All posts tagged: Australia

Historical Advertisement: Opening of the Eastern Suburbs Railway, Sydney, June 1979

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A full-page ad in the Daily Telegraph newspaper promoting the opening of the Eastern Suburbs line. Along with the copy promoting all the benefits – modern stations, high speed escalators and automatic turnstiles amongst them – there’s a neat little diagram that shows how the line is integrated into the wider transit network. Along with the nicely stylised City Circle, there’s also lines radiating out from the new stations to show bus connections. Of interest […]

Submission – Draft Official Map: Sydney Trains, August 2017

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Sent my way by quite a few keen-eyed Aussie correspondents, including Thomas Mudgway, who offers this commentary: Another update from Sydney, this time fairly major. Transport for NSW is making some big changes to Sydney Trains’ operating patterns, with a new order of trains allowing them to boost the Western Line by something like 300 extra services per week. The T2 line cluster has been split so that we now have a T8, which runs […]

Historical Map: Sydney Rail Transport System Strip Map, c. mid-1970s

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Here’s a great old system map of Sydney’s suburban rail system from around the middle of the 1970s. It has to be from before 1978, as that’s the year that the Eastern Suburbs line opened, and it’s not shown here. I distinctly remember seeing a few of these in old “Red Rattler” carriages in the mid-to-late 1980s, so they lived on well past their “use by” date. As seen here, the maps lived above the windows […]

Official Map: Victorian Train Network, Australia, 2017

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I’ve got a whole slew of requests for a review of this recently released map, so hold onto your hats! First off, this map is the final result of a three year process – Transit Maps reviewed an initial concept back in April 2014 – so it’s definitely taken a while to reach this final form. The gradual adoption of a new corporate identity for Public Transport Victoria (PTV), complete with a custom typeface called […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: Future Rapid Transit of Canberra, Australia by John Roberts

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Submitted by John, who says: A fantasy map imagining Canberra’s (newly under construction) light rail system and a fantasy rapid and feeder bus network at some point in the future. I wanted to address Canberra’s notorious reputation as a spread out and car dominated city and make the map about finding fast and simple connections to high quality public transport corridors. As such I’ve steered away from an over-reliance on geography that the current Transport […]

Submission – Fantasy Map: Greater Brisbane Rail Map by Hayden Green

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Fantasy Maps

<Image currently missing> Submitted by Hayden, who says: This is a fantasy map of what one day could be the urban rail network in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. I’ve been working on this for the last few months, and many of your posts (especially tutorials) have been extremely helpful – I would love to hear your thoughts on the final product. Thanks 🙂 Transit Maps says: Now this I like!  A fantasy map that’s not afraid […]

Cancelled Official Map – Public Transport Network Map of Sydney, Australia, 2016

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I’ve often lamented that Sydney’s transit maps each seem to live in a “mode vacuum”, where each individual map steadfastly refuses to acknowledge any other mode of transit, even though they’re all operated by the same agency. So the light rail map won’t show any connections to the main Sydney Train network, and the ferry map ignores the major train station located directly behind Circular Quay… that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, this new attempt at an […]

Historical Map: Randwick/Coogee Buses (370, 372, 373, 374), Sydney, c. 1987

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A fairly bare-bones map showing the buses from the CBD and Central Station through Randwick and Coogee. It’s notable mainly for the inset that shows the service pattern in the city before the opening of the pedestrianised Pitt Street Mall (the main map shows the routing after the Mall’s opening). The Mall is now such an integral part of downtown Sydney that it’s sometimes hard to believe that it once wasn’t there. This map also […]

Photo – Official Map: Strip Map for the Gold Coast Light Rail, Queensland, Australia

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Here’s a rare example of an illustrated strip map, used above the doors on the Gold Coast’s G:Link light rail vehicles in Australia. Despite my self-professed preference for clean, minimalist, ordered design, I actually love this map to bits. Why? Because “sense of place” and community are the absolute winners here. The two-colour illustration style is charming and whimsical, while the instantly recognisable landmarks link the whole coast together from north to south. Most importantly, people […]

Historical Maps: Australian Interstate Passenger Rail Schematics, November 1983

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Here’s a couple of neat timetable/route diagrams for Interstate passenger rail services in Australia back in 1983. The first shows westbound services from Sydney, the other shows the corresponding return journeys. Differing rail gauges and immense distances have always made interstate rail travel a difficult prospect in Australia, hence the paucity of services even 30-odd years ago (only three Sydney-Melbourne trains a day and just one daily Sydney-Brisbane service). Source: Image 1 and Image 2 […]