Submitted by Shaul Picker, who says:
I have a Flickr and save these images from eBay listings and elsewhere. This is a sign from the former New York City Department of Traffic showing the M6 bus route, which was eliminated in 2010.
Transit Maps says:
What a great little map! While the M6 may have been eliminated in 2010, this map is much older, as evidenced by both the very 1970s typography, the use of “Avenue of the Americas” instead of 6th Avenue, and the references to the Penn Central Railroad at both Penn Station and Grand Central – this last dating the map to pre-1976, when Penn Central went bankrupt.
The map itself is really quite lovely, doing a lot of work with just tints of blue and white: the featured route gets the darkest shade, while all the other Manhattan routes get tinted back to be subsidiary to it. It’s hard to see on the image, but the legend suggests that eastbound and westbound routes have a slightly different treatment to differentiate them from each other. Interestingly, the map highlights Penn Station, Grand Central, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and PATH stations – but doesn’t mention the Subway at all.
Our final word: A great monochromatic diagram that highlights the M6 well, but also provides good context at how it fits into the bus network in Manhattan.
Source: Union Turnpike/Flickr
HASHTAGActually, PC went into bankruptcy in 1970, two years after its formation. The company existed until 1976 when the government-backed Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation if you are scoring at home) took over from Penn Central. PC was a merger of historic rivals NY Central (owner of GCT) and the Pennsylvania (owner of PSNY and the LIRR), as well as the New Haven (who used GCT), forced into the mess by the ICC.
Conrail — ConRail for the first few years — was the PC and a bunch of other northeastern railroads that were either in bankruptcy or teetering. As part of that deal, Amtrak was given (I think – I don’t believe any money changed hands and it would be Funny Money anyway) the Northeast Corridor but NOT the commuter trains that ran on it. As a result, PC and later Conrail ran commuter trains on some lines around NYC and Philadelphia (and elsewhere, to be sure).
Without googling, I’m not certain how the MTA fits in. Certainly PC was running commuter trains until 1976 and Conrail until 1983, but I’m pretty sure that was with state money. Not really certain when people would have stopped referring to the PC in terms of commuter trains.n
Conrail still exists. It was sold to the private sector in 1986 and in 1999, it was split up between CSX (that got mostly NYC lines) and Norfolk Southern (that got mostly PRR lines). The company still exists as Conrail Shared Assets (and owned by CSX and NS) and allows customers to choose either railroad for service (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrail_Shared_Assets_Operations)
Neat map.
How the MTA fits in (and the MBTA too). This is getting away from the topic of the bus map, but since the point was raised, I’ll note that Amtrak didn’t get the whole Northeast Corridor. I believe that the MTA owns New Haven to Grand Central, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority owns from Boston to the Rhode Island state line.
And, yes, it s a neat map.
Right – CDOT still owns their chunk and controls it, and the Commonwealth still owns the line from Rhode Island … but they let Amtrak control it.
Given that it doesn’t mention Amtrak at all, I would guess this map is from 1970 or so, during the brief period between the PC merger and Amtrak’s creation