Month: November 2014

Historical Map: Graphical Time Table for Steamer Routes in the Sognefjord, Norway, 1907

November 30, 2014
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A beautiful early example of a stylised transportation map, showing routes and departure times for steamer ferries along the Sognefjord in Norway (the third longest fjord in the world, apparently), way back in 1907. While the “crinkly bits” of the fjord itself and the locations of the ports of call are faithful to geography, the routes themselves are overlaid with little regard to reality. Instead, they travel smooth, easy to follow paths that make the […]

Submission – Berlin Christmas Markets S- and U-Bahn Map

November 28, 2014
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Now that Thanksgiving is done and dusted, let’s move on to Christmas! Submitted by Metrolley, here’s a lovely little map produced by anamea.de that shows the location of the myriad Christmas markets around Berlin in relation to the U- and S-Bahn networks. A nice amalgam of the official map’s style and form with just enough Christmas cheer added – the colour-coded market names (tied to the line they’re on) are a lovely little touch. Nicely […]

Reader Question: Why is Homebush Station Shown as a Spur on the New Sydney Rail Map?

November 27, 2014
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Question: Dear TM, on the new Sydney rail map, Homebush station is situated on a spur all by itself. Could you perhaps explain why? Answer: Yeah, the map doesn’t make the reasoning behind this very clear, does it? It’s because Homebush is a terminus for all T2 “all stations” trains from the city. However, limited stops trains that are heading further west (almost) always bypass Homebush without stopping, hence the “gap” in the main line […]

Historical Map: Principal Railways of France, 1958

November 21, 2014
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A page from a high school geography text book depicting the major railways and operating regions of France. Notable mainly for the eye-popping candy-striping of the regions. Although the source on Flickr says the book dates from 1958, I’m pretty certain it’s a reprinted edition of an older book, as the train moderne at the top of the page seems to be a streamlined “Pacific” 4-6-2 steam engine, popular in Europe in the late 1930s. […]

Unofficial Map: Belgian Rail Network by Arne Nys, December 2014

November 20, 2014
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Submitted by Arne himself (and others). Arne says: I started my own diagram of all the regular rail connections in Belgium that will be active after the schedule change coming in half December. I got the feeling there was so much noise around this schedule change (train lines being canceled or rerouted), but at no point the rail company had any nice visual representation of what the network would look like in the future. So […]

My Journey on the London Underground by Tom Davies, Age 6

November 20, 2014
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If you ever wonder just how much the Tube Map is ingrained into British culture, then I think we have the answer here: drawn (and drawn well) by a six year old, complete with National Rail interchange icons. Fantastic! This is my representation of the London Underground map (which I am very interested in) and shows the journey from my house to my Daddy’s work near Waterloo (identified by the star – which is unfortunately […]

Unofficial Maps: Maxwell Roberts’ Variants on the Boston MBTA Map

November 15, 2014
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Thanks to pretty much the entire Internet for sending me a link to Boston Magazine’s story about Maxwell Roberts’ work on alternate MBTA “T” maps. I’m not going to review them all, but I would recommend that you click through and evaluate them yourself. Personally, the rotated hexalinear version shown above is my favourite.* What I’m interested in talking about is Roberts’ approach to transit map design. Whereas most designers will automatically gravitate to a […]

Project: 1926 Map of U.S. Highways, Digital Restoration

November 14, 2014
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I came across this great 1926 map of the original Numbered U.S. Highway System via an article on CityLab. As I looked, I began to see that while the quality of the scan was good, and the content of the map was fascinating, the map itself was in a pretty sorry state -- so I decided to digitally restore it.