Month: June 2012

Official Map: City of Zurich Night S-Bahn and Bus Network, Switzerland, 2012

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Official Maps

One type of map we haven’t covered yet here at Transit Maps is the night services map, often considered a very poor relation to the main map. However, there are some excellent examples out there, especially this black and yellow beauty from the city of Zurich in Switzerland. Have we been there? No. What we like: Graphically very striking with its black and yellow colour scheme. Good differentiation between bus and train services accomplished by […]

Historical Map: Diagram Showing London’s Underground Railways, Power Stations, Substations, 1933

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Historical Maps

Here’s a fascinating reworking of Harry Beck’s original 1933 Tube map that I haven’t seen before. Apparently it’s from an article in a journal from November 1933 that details the work required to upgrade the electrical services on the Underground. Apart from the stark black and white treatment and addition of the power stations and substations, what’s really interesting about this map are the little tweaks and changes that have already occurred since the first […]

Historical Map: London Metropolitan Railway and Connections, c. 1930

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Historical Maps

A fantastic old in-car map from London’s old Metropolitan Railway: the world’s first underground railway and the precursor to the modern London Underground. Today, former Metropolitan Railway tracks and stations are used by the London Underground’s Metropolitan, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines. I’m guessing this map is from around 1930 or so, as the Railway’s lines are substantially complete apart from the Stanmore extension out of Wembley Park, which opened in […]

Mario vs. Mario

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Mash-Up Maps, Popular Culture

So every man and his dog is sending me links to the new Toronto TTC/Mario World mash-up map by Dave Delisle (prints for sale here). It’s definitely well executed, but I couldn’t help but think I’d seen something similar before… A couple of minutes of Googling later: a similarly-themed (although aesthetically a little different) map of the Boston MBTA done last year by Adam Summerville (prints here). I’d just like to make it clear that […]

Unofficial Map: Istanbul Rapid Transit by Kerim Bayer

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Unofficial Maps

One of the things I love about running this blog is when amateur map designers send me their work for review. The quality of these maps is often amazing, and this one of Istanbul’s rapid transit network by Istanbul native Kerim Bayer is a fantastic example. Design- and quality-wise, it far surpasses the official map (shown above for comparative purposes), which is a bit of a shambles: weird angles, muddy colours, poorly drawn and a […]

Photos: Montreal Metro Branding Ads

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Advertising

Matt Johnson sends these photos of great ads that use a subway map theme that he saw in the Montreal Metro on a recent trip. The interesting thing here is that these aren’t created by an ad agency riffing off the subway map theme, but are produced by the transit agency (the Société de transport de Montréal or STM) themselves, as informational ads regarding public transport and upcoming popular events. The ads have a nice […]

Historical Map: Sydney Rail Transport System, c. 1970-1976

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Historical Maps

Here’s another interesting planning map from Sydney, Australia, showing a vision for the future that never quite got there. If you look to the far centre right of the map, you can see the planned Eastern Suburbs line… including a never-built extension from the (now current) end of the line at Bondi Junction to Kingsford. There’s also an extra station at Woollahra in the section that did finally get built. It’s these details that allow […]

Historical Map: Sydney Suburban Rail Network, 1969

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Historical Maps

Here’s an interesting map from my hometown of Sydney, Australia from around 1969. Unusually, it doesn’t display different services as separate coloured route lines: everything is shown as one uniform orange line. It also displays the distance from Sydney Central station (in miles), and the elevation (in feet) of each station. Non-electrified lines are shown as dashed lines. These odd features lead me to believe that this is a map for internal NSW Railways use, […]