All posts tagged: passenger rail

Historical Map: European Rail Connections from Frankfurt, 1928

February 1, 2019
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Here’s a superb visualization of the fastest travel times by rail to major European cities from Frankfurt am Main (here rendered in its obsolete English form of “Frankfort”) in 1928. The striking time bands – a form of isochrone – are rendered in bold alternating concentric “target” circles around the city itself, represented by a modernist “F” logo. For the most part, the cities seem to placed along correct headings relative to Frankfurt, although the […]

Submission – Official and Future Maps: Trinational S-Bahn of Basel, Switzerland, 2019 and 2030

January 30, 2019
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Submitted by Simon S., who says: I recently travelled through Basel, in North West Switzerland and noticed this map. It shows the suburban train network of the city, that reaches into Germany and France. I think the map itself is quite well made (very simplistic), but my subjective observation is that the system isn’t as unified as it seems – neither DB nor SNCF advertise their respective as “S-Bahn Basel” or “RER Bâle”. You can […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Rail Transit of Dortmund, Germany by Moritz Köhler

January 27, 2019
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Submitted by Moritz, who says: It’s me again, Moritz – this time with an unofficial redesign of the light rail and regional rail map of my hometown, Dortmund. The light rail network itself is based on a simple principle where the trunk routes form a triangle in the city centre, thus allowing to reach every station with no more than one change of trains at one of the three central intersecting points. To depict this […]

Historical Map: Map of the Laurelhurst Addition and Streetcar Lines, Portland, Oregon, c.1912

January 23, 2019
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Here’s a handsome map from a prospectus produced in the early 20th century to promote the exclusive new Laurelhurst addition in Portland, Oregon. Prominently shown in yellow “gold” ink are the three streetcar lines that provided service to the neighbourhood — the Rose City Park line, the Montavilla line, and the Sunnyside line. Streetcar lines to other parts of the city are also clearly shown, just not given the exclusive treatment of the other three. […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Copenhagen Train and Metro Network by Kristoffer Bæk

January 19, 2019
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Submitted by Kristoffer, who says: I’ve made a map of my hometown Copenhagen’s transit system as it will look from summer 2019, when the circle metro line opens after a ~10 year long construction phase. A regional rail line to Ringsted will open at the same time. There are two local train systems in Copenhagen, S trains and Metro, but the official maps for the two systems use quite different map styles. Once the circle […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Rail Services of Luxembourg by Simon S.

August 14, 2018
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Submitted by Simon, who says: My name is Simon and for a long time I have been a fan of your blog. I already sent you a couple of maps via this form, although I am not sure whether you received them. Recently, I have completed a simple map that I am quite proud of – it’s a map of the rail services of Luxembourg. Notwithstanding Jug Cerović’s fabulous Luxembourg bus map, the official map […]

Historical Map: Tokyo Airport Access Connections, 1993

July 27, 2018
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A small inset diagram from a 1993 tourist map of Tokyo, showing the myriad transportation options between Tokyo and its airports. Nicely simplified, and also gives prices, as well as approximate travel times to Narita (then still officially known as “New Tokyo International Airport”). The distinctive shape made by the Yamanote and Chuo lines (a device also seen in this wonderful 1984 diagram by Richard Saul Wurman) forms the backbone of the diagram.  Source: David Rumsey […]

Submission – Unofficial map: Israel Railways by David Rendsburg

May 10, 2018
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Submitted by David, who says: Attached is a redesign of the Israel Railways map – which was a mess when you reviewed it in 2013 and has only gotten decidedly worse since the system has expanded (most recent here). There are some glaring issues with the official map, such as the mix of angles and the terrible spacing of the lines and stations, but also geographically it is starting to make less and less sense, […]

Future Map: Cascadia High-Speed Rail Network by Oran Viriyincy

February 14, 2018
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Created on behalf of a new advocacy group for true high-speed rail in the Pacific Northwest – the aptly named CascadiaRail – this is probably my favourite map of 2018 so far. It’s clear, beautiful, representative of the region, and is wonderfully aspirational – presenting a clear and exciting vision of a possible future. I especially like that there’s no state or national borders shown at all: the region is instead defined by the natural […]

Historical Map: New South Wales By Train Information Wheel, 1938

January 23, 2018
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I’m loving this little promotional piece produced by the New South Wales Railway Department in 1938. The user would rotate the outer ring so that a city’s name would line up with the red arrow, thus revealing various facts about that place, including which railway line it was located on and how far from Sydney it was by rail. Here, Canberra’s statistics are shown. A lovely little piece of railway ephemera. Source: National Library of […]