All posts filed under: Historical Maps

Historical Map: 1977 MBTA Guidelines and Standards Manual – Graphics

December 23, 2015
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A page from the 1977 MBTA Standards Manual showing the specifications for a map panel as installed at the entrance level of a station, using Kendall inbound as an example. Signage much like this can still be seen across most of the rapid transit network. Interestingly, there’s no Kickstarter campaign to reissue this particular standards manual, perhaps because it wasn’t created by a famed Italian modernist designer and is typeset in the most basic manner […]

Submission – 1952 Berlin S-Bahn Map Recreation by Jesse Jae Hoon Eisenberg

December 17, 2015
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Submitted by Jesse, who says: Inspired by your re-make of the Paris Metro maps, I went and re-made from scratch this map of Berlin from 1952. I used DIN Pro, which seemed like the closest match. I took a few liberties with some of the colors and symbols here and then, but for the most part I’ve tried to stick to the original as closely as possible. Would love to hear what you think! Transit […]

Submission – Historical Map: South Shore Line Railfan Tour Brochure, 1939

December 16, 2015
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Submitted by marmarinou – who runs a cool Tumblr dedicated to Chicago-area railroads and trains. A very basic map of the South Shore Line between Chicago, IL and South Bend, IN appended to the back cover of a railfan tour brochure from 1939. The day-long tour of the line was organised by the Central Electric Railfans Association, which is still extant today. Check out the original source of the image (keep scrolling down) for the inside spread […]

Interactive Map: Archaeology of the Pacific Electric, Los Angeles by The Militant Angeleno

November 10, 2015
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Here’s an absolutely superb piece of interactive mapping that overlays the routes of the Pacific Electric streetcar system (the “Red Cars”) onto a modern Google aerial map of the greater Los Angeles area. That’s interesting enough by itself, but this map goes further, and pinpoints the still-extant remnants of this once-great network – stations, uncovered sections of old track, power substations, railway bridges and more – and has photographs from many of these locations. It’s wonderfully […]

Historical Maps: Two Futures for the Tyne & Wear Metro, England

October 16, 2015
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Here’s a pair of interesting future planning maps for the Tyne & Wear Metro, a raid transit/light rail system in the northeast of England. The first, from September 2001, shows a plan to extend the network with street-running feeder trams, as shown by the light blue route lines. Note that the map indicates the extension to Sunderland as open, even though this wasn’t actually completed until 2002. According to the plan, this was a future […]

Historical Map: July 22, 1974 Sketch of the Washington DC Metro Map by Lance Wyman

September 29, 2015
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Here’s a fantastic bit of Washington Metro history that I hadn’t seen before: an original working drawing of the now-iconic map from 1974, two years before the system opened (see the opening day map here). Interestingly, it looks like Wyman was experimenting with textural treatments for the route lines at this time – stripes for the Red Line, stars for the Blue, etc. – an idea I’m ever so glad he abandoned, because it would […]

Submission – Photo: Cross-section of Brussels Midi/Zuid Station Complex

September 17, 2015
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Submitted by Piotr Ingling, who says: Not exactly a transit map but seeing your post with NY subway stations drawings recalled me this one. It’s a photo that I took in Dec 2004 – unfortunately it seems that the board has been removed long time ago during renovation works. I hope it is preserved somewhere. There are two levels here for metro and trams (underground part of tram network is called pre-metro as it’s ready […]

Submission – Historical Map: The Routes of Imperial Airways and of Associated Companies, 1936

September 15, 2015
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Submitted by Mattias Lq, who says: I know how you don’t like many airway maps trying to be schematic, but this one is a rather successful combination of a simplified geographical map and a schematic inset showing frequencies throughout the year. Although it has some minor beauty flaws here and there, it is really a beautiful map, especially considering the five colours used to print the map! What do you say? Transit Maps says: Mattias, […]

Historical Map: Railroads of Latvia, 1938

September 9, 2015
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A fairly bare-bones map of existing (black) and new (red) rail lines in the Baltic State of Latvia from 1938. It’s mainly interesting because it shows the five different railroad gauges in use at the time. Five! (Which is right up there with Australia’s infamous “gauge muddle”). Source: Wikimedia Commons – Latvia