Submitted by the designer of the map, Hans van der Kooi, who says: As a result of the popularity of the hand-out map for trams (June 2013, 4.5 stars) in Amsterdam, we designed a larger scale map, used on the tram and bus stops in Amsterdam, including the line of the buses as well. Designed and used in 1988. Transit Maps says: It’s an absolute pleasure to have this map submitted by the original designer! […]
Simply stunning cutaway cross-section of the London Tube station now known as Embankment in 1914. This drawing shows the station just after the opening of the new deep tube extension of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now part of the Northern Line) from their previous terminus to the north at Charing Cross station. The extension was a single line that headed south from Charing Cross, looped back around underneath the Thames and had a […]
A beautiful early map for this system, clearly showing how much of it was planned from the start. Apart from a few name changes (the proposed “Old Fold” station became Gateshead Stadium, for example), this is recognisably the same map that existed as far into the future as the year 2000, when the proposed extension to Sunderland made its appearance. The outlined route lines to show proposed/future extensions work wonderfully well, making an excellent contrast […]
A beautiful diagram indicating the patterns of homeward peak-hour travel via public transportation (at this time, mainly streetcar) in Toronto. By my rough count, the collection of yellow dots in the downtown area represents some 49,500 people. Of particular interest are the red-and-white hatched dots, which represent a point where passengers transfer from the privately-run Toronto Railway Company’s (TRC) streetcars to those of the city-owned Toronto Civic Railways. Due to a disagreement over the terms […]
A simply gorgeous mid-1950s map of the AT&SF’s passenger routes, taken from a promotional brochure produced in conjunction with Disneyland, which is shown prominently to the right of the map. The brochure was ostensibly an introduction to the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland, then only a year old. Understandably, the AT&SF – who had basically bankrolled construction of the 5/8th scale railroad – were keen to get some return in their investment. As […]
An interesting twist on the old push-button interactive transit map. Instead of pressing a button to map out your route, here you press a button to find out where in Detroit’s downtown area to board your bus or streetcar. Although difficult to make out, the text along the bottom of the map seems to read: “To locate your loading zone, press button on your line.” I’m not entirely sure how successful this innovation was, as […]
A couple of great photos showing the unique Underground Map-themed livery on GB Railfreight engine 66721. The left side of the engine shows a portion of the original 1933 H.C. Beck design, while the right side shows the corresponding part of the 2013 Tube map. I believe that this engine is used to perform maintenance work on sections of the Underground, so the theme is certainly appropriate, as is the engine’s name plaque, seen in […]
Sent in by long-time Transit Maps reader and contributor, @dars_dm, here’s a great old photo of an interactive map kiosk in the Moscow Metro. Push a button, and your route lights up! Apparently, these displays were common at many Metro stations through the early 1970s. Highly reminiscent of the Paris Metro’s plan indicateur lumineux d’itinéraires (or PILI), an example of which I featured previously. Source: PastVu website via @dars_dm
Here’s a beautiful map from the glory days of American railroading, showing the route from Chicago to San Francisco via Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Amtrak’s modern-day California Zephyr still calls at many of the same locations between Chicago and Omaha to the east and from Elko to Oakland in the west, but takes a different route through the middle, using Colorado instead of Wyoming. Although presented as one continuous route, the […]
A photo from 1989 of a newly-painted mural celebrating 60 years of the Thüringerwaldbahn, an interurban tram service running 22km between Gotha and Tabarz. As the original poster on Flickr notes, the scale of the map is “fanciful”, but it’s really meant more as a (rather lovely) decorative overview than an actual map. I’d be interested to know if the mural is still there, some 24-odd years later. Source: sludgegulper/Flickr
