All posts tagged: passenger rail

Historical Map: LNER Northumberland and Durham Quad Royal Poster, 1934

October 11, 2013
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Painted by prolific transport poster artist Montague B. Black, this lovely poster shows the services of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in England’s north east in 1934. The view stretches from Middlesborough all the up the Northumberland coast to the Scottish Borders and beyond. Each city is painted in imprecise but evocative detail, as is Hadrian’s Wall, shown stretching from Carlisle to Newcastle across the centre of the map. The late afternoon colour […]

Official Map: Isometric JR West System Map

October 4, 2013
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I’m not sure if I’ve ever been so completely, madly and totally in love with a transit map as I am with this. A giant, sprawling, isometric representation of much of Japan showing JR Group railway lines. The map is produced by the JR West company, and its operating area is shown in full detail within the green area (apart from the heavily urbanised areas around Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, where – wisely – not all […]

Photo – Official Map: Rhätische Bahn, Switzerland, 2013

September 23, 2013
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The Rhätishe Bahn (or Rhaetian Railway) is a publically-owned Swiss railway, serving the huge and mountainous canton of Graübunden. The Swiss Federal Railways extend only a few kilometres over the cantonal border to the capital at Chur, as seen at the top of this interesting little map. Placed underneath the window on trains, between facing rows of seats, this map features something I’ve never seen on a diagrammatic map before: elevation contours. Four colours — green, […]

Historical Map: “Explore the Yorkshire Coast” Poster, c. 1950s

September 5, 2013
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Simply gorgeous mid-century poster designed for British Rail’s North Eastern Division by the prolific graphic artist, Reginald Lander (1913–1982). Yorkshire has never looked better, or so warm… look at all those people in bathing suits frolicking in the hot sun! The simplified map suits the angular design of the underlying painted scene perfectly, a real synthesis of design and art coming together as a cohesive whole. The section of line between Pickering and Whitby via […]

Submission – Historical Map: Amsterdam GVB Map by Hans van der Kooi, 1980s

June 27, 2013
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Submitted by Alain Lemaire, who says: this map might interest you – in response to your blog post of Joan Zalacain’s Amsterdam tram map. It seems the 30/60 degree paradigm is indeed well suited to Amsterdam’s topological layout. Too bad this once official map is no longer in use today. Transit Maps says: Thanks to Alain for sending this beauty in! Simply put, this is lovely work. What I really like about this map is […]

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: National Railways of Zimbabwe, c. 1985

June 13, 2013
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A pretty basic two-colour map of the (then newly-independent) Zimbabwe’s rail network produced by the government’s Land Survey Office. Once you look past the eye-searing red ink and “transportation” clip art, there’s a couple of interesting things on the map. Firstly, the map actually does a pretty good job of showing how Zimbabwe’s rail network fits in with other connecting rail services in southern Africa. Secondly, it shows an interesting colonial oddity: the Zimbabwe National […]

Official Map: San Francisco Bay Area Regional Transit Map, 2013

May 30, 2013
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Submitted by Reed Wagner, who says: This map appears to be part of a greater “wayfinding” campaign by the SF Bay Area MTC – it appears at major Caltrain, Muni and BART stations and presumably is elsewhere (I took this picture at Caltrain 4th & King. In comparison to the maps made by Calurbanist, it seems that the official MTC map is falling short in every regard other than information overload in a messy form. Transit Maps says: It’s pretty […]

Historical Map: London Connections, 1988

May 10, 2013
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The reverse side of the British Rail Network SouthEast map, showing the detailed view of the area surrounding London. While this map is designed in a very similar style (at the same time, by the same people) to the regional map, I feel it’s slightly less successful for a few reasons. The inclusion of the London Underground introduces many more colors to the map, which instantly makes it feel much busier. After using all these […]

Historical Fantasy Map: St. Paul in the Year 1900 (Map c. 1871)

May 10, 2013
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Definitely one of the stranger maps I’ve seen, and obviously meant to be read in a satirical light. It shows the city of St. Paul, Minnesota as an enormous METROPOLIS with Roman Road-straight railroad connections to all points (except to the “village” of New York, which is served by a “tri-weekly horse railroad”), a tunnel to “Peek-in” and a “railroad-balloonic route” to the North Pole and thence to the Moon. From America’s east coast, a […]