Here’s something of an increasing rarity – a London Underground map that I haven’t seen before. 

It’s the 1941 edition of the Hans Schleger map, printed in brown and blue ink only due to wartime austerity measures. I’ve written about the first edition of this map previously (April 2014, 3 stars) which was notable for its use of a blue airbrushed effect to highlight the central part of the map. Its removal certainly improves the legibility of the map: an important consideration with the reduced colour palette! The other notable thing about the map is small blue triangles to denote the main line termini stations dotted around London – mostly just identified by the initials of the operating railway company unless the station name isn’t related to an Underground station, like at Fenchurch Street.

However, what’s really interesting is that this map – produced some three years after the initial Zéró version – shows that the London Transport Board persisted with this “experiment” in map design far longer than I ever thought, probably to H.C. Beck’s complete and utter mortification.

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection