A mid-1970s map of the LIRR, designed specifically to be given to “news media representatives who cover the Long Island Railroad (sic) and the MTA on a regular basis”, presumably to give them accurate facts at their fingertips when they wrote about the railroad. 234 miles of line! 700 scheduled trains a day!
It’s a curious thing, drawn precisely in parts (see the lines out of Jamaica) and very roughly in others; the illustration of the train below the map is almost child-like in its execution. Lots of hand-lettering.
The IRT’s connections between the LIRR at Long Island City/Hunterspoint Avenue and NY Penn Station seem rather overstated: the rainbow lines and pinwheel seem to suggest that all nine IRT lines (I correlated the colours and lines to the contemporaneous subway map) have a direct connection, when only the 7 provides one.
The very 1970s fat line “rising sun” LIRR logo to the top right of the map isn’t one I’ve seen before… some quick research suggests it was short-lived and not used publicly very much.
Source: NY Transit Museum/Twitter
The pinwheel colors are the LIRR lines not the IRT lines.