There’s a lot to like about this simple little track diagram of Sydney’s rail system from 1928. There’s a lot of different angles – both with route lines and station labels – but it still manages to hang together as a coherent whole. A big part of that is the dead straight Western line running all the way across the canvas from Central to Penrith, which provides that vital design axis that good diagrams almost always have. The way it breaks this line up in to the Main line, Suburban Line and Local Line by track pairs is wonderful, and does more to explain why trains terminate at Homebush even today than any other Sydney map I’ve ever seen.
Note the inclusion of the Rogan’s Hill line from Westmead, a short-lived line that only operated from 1919 to 1932. As the map pre-dates the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the North Shore line ends at the old Milsons Point railway station, where riders would transfer to a ferry to Circular Quay. Waverton station bears its original name of “Bay Road”, and the line across the harbour via North Sydney and Kirribilli is shown as under construction, as is much of the City Circle, as well as the East Hills line, which had commenced construction in 1927. Most intriguingly, a connecting branch between St. Leonards and Epping is shown as under construction, decades before the line from Chatswood to Epping (now upgraded to metro standards) became a reality. Apparently, this line was part of John Bradfield’s plan for the railways and is the reason why Epping’s centre track once terminated at the station with platforms on both sides.
Our final word: Really rather nicely done! Neat, compact and drawn to a high standard of draughtsmanship. Also a nice little historical record.
Here’s an absolutely cracking diagrammatic map that appeared as a fold-out sheet in Union Pacific annual reports from about 1978 through 1981, maybe slightly longer. I first saw this as a photograph of a partial part of the map, but it didn’t take me too long to find the whole thing on the internet via the Union Pacific Historical Society’s website.
The map features a rigid and consistent use of a 30-degree angle, some neat abstract icons, nice differentiation between single- and double-track sections of line, and a clear and comprehensive legend. And it all looks great in bright colours reversed out of a black background: very late 1970s corporate design! What’s not to love?
Of course, the nature of the Union Pacific network means the eastern half of the map looks a bit empty, but there’s not a lot that could have been done about that. And there’s one error on the West Coast that I noticed and seems to have persisted through a few iterations of the map (though it was correct in the photo I first saw) – the positions of Aberdeen and Hoquiam in Washington state are reversed.
Our final word: A fantastic piece of late-1970s corporate design. It’s no wonder they used this beauty for a few years!
Hi, everyone – it’s been a while! Quite a few people have written in lately wondering why I haven’t updated the blog in a while, so I thought I should address that. Firstly, for those that were concerned something was wrong, I’d like to reassure you that I’m a-okay and everything is fine. I’ve just been engrossed in a new project, and as a result, the blog has gone into a bit of a hiatus – there’s only so many hours in the day, after all! To be honest, the blog has already succeeded well beyond my wildest dreams and contains a formidable archive of maps, reviews and tips and techniques, so I’m okay with it taking a little break.
So, what is this all-consuming project, you might ask? Basically, I’m writing a fully-comprehensive research wiki on the history of streetcars and electric interurbans in my adopted home town of Portland, Oregon. As many of you know, it’s a subject very near to my heart (with multiple maps made on the subject!), and it’s something I’m feeling very inspired about at the moment. Information on this subject is scattered about the internet on various sites (which aren’t always accurate), or is hidden away in lots of separate books, so I’m trying to create a comprehensive archive of verified primary-source information (mainly historical newspaper articles) to give definitive dates and details for all the streetcar companies, lines, infrastructure, and prominent people involved. The work is mainly trawling newspaper databases for relevant articles and transcribing and tagging them in a fully-searchable database for easy reference and cross-checking. I’ve already transcribed over 650 articles and I’m still only scratching the surface! You can check out the project here – Portland Streetcar History.
There’s still a lot to do: I’m currently working on filling out the maps gallery, which will hopefully become the largest repository of streetcar-era maps of Portland on the internet, all with links back to the original download source. I’m also hoping to create chronological maps of each line, so that you can see how each grew and changed over time – it’s going to be a lot of work, but worth it!
As work on this new project progresses, I can see myself start to return some time back to the blog, so it’s certainly not dead… just taking a little rest! Let me know what you think of my new project in the comments and, as always, thanks for your support!
