Submitted by Noah, who says:
Here’s my map of the streetcar services operated by the Kingston, Portsmouth & Cataraqui Electric Railway in 1910. I was inspired to do this after seeing several maps of historic tram networks including the ones on this website [See my historical maps of Portland, Spokane and Yakima – Cam].
The system opened on Princess St in 1893. By around 1898 it had reached its largest extent as shown in this map.
In 1910 the system was increasing service on most routes but the Williamsville shuttle eventually closed due to poor track quality and ridership.
Unfortunatley, the system was plagued with financial troubles. In 1905 after a dispute with the city, the system was taken over by a group of citizen owners who continued to operate it as a public service, but it would never again turn a profit. Countless financial difficulties and disputes with the city and the electric utilities filled the 1910s and 1920s, but the streetcars kept running. It even survived a carbarn fire in 1909.
Sadly, a second fire in 1930 proved to be the last straw. All but one passenger trams were burned as well as the carbarn itself, and it was decided to abandon the unprofitable lines once and for all.
The styling for the diagram itself was inspired a bit by the Montreal metro’s dark background, bright lines, and combination of sharp corners in the landscape and smooth bends on the lines themselves. I went for bright fluorescent colours to stand out against the dark background. The route names are as far as I know accurate but I added the numbers. Just for fun I also added the mainline connections of the time as well.
Transit Maps says:
Nice work, Noah! I always love it when someone takes the time to research and document old streetcar networks, preserving that knowledge for the future. I often find that information about them is very fragmented… a bit in this book, something on a wiki there, an old diagram from somewhere else, and so on… so compiling everything in one easy-to-read map is a great way to consolidate that knowledge.
Design-wise, I like the dark background contrasted with the bright route lines… very stylish! I wonder if there’s a better way to show the main line railroads, as the dashed lines look like under construction roads at first glance. A thinner solid line in a colour that’s not quite as bright as the streetcar lines (a purple/mauve maybe?) might work.
As this is very definitely a map and not a diagram, perhaps you need a scale bar and maybe even some sort of period-appropriate compass rose. Labelling the bodies of water would be good as well.
The main area that needs some love is typography. It looks like you’ve used Microsoft’s Calibri throughout, which is a fairly workmanlike, generic “Office” typeface – not really period appropriate or visually striking. If you have access to them, then an early 20th century gothic typeface like Franklin Gothic or News Gothic could be a better choice. Push yourself here, as good typography can really elevate a project like this.