All posts filed under: Historical Maps

Historical Map: Rail Car and Bus Routes of Central Vancouver, April 1953

April 27, 2016
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A hand-coloured and lettered (in what looks like colour pencil!) map showing the various streetcar, interurban trains and bus routes in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia in 1953 – just five years before the interurban trains ceased operations. The north pointer on this map is one of the loveliest I have seen. See also: this charming illustrated transit map of Vancouver from 1930. Source: City of Vancouver Archives/Flickr

Submission – Historical Map: Proposed Baghdad Metro Map, c. 1981-1984

March 25, 2016
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Submitted by peopleneedaplacetogo, who says: The Wikipedia article for “Baghdad Metro” includes this unsourced image of a proposed network map. The way the colours are used in different directions is quite unusual but I guess makes sense if each colour corresponds to a destination (e.g. if destination signs on the front of trains are coloured). Transit Maps says: Hooray for reverse image search, which eventually revealed that this absolutely beautiful diagram was drawn by Richard […]

Photo: Maps in Repurposed Transit Shelter, Portland, Oregon

March 16, 2016
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This small cafe on Fifth Avenue in Portland is housed in one of the last remaining bus shelters from the pre-2007 transit mall, and (awesomely) still retains the maps and informational signage of that vintage.  To the left is the transit mall directory, featuring the last iteration of Portland’s icon-based route grouping – a beaver for routes to the southeast, a leaf for southern routes, a rose for southwest routes, and a deer for those […]

Submission  – Sydney Tram Network at its Maximum Extent by VoomMaps

March 15, 2016
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Submitted by the map’s creator, who says: After having tried for a long time to find a schematic route map for Sydney’s historical tram network without any success, I decided that the only option was to make one myself. This was a particularly tricky task as all of the maps I could find online showed only the tram tracks, but not how the routes functioned. After many hours going through many different websites, trying to […]

Video: Depot Discoveries – The Beck Map

March 11, 2016
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Here’s a little video primer about H.C. Beck’s famous Tube map, put together by the London Transport Museum’s Acton Depot. It’s a breezy little introduction to the most famous and influential transit diagram in the world, but it unfortunately repeats and perpetuates a couple of misconceptions about the map and Beck himself. (I’d expect a little better from the London Transport Museum!) At first, I even thought the initial statement that Beck was “out of work” […]

Historical Map: British Airways Worldwide Route Network, 1975

March 4, 2016
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Via: airlinemaps: A vintage British Airways worldwide map from 1975, just a year after the carrier was just created through the merger of BOAC and British European Airways (BEA). This map is a fantastic airline-meets-railway design that could be on the Transit Maps blog. Routes to destinations connect to main trunk lines that by and far lead to London, more like the current British National Rail map than an airline route map. By not including any landmasses, BA […]

Historical Map: Bus Map of Tokyo, c. 1950

March 4, 2016
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Not a lot of geographical context here, although the central hub is pretty easy to discern. Does good work differentiating lines with a limited colour palette. Can anyone translate the legend at right that shows dashed/thin/thick lines? Is this an early attempt at frequency mapping? Note: Thanks to all who have told me that the lines are thick for express routes, thin for normal routes, and dashed for “special” routes. So it’s service mapping, not frequency. […]

Historical Map: Poster Promoting the Bakerloo Line Extension to Stanmore, 1939

March 4, 2016
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By the mid-1930s, the London Underground’s Metropolitan line was suffering from congestion caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations. To relieve this pressure, a tunnel was constructed between the Bakerloo line’s platforms at Baker Street and Finchley Road and three Metropolitan line stations (Lord’s, Marlborough Road and Swiss Cottage) were replaced with two new Bakerloo stations (St. John’s Wood and Swiss Cottage). The Bakerloo line took over […]

Historical Map: Vancouver City and Suburban Lines, c. 1930

March 3, 2016
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Via: illustratedvancouver: A Guide to Vancouver, the complete map by Peter Hugh Page, a pamphlet by BCER circa 1930, pre-Lions Gate Bridge. “BCER Takes you everywhere!” From the VPL Special Collections, SPEMAPC 388.46 V223b 1930 A charmingly breezy little map of streetcar, interurban rail and motorbus services in Vancouver in 1930. Hand-drawn by one Peter Hugh Page (even the BCER logo!), the map features a number of crudely drawn but amusing vignettes of life in […]

Submission – Historical Map: The Bogue Plan For Seattle, 1911

March 2, 2016
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Submitted by SounderBruce, who says: Of Seattle’s many, many unsuccessful attempts to build a rapid transit system, none sting more than the century-old Bogue Plan. Rejected by a landslide of 10,000 votes (out of 40,000 total cast) on March 5, 1912, Virgil Bogue’s ambitious comprehensive plan to convert the regraded remains of Denny Hill into a Beaux-Arts civic center reminiscent of European city centers would have been well served by 91 miles of rapid transit […]