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Transit Maps has never taken a look at the map for Portland’s northern neighbour, the (original) Vancouver. With the recent addition of their second “The Vine” BRT route along Mill Plain Boulevard, now seems like a good time.
At first glance, it seems to be a pretty solid map with some nicely simplified geography and routes clearly delineated. To my eyes, it seems to take some design cues from Spokane’s celebrated bus map (especially the dotted route lines for express services), though it’s certainly not as polished. However, closer inspection reveals a map that just seems really unfinished.
The first major problem? There’s no legend. There’s nothing on this map (or on the C-TRAN website) to quickly and easily explain what all the different lines and colours actually represent. The bold red and green “The Vine” lines are obvious enough, and you can intuit that the mid-blue lines are regular local bus services, but then why is Route 2 a slightly lighter colour? What does a thick dark blue route mean? Why is Route 105 a solid yellow line, when the 105X is a dotted yellow line? And then there’s the large green areas, which are meant to indicate C-TRAN’s “The Current” rideshare zones, but end up looking for all the world like parkland without a legend to tell you definitively otherwise.
Some digging around on C-TRAN’s website eventually gives the answer to some of these questions, but also raises more along the way. It looks like Route 2 is a lighter shade of blue because it only runs on weekdays? A thick dark blue line should indicate a “Regional” route, which for C-TRAN means that it provides connecting service into Portland but isn’t a downtown express route (these are the yellow lines). These routes all have “Regional” in their name with a “6x” route number, and require a higher fare than a local bus within Vancouver. This causes inconsistencies, however, as Route 71 is shown as a Regional bus when it runs entirely within Vancouver, and the “67 – Airport Regional” is incorrectly shown as a limited-stop local service (a light blue dotted line, which should be reserved for routes with a “4x” number). The only difference between the 105 and 105X that I can see is that the 105 stops in downtown Vancouver on its way to/from downtown Portland, which somehow makes it “local” enough to earn a solid route line? Strange.
Some other unfinished or inconsistent elements: there’s some explanatory text on top of the downtown area that looks like there should have been a white box behind it. Some similar routes merge into each other (see the 105X and the 190), while others run concurrent to each other. The way that the routes south of Fisher’s Landing get cut off by the edge of the canvas as they turn onto SR 14 is careless. All the routes that go off the map should have an indication of their final destination.
Our final word: The bones of something good, but just seems really unfinished. It’s almost as if some layers were turned off accidentally before the file was exported, because it’s hard to rationalise the complete absence of a legend for the map otherwise.
UPDATE 10/27/2023: The design team from C-TRAN reached out to me via a Twitter message to let me know that the map has been updated. The new version addresses just about every one of my concerns, and is a great improvement. The source link below should take you to the new map now.
Here’s a fascinating map of streetcar lines in Omaha, Nebraska in 1927, beautifully hand drawn on top of a pre-printed single colour map of the area produced by the City’s engineering department. Not only does the map show the extent of all the streetcar lines (with 64.6 miles of track), but also colour-codes them to show which predecessor company originally laid down the tracks. The original Omaha Horse Railway Company, founded in 1867, is represented by a healthy 12 miles of track! All the companies shown in the legend were absorbed by the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Company (O&CB) by 1902, which continued on as the Omaha Traction Company until being succeeded by Metro Area Transit in 1972. On this map, the “Council Bluffs” part of the name is only represented by showing the loop that cars used in Omaha to turn around.
It’s not quite clear who added the hand drawn elements to the map: the O&CB was a privately-run company, but the base map was drawn by city engineers. Text that reads “Exhibit No. 7” down the bottom right suggests that this is one of a series of maps, either about the streetcar system, or the city as a whole. A report to City Council? One thing is certain: the draftsmanship is meticulous in its execution, and the lettering used is superb!
Some historical notes: the City Superintendent named on the base map, Roy N. Towl, became mayor of Omaha in 1933 and served one term before continuing on as a city commissioner for many more years. The Omaha Traction Company itself is perhaps most infamously remembered for the violent streetcar strike of 1935, when the city was put under martial law to restore order.
Here’s a beautiful old illustrative map – this is from a prospectus advertising the benefits of settling in San Joaquin County, California in 1910. Part of depicting this as a desirable place to live and do business is showing the multitude of modern railway lines – including several electric interurbans – almost all of which seem to converge upon Stockton, neatly in the middle of the map.
