Here’s a gorgeous and beautifully detailed map of New York (well, Manhattan, but at least it says there are “many places of interest on the other side of the river”!). It was designed by Nils Hansell, a graphic designer and sailing enthusiast who also worked for some years at IBM (according to the blurb over at the site I found the map, anyway). As well as some 300-odd numbered points of interest (as seen in […]
Having found and digitally restored the fantastic 1926 map of the U.S. Highway system, I started to look around to see if I could find a similar map from the advent of the newer Interstate Highway network. However, all my usual sources came up with either nothing or only low resolution scans -- certainly nothing suitable for reproduction. So, what's a map-obsessed graphic designer to do in this situation? Why, redraw the whole thing faithfully from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, of course!
Great photo of the remnants of an old Metro map. The original poster of this photo on Flickr notes that it’s normally hidden behind advertisements these days. The best I can do with dating is pre-1967, as Line 7 has yet to be split into 7 and 7bis north of Louis Blanc station, instead being branches of the same line. Source: andrew gallix/Flickr
Another great map from the New York Public Library archives. What was there before the advent of the subway? Familiar routes, perhaps, but above-grade rather than underground. As the legend says, “Except as noted, all lines are on iron viaducts over public streets.” nyplmaps: Manhattan railway company track map of elevated lines in Manhattan & the Bronx 1893-1903 The Electric Railroader’s Association’s 54 x 41 cm hand drawn map shows the various elevated railroad lines and […]
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 […]
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. […]
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.
From a brochure introducing the now-infamous A/B stopping pattern on Chicago’s “L”. A trial run of the (mostly) alternating stopping pattern—designed to speed up operations on lines where there was no extra passing track for express services—had been carried out on the Lake Street Line in April 1948 and had been deemed a success. The next two lines to receive A/B service were the Ravenswood Line and the North-South Route as seen here. The revision […]
Great little system map from the back of a ticket. Amtrak’s modern-day Texas Eagle route is a direct descendant of the route shown here. Source: Wikimedia Commons
From A. Merritt Taylor’s Report of Transit Commissioner, City of Philadelphia. At the time, only the current Market-Frankford Line (complete with “Ferry Line” extension at the east end) was operating, so everything else shown here is proposed. Coincidentally, the colour scheme used seems to be almost identical to that used today, although the colours actually indicate immediacy of construction – blue for extant, orange for “immediate construction” and green for “future construction”. Source: 18brumaire/Flickr
