The future lies at the end of parallel rails said visionaries in 1880— locomotives for the long haul electric trains for interurban street cars, elevated railways, subways even a tourist line to Altadena’s celebrated poppyfields. The nation’s map became a network of curvilinear steel. Today, most rails lie quiet flanged wheels touch no more their rusted tops creosoted ties squash no more the ballast and weeds grow up between them defeated by trucks and planes. Civil engineers pay servants like me, to research deeds make compelling maps to gain approval for dwellings on old railroad rights-of-way to build roads where boys chase rabbits to add more people to clog the freeways prevent a horse from running and a cyclist from a safe morning ride. Only a few abandoned railroads meet their founders foresight become trails for hikers, horses, bicycles needed now as much as rails were then. Only a few visionaries see as their grandparents did: The future lies at the end of parallel rails.