This being an advertising tool, the situation shown is one of a promised future – text beneath the map notes that some of the railroads are actually only partially built or planned… but they’ll be finished really soon, we promise! It’s a technique that was often used in sales brochures of the time: here’s another one from Pullman, Washington in 1911 that shows an electric interurban line from Colfax and Spokane that never actually got built.
The map itself is charming: mostly to scale, but with big chunky roads and railroad lines overlaid on top to emphasise their importance. Little trains chug along their lines, and the whole thing looks sort of like a Railroad Tycoon game in progress. The interesting colour palette is a result of the lithographic printing process, which didn’t use CMYK inks like modern printing. To me, this looks like three or four inks were used – black, sky blue, orange and perhaps yellow as well (the clean yellow areas just don’t look like a tint of the orange to me). The clever overlaying of these inks allows other colours like green and a darker blue to be created.
Our final word: Decorative and evocative; it does a good job of painting the county in the most positive light.
At the (extremely cool) Bergenline Avenue station, [my partner and I] stumbled across this official map that I’d never seen before, depicting both the HBLR and the PATH! It was actually all over that station, and it’s definitely a relatively old map, because we also found a slightly different version (that matched the usual map by depicting the weekday-only line with a dashed stroke) that was dated to 2015.
I also have to give this map a major shout-out for a very clean and recognizable portrayal of the network, and for showing PATH connections clearly and thoroughly without cluttering the map or distracting from the HBLR routes. (And the stretched style of the transfer stations is absolutely lovely; I haven’t seen that anywhere before.) The font differences on the labels for Bergenline Avenue and the two train stations are basically my only gripes, as the map isn’t clear on what those mean. (Okay, I do also hate the little jog north of Richard St.)
Anyway, I think this map would honestly have the potential to be instantly recognizable if it were only used in more places, and I figured you and your readers deserve to see it too!
Transit Maps says:
Aaargh! This is so close to being great that it hurts. From Exchange Place upwards, it’s fantastic – clean and clear with a lovely and distinctive slanted angle that brings unity to the design… and then it all falls apart as soon as the lines turn the corner to Essex Street. Angled labels that are way too close to their station marker, wobbly route lines and weird clashing angles. It’s almost like two separate maps jammed together into one!
Kara’s right about the “stretched” transfer stations at Exchange Place and Newport, though – those are just lovely. And the PATH lines are dealt with fairly deftly as well: obviously subsidiary to the Hudson-Bergen lines, but visible enough to show the interconnection between the two systems. I’m not sure that “PATH” needs to be emblazoned on the lines three times, though… once is probably enough to be understood.
As far as the different font choices go, I’d say that the all-caps label at Bergenline Avenue is simply meant to be a “YOU ARE HERE” marker, while the treatment of Newark Penn and Hoboken Terminal is simply reflecting their relative importance as transit hubs. Yes, it could be explained in a legend, but I think the meaning is clear enough. The locality labels are set in the very old-fashioned Copperplate Gothic – that’s a first on a transit map for me!
Our final word: This diagram’s confidence seems to have deserted it halfway through, which is a pity. Committing to that stylish slanted angle from top to bottom would improve this immensely.
I stumbled across this atlas of maps the other day and had to share. A few sample pages are below – head to the originating website to view all 20 of them. Enjoy!
Having made my own diagram on the same subject matter way, way back in 2011, I think I’m qualified to say that this is a rousing success. The maps have some similarities – routes are colour-coded either by their Paris origin station or operator (Yellow for Eurostar, burgundy for Thalys, Pink for the low-cost Ouigo service, etc.), and the Paris stations are the undeniable focus point of the map. But where I opted for a circular ring of stations around Paris, Lars has hit upon the genius idea of using a pentagonal system. This not only looks great, but also leaves a gap to the north-east where his icon for the Eiffel Tower slots very neatly into a position similar to the one it occupies in real life. Lovely!
And this pentagonal shape isn’t just superficial, either – it forms the centre point of a comprehensive grid system that rotates 72 degrees for each of the map’s sectors, as seen in the image below. It’s an incredibly clever solution that lends a lot of clarity and sophistication to the map, and I love it. It’s just so much more suited to the depiction of the network than a standard octolinear diagram.
