I thought I was all done with “to scale” maps of North American rail systems, but then Dennis McClendon (see previous posts from him) sent in this beautiful series of maps that he produced for Planning magazine back in 1984. Dennis himself says:

Given this week’s Tumblr theme, I thought you might be interested in these maps that I did in 1984, when I worked for Planning magazine. The “new wave” of modern light rail systems was just getting started. My initial idea was to do them all at the same scale, but integrating them with the text into a two-page magazine layout eventually required a compromise of doing them at two distinctive scales.

No GIS or even Illustrator in those days: I created these using Rubylith and Chartpak flexible line tape.

Of note is the large number of systems that were either brand new or still under construction: Portland’s “Banfield” line – now the main section of line between downtown and Gateway – being especially noticeable to me. Also – massive extensions under construction for the Washington DC Metro, and the parlous state of streetcars in New Orleans, with service on the historical St. Charles line only.

And just to throw further fuel onto the fire regarding the categorization of certain systems as either light rail or streetcar, which many commenters on Matt Johnson’s map brought up. In 1984 at least: Pittsburgh and Boston’s Green Line were classified as “light rail” while Philadelphia and the San Francisco Muni were seen as “streetcar”. Make of that what you will.

Source: Dennis McClendon via email.