are duplicated in a pull-down on the left hand side. Giving a user more than one way to reach something and also using a menu to preserve your options are marks of a good app.
The home screen allows you to access the attractions, sign up for the Trains weekly e-newsletter by e-mail, purchase the special issue or DVD, subscribe to Trains magazine, or provide feedback to Kalmbach.
Like a lot of free apps, this one facilitates selling items of interest and opening new lines of revenue for the publisher. That's okay, but to make this app useful, the attractions listed need to be better than a quick Google search for "railroads in Colorado." Are they? In a word, Yes!
First of all, every entry is researched by Trains staff. Second, I personally asked Mr. Wrinn directly, "When will you stop updating these listings?" He said, point blank, "We won't." So if an entry is out of date, use that feedback feature! Be nice though.
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| Colorado RR Museum | Detail listing |
Features
The first and by far the best feature is filtering. No one likes to be overwhelmed with tons of information when only a few entries are needed. Here are the present Attraction Types you can filter by: |
| A trail listing for Phantom Canyon south of Cripple Creek |
- Amtrak Stations
- Buildings
- Hobby Shops
- Mainlines
- Museums
- Restaurants
- Short Lines
- Steam Locomotives
- Tourist Railroads
- Trails
- Transit Stations
Other filters are for distance and ZIP code and you can sort by distance as well. A test sort produced the 3 nearest hobby stores to me followed by the local railroad preservation group.
One final feature is a Favorite List. While browsing in the app, you can choose to favorite specific attractions and then view them in a favorites list. Choosing stuff for your bucket list is that easy.
Final Thoughts
Kalmbach's Colorado Railroads app fills a need for folks who would like to discover railroad-related attractions anywhere in Colorado and appreciate a curated list to choose from. Are you looking for a way to spend an afternoon, a weekend or an entire vacation? This is the app to help you plan it! 🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂The application is available for Android and iPhone users absolutely free. While it would be nice to see a broader distribution (Kindle, etc.) it's understandable that only the top two phone OS providers are used.⚒
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Colorado Railroads is a site dedicated to preserving and presenting rail transportation in the Centennial State. Join the growing fascination with railroading and the lives and industries connected by a ribbon of steel across, over and through the Continental Divide!