All posts tagged: passenger rail

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 […]

Project: Amtrak Timeline Map, 1971-2017

November 9, 2017
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Here's a fun little project: an interactive timeline of Amtrak's passenger rail routes from its inauguration in 1971 through to the current day. Using the extensive Amtrak timetable archives over at the Museum of Railway Timetables (well worth a visit!), I've created maps in five year increments -- 1971, 1976, 1981, etc. -- that show the changing face of passenger rail in the United States over the last 40-plus years. Click through to inspect the map!

Historical Map: Map Showing Indianapolis as a Steam Railroad and Interurban Center, 1907

October 17, 2017
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Here’s an absolutely wonderful diagram of rail in Indianapolis in 1907 that pares everything down to the absolute minimum required to tell the story. 43 completely evenly-spaced railroad lines (representing 18 steam lines and 25 interurbans, according to the source) enter the city, which is encircled by the aptly named Belt Railroad. The names of those 43 outer destinations spiral dramatically around the edge of the map, though the flow is perhaps broken a bit […]

Historical Map: Rotterdam Transit Map, c. 1974 by Tel Design

October 16, 2017
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Here’s another fantastic old transit diagram taken from the pages of the 1974 Graphis Diagrams annual (see also this concept Helsinki Metro map). This minimalist diagram of Rotterdam’s transit was designed by the firm Tel Design, who were also responsible for the corporate identity of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS or Dutch Railways) in the 1960s. The creative director, Gert Dumbar, formed his own design studio in 1977 and continued to do work for NS through the […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: London’s Rail Services by David Milne

August 2, 2017
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Submitted by David, who says: This all started about 17 years ago as an exercise to teach myself to use Macromedia Freehand. The years passed, Freehand became Adobe Illustrator, and I continued to work on it. The original Idea was to create an A4 sized map to carry around in my pocket, but it quickly became apparent that to contain the desired detail and remain legible it would have to be printed at A1 or […]