All posts tagged: streetcar

Historical Map: Lines of the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway, 1927

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Historical Maps

Here’s a fascinating map of streetcar lines in Omaha, Nebraska in 1927, beautifully hand drawn on top of a pre-printed single colour map of the area produced by the City’s engineering department. Not only does the map show the extent of all the streetcar lines (with 64.6 miles of track), but also colour-codes them to show which predecessor company originally laid down the tracks. The original Omaha Horse Railway Company, founded in 1867, is represented […]

Historical Map: San Joaquin County, California, c. 1910

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Historical Maps

Here’s a beautiful old illustrative map – this is from a prospectus advertising the benefits of settling in San Joaquin County, California in 1910. Part of depicting this as a desirable place to live and do business is showing the multitude of modern railway lines – including several electric interurbans – almost all of which seem to converge upon Stockton, neatly in the middle of the map. This being an advertising tool, the situation shown […]

Submission – New Official Map: UTA Rail and BRT Map, 2023

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Submitted by Browne, who says: UTA, the primary transit provider for northern Utah, has officially launched its newest BRT service, and with it, a new transit map. The OGX is a new BRT route from Ogden Central Station, downtown, Weber State University, and down to McKay-Dee Hospital. Besides the new BRT line, there are subtle changes to the map’s design as well, such as rounded corners, which had been angular in the previous design. I’m […]

New Official Map: San Francisco Muni Metro Map with Central Subway

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Official Maps

This map has actually been out for a while, but today – celebrating the full opening of the Central Subway – seemed like the appropriate day to post about it. Design-wise, this is very much an evolution of previous efforts (see my review of the post-COVID resumption of service map here) and thus shares many of the same features and faults. I still don’t agree with the decision to have station labels set in the […]

Historical Map: Transportation Map of Greater Kansas City, 1941

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A very handsome map of transportation services in the greater Kansas City area from 1941. A nicely subdued olive street grid is overlaid by the route lines – colour-coded by mode (black for streetcars, blue and red for bus lines, and a lovely aqua for trolleybuses). Areas of interest are called out in bright yellow, so this looks like a six-colour print job – quite a luxury in 1941! There’s also a great downtown inset, […]

Submission – Historical Map: Streetcars of Kingston, Ontario, 1910 by Noah Gaffran

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Historical Maps

Submitted by Noah, who says: Here’s my map of the streetcar services operated by the Kingston, Portsmouth & Cataraqui Electric Railway in 1910. I was inspired to do this after seeing several maps of historic tram networks including the ones on this website [See my historical maps of Portland, Spokane and Yakima – Cam]. The system opened on Princess St in 1893. By around 1898 it had reached its largest extent as shown in this […]

Submission – Unofficial Future Map: Consolidated Rail Map of San Francisco by Griffin Ashburn

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Future Maps, Unofficial Maps

Submitted by Griffin, who says: Attached is a diagram/sort-of fantasy map I recently made showing all the various rail services and connections in San Francisco. I’ve never been a fan of how Muni shows service connections on their official map – BART is typically included, though never Caltrain, nor BART’s connection to the airport, which I think is a fairly important to have. I also decided to include the F Market & Wharves street car […]

Historical Map: Baltimore United Railways & Electric Co., 1929

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A charming map of streetcar services – and a few of those newfangled gas buses! – in central Baltimore from 1929. Points of interest are clearly illustrated, and the map is surrounded by vignettes of life and architecture in this “historic, pleasant, thriving city”. A prominent cartouche proclaims that “STREET CARS and BUSES in Baltimore go wherever there is anything to see…” and little streetcars have been drawn running along major thoroughfares. As a side […]

Project: Electric Streetcars and Interurbans of Yakima, Washington, 1920

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Historical Maps, My Transit Maps, Prints Available

The third in my series of maps depicting electric streetcar networks of the Pacific Northwest, one that both builds on my previous maps of Spokane and Portland and adds something new to the mix: geography. The full project description follows, but you can view the map below or click here to view it in a full-screen window. At first sight, the Yakima streetcar and interurban network may not look quite as impressive as the other […]

Submission – Official Map: San Diego Trolley Diagram, 2021

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Submitted by Robert, who says: I’ve always thought that San Diego’s “Trolley” map to be pretty bad, with various clashing angles, line icons and brand names (ugh) that don’t add anything (“Sycuan” is a casino, and the Blue LIne is named UC San Diego because they’re a sponsor, not because the line extension will go there). Only ONE landmark is noted, the baseball park downtown. The only geographical feature indicated is the international border, which […]