Submitted by Alain, who says:
I have created a map of the Amsterdam tram network as it was in 1930. In this year, the network reached its greatest extent in terms of number of lines: 25.
It was rather easy to find out the trajectory of each line, as there are plenty of digitised resources available online. I used another map I created last year of the current tram network as a base, and made the appropriate changes from there. I mainly wanted to show the underlying structure of the network in 1930 (which is strikingly similar to today’s) and the trajectory of each individual line.
Initially, I didn’t plan on including individual stops, primarily because I couldn’t find a good source for it. Someone else pointed me to a digitised copy of a booklet from 1930, including all stops for each line, available online via the website of the ‘Stadsarchief Amsterdam’ (Amsterdam city archives). That allowed me to figure out where the stops would have been back then, though I didn’t label them, as that would have distracted from the original purpose of this map.
The map legend shows all lines with their route signs as they were in shown on the front and back end of each car, including the original line colours. These line colours are still displayed on today’s (digital) tram displays, though they have lost their original meaning a long time ago.
If you want to read more about the design process, please visit my blog. It’s in Dutch, but I’m confident Google Translate will do a pretty decent job translating it to English [I can confirm that this is the case – Cam].
Transit Maps says:
Now, this is a project that I heartily endorse, having now done many similar maps myself. And this one’s a beauty that really highlights just how similar the network in 1930 is to that of the modern day: there may be less routes now, but they still traverse much the same routes as then.
What really makes this piece work for me is the attention to detail. The diagram uses multiples of 30 degrees to draw its route lines—immediately evocative of a hexagon—so Alain uses the hexagon as a motif throughout the map. Numbered route bullets, station dots and even the decorative border framing the diagram all get the treatment, yet it never looks overdone and the whole design remains nicely understated. Particularly nice is how the symbol for one-way stops are a “slice” made by overlapping two hexagons and removing the part where they both overlap. Both the rather lovely typeface and the old-time spelling of place names give the diagram some lovely verisimilitude as well – these really sell it as a period piece.
I also welcome the inclusion of the distinctive coloured patterns used on each route’s headboard in the legend, as these are such a distinctive feature of old tram lines (Sydney also used a very similar system). Some say that these headboards were designed to assist illiterate riders, but I always feel that they just made each tram more easily-identifiable at a distance.
Alain’s handling of the insane terminus at Amsterdam Centraal is pretty awesome, with all the lines that go around what must have been a very crowded loop collapsing down to one line with the cross-town lines “bumping” around them. Line 22, which looks like it just made clockwise laps around Amsterdam Centraal (to the ferry terminal on the IJ?) is a very curious thing indeed! I’d perhaps like to see this level of detail extended to all the turnaround loops and one way sections that the system used, as I find that type of thing fascinating, but I can also see why Alain opted not to.
Our final rating: A gorgeous historical map that I could look at for hours. Great work, Alain!
Source: Alain’s website