Lars has also encoded a lot of useful information to the map – general service frequencies (though he notes that this information is hard to come by, as the SNCF doesn’t really believe in online timetables any more), the names of the LGV branches, selected winter services, and whether or not all trains call at a particular station. I find the “dotted outline” symbol for this possibly the weakest part of the map, as it breaks up into an indistinct shape rather than being immediately recognisable, but this is a pretty minor quibble. And we get icons for major landmarks dotted around the map for some visual interest as well – bonus!
One thing that could be looked at is some of the minor lines that pass underneath the main trunks – in some locations, it can be a little hard to tell where they go or where they join another route – the line from Le Havre just sort of disappears somewhere near Massy TGV and the “slow” TGV down to Miramas winds back and forth hidden behind the main line, and looks quite disjointed as a result. This may just be a stylistic choice to emphasise the importance of those major trunk lines, though we always have to weigh up the trade-offs when doing something like this.
Our final word: Fantastique! The clever usage of an unusual pentagonal grid works brilliantly to make one of my favourite maps of 2023.
Unearthed on Twitter (It’ll always be Twitter to me, no matter what Elon says) by @crossing_lights, this is quite an extraordinary find.
Long-time readers may have seen the 1939 version of this diagram (and the digital recreation that I made). Here’s the thing: the general consensus has always been that this was a one-off attempt at something in the style of H.C. Beck’s newfangled London Underground diagram. I seem to recall that one theory even had it that the 1939 diagram was produced for visiting dignitaries from London Transport and was never even seen by the general public. Jay Foreman’s “Unfinished London” video on the history of the Tube Map (Part 2) even suggests that Beck himself drew it (to which I say, “Poppycock!”)
But yet, here’s this later version of the map – even though all we have of it is a black and white archival reference photo, not the actual printed piece – which shows that there was at least one further edition/revision. I’d say this is a facsimile of a printed brochure, as there seems to be evidence of a fold line running down the page between Penrith and Kingswood. Careful examination shows considerable differences between this version and the 1939 one.
The most obvious of these is that this diagram is properly typeset (using Gill Sans throughout) instead of the neat handwritten labels from the 1939 version. This actually presents quite a few problems: whereas the handwritten labels could be subtly adjusted in size and width to squeeze longer names in, the typeset labels are all the same size and are pretty unforgiving, layout-wise. The label for Macdonaldtown station now takes up so much room that the designer was left with no choice but to angle the labels for Stanmore, Lewisham and Ashfield (starting a long tradition for angled labels on the Sydney rail map!). Wentworthville has been flipped to the other side of its line simply because the label would run into the Carlingford line if it was on the other side! There’s quite a few places where the spacing of the labels is pretty unsatisfactory: Merrylands is way too close to Granville, for example, and there’s plenty more if you look. However, they did fix the label at Kirkham on the Camden Line!
The parallel lines heading south from Sydenham have been redrawn poorly, with the section from Sydenham to Kogarah being much further apart than from Carlton to Hurstville. Very curiously, the section of the City Circle from Wynyard through Circular Quay (here, just “Quay”) to St. James has been drawn in by hand – perhaps just an addition to this archival print? St. James itself is still denoted by a terminal tick, as this section was very much still under construction in 1940 (Circular Quay station finally opened in 1956!).
The archival records for this map simply and vaguely date this diagram as “pre-1962?”; my dating of c.1940 is because Dumbleton station has been renamed Beverly Hills (August 1940), the Ropes Creek line hasn’t opened (March 1942), and I definitely think that this revision would have been produced fairly shortly after the original 1939 version.
Update: This “No. 2” map has been definitively dated to 1953 in this Twitter post by @crossing_lights, which shows the obverse side of the pamphlet from the NSW Government Archives. Though it’s been permanently glued down so that the map is hidden, adjusting the histogram in Photoshop clearly reveals this diagram on the other side. Quite remarkably, that means 14 years have elapsed between the 1939 “No. 1” version and this one. This does explain the omission of the Kurrajong Line from this edition, as it closed in 1952. It therefore seems probable that the Ropes Creek line, with its limited passenger service, was deemed too unimportant to show on the diagram.
Our final word: A hitherto unknown second attempt at a “Beck-style” diagram for the Sydney rail network. Like its predecessor, it’s not entirely successful, but it’s fascinating to know that it even exists!
