Here’s a great old system map of Sydney’s suburban rail system from around the middle of the 1970s. It has to be from before 1978, as that’s the year that the Eastern Suburbs line opened, and it’s not shown here. I distinctly remember seeing a few of these in old “Red Rattler” carriages in the mid-to-late 1980s, so they lived on well past their “use by” date. As seen here, the maps lived above the windows in the main compartment of the carriage, and were quite large, around 5 feet by 1 foot or so. The noisy metal window blinds that gave the “Rattlers” their name are clearly visible below the map.
As expected in a strip map like this, any relation to real-world geography is tenuous at best. South is to the left and north is at bottom right, but all the other lines have had to be splayed out to fit the narrow shape. In reality, the end of the orange East Hills line (top left) is quite close to Macquarie Fields on the (dark) green Liverpool-Campbelltown line (top right). However, the topology of the network is indicated fairly clearly and the hub-and-spoke nature of the network of the time allows this treatment to work.
Also of note is the interesting treatment of the City Circle, with alternating dashes of each line’s colours to indicate how each one makes a circuit of the loop before heading back out to the suburbs via Central. It’s not actually very accurate, as there shouldn’t be any North Shore line pink from Wynyard to Central via Museum (this line always crosses the Harbour Bridge after Wynyard), but I doubt it was ever meant to give a realistic idea of service patterns.
It’s also kind of fun to see all the little branch lines off the Western line to the abbatoirs, Sandown and Rope’s Creek. Of these, only the Carlingford line remains today. Finally, it’s always great to see the glorious 1970s NSW Transport “arrow of indecision” as well! Every good rail system needs a logo with arrows pointing in opposite directions, right?
Our rating: An early prototype of future Sydney rail maps, with most of the route colours already in the form they’d be in for the next 20 years or so. Type’s quite small, but the layout is clear and easy to follow for such an extensive network. Three stars.
Source: Dave Murchie/Flickr