All posts filed under: Historical Maps

Historical Map: Metropolitan Transit Train System, Melbourne, 1981

March 3, 2020
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The Melbourne suburban train network just after the City Loop opened in 1981. This is probably my favourite map of this particular network: it’s clean and graphically simple — black dots are all that are used to indicate parking, not a graphical vehicle icon or even a “P” in a circle. The colours are nice and bright and group the lines into operational groups quite neatly… an approach I prefer far more than the zone-based […]

Historical Map: Car and Bus Routes to Wanamaker’s, 1929

January 24, 2020
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A rather wonderful little map from the 1929 edition of the Wanamaker’s Diary, showing how accessible the store – generally regarded as one of the first department stores in the United States – was by public transportation. I particularly like how all the modes are clearly defined by delightful little profile illustrations – adorable little motor coaches, single cars with trolley poles for streetcars and multiple cars for the subway and elevated lines. The sheer […]

Historical Map: Scenic Route of the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway, late 1930s

January 8, 2020
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Here’s a very handsome little map showing the lines of the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway from sometime in the late 1930s. By this point in time however, almost all of the routes were run by buses, making the name of the company somewhat ironic. Just two streetcar lines remain: Fields Corner to Quincy (with branches from there to Quincy Point or Houghs Neck), and Sullivan Square to Stoneham. The map itself is drawn in a […]

Historical Map: Chicago Central Area Transit Plan, 1974

December 19, 2019
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A map from on what looks like a presentation board showing the mid-1970s version of the Chicago Central Area Transit Plan. Initially planned as a whole new system of subway lines to entirely replace the Loop in downtown Chicago in the late 1960s, rising costs caused the program to be split into parts: the “Core Plan” seen here, with the balance to be built later. As it happened, none of it was ever actually constructed. […]

Historical Map: Gotthardbahn Brochure Diagram, 1957

December 18, 2019
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I absolutely love this almost abstract representation of the Gotthardbahn from a Swiss advertising brochure from 1957. Just major cities, the distinctive loops and spirals of the line (described in detail in this post from 2014) and the famous 15-kilometre-long Gotthard Tunnel shown illustratively cutting through a massive mountain. Source: Retours.eu

Submission – Historical Map: Victorian Passenger Rail Network, 1928 by Philip Mallis

December 10, 2019
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Submitted by Philip, who says: I’ve designed this schematic map of what Victoria’s passenger rail network looked like in 1928. It was absolutely huge, with 114 lines and 1,185 stations. The map is built around the seven main lines (thicker 15pt lines) with branch and other lines thinning out (10pt) to create a basic visual heirarchy. This emphasises services rather than infrastructure, as it also shows where passengers were required to interchange. Line groups are […]

Historical Map: Interurban Trips Over Vancouver, B.C. Electric Railway System, 1913

November 11, 2019
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A handsome birds-eye map of the extensive interurban electric railway network extending from Vancouver as far away as Chilliwack. An inset map shows the lines on Vancouver Island, though not terribly efficiently, as much space is devoted to showing the power transmission lines from the Jordan River power house. There’s lots of great little details on the map, like little interurban trains running along the route lines, steam trains shown on the main line and […]

Historical Map: Transit Map of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1969

November 8, 2019
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A simple and modernist diagram of transit services in Halifax, produced in advance of the system converting from a mix of buses and trolleybuses to all diesel buses on January 1, 1970. The disclaimer that “a full-colour map will be available shortly” seems to indicate that this particular map was somewhat of a placeholder effort until a final solution was produced. Despite that, it’s quite handsome in its simplicity and the clear explanatory text to […]

Historical Map: Denver RTD Bus Network, 1977

October 2, 2019
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A great example of late 1970s American transit map design from Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) with thick, chunky route lines, minimalist design sensibilities and tightly letter-spaced sans serif headings. The map has the potential to get messy really quickly, but it’s actually all handled rather deftly and cleanly. Colour-coding differentiates between different service types (local, express, circulator and regional), and route numbers and road names are placed inside the thick route lines, which generally […]

Historical Map: Tourist’s Trolley Map of St. Louis and Environs, 1915

September 27, 2019
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A fairly crudely-drawn map of St. Louis’ extensive streetcar network, reaching far past the city limits to the cities of Florissant and St. Charles, as well as to the pleasures of the Meramec Highlands and Lake Park. Like many maps of St. Louis from this period, the map is oriented with north to the right so that “downtown” is literally at the bottom of the map. Of particular note is the message at the bottom […]