Thanks to Robert McConnell, who let me know that the map I featured in my last post is actually a modern digital map made by none other than Maxwell Roberts. Roberts states that he based his version of the map off one that Beck produced, unsolicited, in 1938 and that a copy of this version is in Ken Garland’s excellent book, “Mr. Beck’s Underground Map”. I own a copy of this book, so was a little stunned that I couldn’t remember ever having seen it before. It turns out that it’s on the page opposite to the quite astounding map of the Paris Metro that Beck produced in 1946, so I guess that got most of my attention!

So, from that book, here’s a scan of Beck’s original London rail transport map: reproduced from a photocopy, unfortunately, as the whereabouts of the original drawing is unknown. Being from 1938, it uses Beck’s iconography of that time: diamonds for interchanges instead of circles. Roberts updates these to circles with white centres for his version of the map, and also thickens up the main line routes to place them on a more even visual footing with the Underground Lines, along with a host of factual, technical and aesthetic changes.

Source: Scan from my personal copy of “Mr. Beck’s Underground Map” by Ken Garland.