Here’s an absolutely wonderful diagram of rail in Indianapolis in 1907 that pares everything down to the absolute minimum required to tell the story. 43 completely evenly-spaced railroad lines (representing 18 steam lines and 25 interurbans, according to the source) enter the city, which is encircled by the aptly named Belt Railroad. The names of those 43 outer destinations spiral dramatically around the edge of the map, though the flow is perhaps broken a bit by the need to show some still-more-distant cities: Cincinnati, Dayton, Louisville, Evansville, St. Louis and Chicago, all of which are shown as being accessible by multiple routes.

Our rating: I love this so much. An instant five stars.

Prints of this amazing diagram are now available in the Transit Maps online store.

Source: Indiana History website