All posts tagged: 4 stars

Submission – Unofficial MARTA (Atlanta, Georgia) Map by Andrew Whited

February 12, 2014
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Now this I like! Part of an overall identity project for MARTA that Andrew completed, here’s his stylish revision of the system map (I reviewed the official one way, way back in October 2011, giving it a pretty generous 3 stars). The MARTA system isn’t that complex – essentially only having two intersecting trunk lines with a couple of branches – so simplifying it down and abstracting it like this works really well. The slightly […]

Historical Map: AC Transit Route Map, 1967

December 26, 2013
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Sweet illustrated map of bus routes in the East Bay, including a multitude of transbay services: I count 16 crossing the Bay Bridge to San Francisco! As with all maps of this ilk, the fun part is finding all the little details in the illustrations that are liberally scattered throughout (My favourite is probably the sailor who is busily chatting up the cute nurse at the top centre of the map). The subtle painted texture […]

Historical Map: Tyne and Wear Metro, 1981

December 6, 2013
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A beautiful early map for this system, clearly showing how much of it was planned from the start. Apart from a few name changes (the proposed “Old Fold” station became Gateshead Stadium, for example), this is recognisably the same map that existed as far into the future as the year 2000, when the proposed extension to Sunderland made its appearance. The outlined route lines to show proposed/future extensions work wonderfully well, making an excellent contrast […]

Historical Map: The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe “Disneyland” Map, 1956

November 22, 2013
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A simply gorgeous mid-1950s map of the AT&SF’s passenger routes, taken from a promotional brochure produced in conjunction with Disneyland, which is shown prominently to the right of the map. The brochure was ostensibly an introduction to the Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland, then only a year old. Understandably, the AT&SF – who had basically bankrolled construction of the 5/8th scale railroad – were keen to get some return in their investment. As […]

Unofficial Map: Singapore MRT, 2013 by Andrew Smithers

November 21, 2013
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As promised, here’s an unofficial map of Singapore’s rail transit that takes the future extensions and integrates them far more effectively and attractively than the official future map. This map was created by Andrew Smithers, who runs the quite excellent Project Mapping website – well worth losing a few hours to all the maps he has over there! Immediately, you can see how design is used to simplify and clarify the routes – the Thomson […]

Historical Map: Montreal Tramways Company, 1941

October 31, 2013
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Here’s a very handsome map of transit in 1941 Montreal, provided by the Montreal Tramways Company, or La Compagnie des Tramways de Montreal. Despite the name, there’s also a healthy (and growing) number of bus routes on this map, shown in blue.  Cleverly, the map rotates the city away from true north in order to fit everything onto the sheet of paper allocated, and the north pointer used is simply lovely, even including the company’s […]

Historical Map: San Francisco Muni Transit Routes, 1970

October 23, 2013
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For a long period of time, the San Francisco Municipal Railway, (commonly shortened to just “Muni”) used pretty much exactly the same map in their brochures. It seems that each year, they’d simply make any amendments required – addition of new routes, deletion of old ones, etc. –  and then reprint the brochure/map in a new colour combination. The earliest example I can find, from 1952, uses a sombre two-color palette of black and red, […]

Photo – Official Map: Prague Metro In-Car Strip Map

July 12, 2013
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Following on from the Lisbon commuter rail strip map feautured recently, here’s another excellent example, this time from Prague. Design-wise, it fits in well with the standard Metro/tram map, but is remarkable for its incredibly effective use of space. The three route lines fit beautifully into the space, and the interchanges between the lines in the centre of the map are simply gorgeous. The inclusion of icons for popular landmarks/attractions is welcome and useful (as […]

Official Map: Jungfraubahnen, Switzerland

June 21, 2013
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Another stunning panoramic painted rail map from the Alps of Switzerland – its very similar to this one of the Zentralbahn (Nov 2012, 4 stars), which can actually be seen on this map entering from the lower left and terminating at Interlaken. The map shows the railways around the Jungfrau mountain, operated by different companies, but marketed together as “Jungfrau – the Top of Europe”. The Jungfraujoch station sits almost three vertical kilometres higher than Interlaken, […]

Historical Map: The City of Los Angeles Showing Railway Systems, 1906

May 13, 2013
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Here’s a great old map of Los Angeles showing the already-booming rail transit network that was found in Los Angeles in the early days of the 20th Century. Electric trolleys first ran in LA in 1877, but  the “Red Cars” of the Pacific Electric and the “Yellow Cars” of the narrow-gauge Los Angeles Railway had only appeared a mere five years before this map was produced. Their lines are represented on the map in appropriate […]