Submitted by Elliot, who says: I’ve come across this blog a couple of months ago, and have been lurking ever since. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at designing a trasit diagram, and having gotten some free time, I decided to redesign the S-Train diagram for Brussels. So here it is, my very first finished(ish) transit diagram. Transit Maps says: A great first effort here from Elliot! I’d say that its arguably more successful […]
Submitted by Jim, who says: I came across this horrendous mess of lines and angles. Its the Weekday Service map for Belgian Rail – the national rail company for Belgium. Sorry its only in French/Dutch, but I think the drawing speaks for itself. I know making a map for a whole country is no easy feat but I feel like there must be some improvements to be made, especially around Brussels. Transit Maps says: Yep, that’s […]
Submitted by Piotr Ingling, who says: Not exactly a transit map but seeing your post with NY subway stations drawings recalled me this one. It’s a photo that I took in Dec 2004 – unfortunately it seems that the board has been removed long time ago during renovation works. I hope it is preserved somewhere. There are two levels here for metro and trams (underground part of tram network is called pre-metro as it’s ready […]
Submitted by Thierry. A very stylish diagrammatic map of tramways (coloured lines) and bus routes (dotted black lines). This city’s historic centre is shaded grey, while the site of Expo 58 (or the Brussels World’s Fair) is given much prominence to the top left of the map. There’s a lovely economy of line in this map: everything serves a purpose and there’s a definite minimalist clarity in the design. Quite lovely.
Submitted by Arne himself (and others). Arne says: I started my own diagram of all the regular rail connections in Belgium that will be active after the schedule change coming in half December. I got the feeling there was so much noise around this schedule change (train lines being canceled or rerouted), but at no point the rail company had any nice visual representation of what the network would look like in the future. So […]
One of the most requested maps so far — thanks to thecitygeek, bjorkborg, Mladen Stilinovic and a couple of anonymous readers for sending this my way! According to my correspondents, Brussels has recently switched from a geographical transit map to this new diagrammatic map. As you can see by comparing the two images of the centre of the city above, a lot of streamlining and simplification has taken place. The first thing that strikes me is […]
A companion piece to the official map (Dec. 2012, 3 stars) on the platform at Rogier station. The look of this map marries with the official map quite well, showing an admirable consistency in application. Rogier station itself is clearly shown with a nice big arrow and stations before it on the lines are clearly indicated against greyed-out route lines. There’s also a nicely legible countdown for the next two trains, indicating their route number […]
Having touched briefly on the Brussels map with this previous post, I thought it was time to take a proper look at the current official map. Have we been there? Yes, back in 2003, but I walked pretty much everywhere and didn’t use the Metro/tram system. I did catch trains from Brussels to other cities in Belgium, however. What we like: The treatment of the Metro part of the system is excellent, with a nice […]
Here’s an interesting pair of photos from 2009 that show two in-car strip maps that co-existed on Metro trains in Brussels. Together, they show the changes in the system that were occurring with the opening of track between the Delacroix and Gare de l’Ouest stations. Apart from a new look to the map, the system itself seems to have been overhauled completely, with the previous lines “1A” and “1B” becoming “5” and “6”, amongst lots […]
Following on from the previous post about Luxembourg, here’s another nationwide system map that resembles a subway map, this time for Luxembourg’s neighbour, Belgium – the land of beer, frites and Tintin! Have we been there? Yes, during my European jaunt in 2003. I caught trains from Brussels to Ghent, Ghent to Bruges, Bruges to Ypres and Ypres back to Brussels. What we like: Nice simplification of a relatively complex network. Major hubs are treated […]
