All posts tagged: streetcar

Historical Map: The Plan of Chicago – Proposed Arrangement of Railroad Stations, 1909

January 10, 2014
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A plate from the hugely influential 1909 Plan of Chicago (also known as “the Burnham Plan” after its primary author, the renowned architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham) showing proposed amendments and additions to the railroads of the city. The thin red lines show main line railroads, which were going to be rerouted to two mega-stations to the south and west of the downtown area. To facilitate movement between these stations, an ambitious plan of subterranean […]

Historical Map: New Orleans Streetcar Trackage Map, 1945

December 18, 2013
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A neat little map from the July, 1945 edition of the Electric Railroader’s Association’s Headlights magazine – both the association and the publication are still going strong today. The map shows all the tracks in the Big Easy at the time, including those that were in usable condition but not currently utilised (indicated by a hash across the track). Routes are indicated by letters that were keyed to the text of the original article – […]

Historical Map: Homeward Passenger Movement During the Evening Rush Period, Toronto, 1915

November 25, 2013
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A beautiful diagram indicating the patterns of homeward peak-hour travel via public transportation (at this time, mainly streetcar) in Toronto. By my rough count, the collection of yellow dots in the downtown area represents some 49,500 people. Of particular interest are the red-and-white hatched dots, which represent a point where passengers transfer from the privately-run Toronto Railway Company’s (TRC) streetcars to those of the city-owned Toronto Civic Railways. Due to a disagreement over the terms […]

Historical Photo: Detroit Department of Street Railways (DSR) Coach and Car Stop Locator, c. 1955

November 16, 2013
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An interesting twist on the old push-button interactive transit map. Instead of pressing a button to map out your route, here you press a button to find out where in Detroit’s downtown area to board your bus or streetcar. Although difficult to make out, the text along the bottom of the map seems to read: “To locate your loading zone, press button on your line.” I’m not entirely sure how successful this innovation was, as […]

Unofficial Maps: Other Salt Lake City Rail Transit Maps

November 11, 2013
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A selection of alternate maps for Salt Lake City that I’ve received as submissions or that I’ve found on the Internet. The first two maps – by thatlattesipper and scsj, respectively – were sent to me in the aftermath of Friday’s review of the UTA’s latest absymal effort, and must therefore have only had a few hours of work put into them. Scsj’s map was actually produced by an online transit map generator in less […]

Official Map: Salt Lake City Rail Transit for Opening of New “S Line”

November 8, 2013
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Submitted by the eagle-eyed Garrett Smith, who says: I must say I am not overly impressed with UTA’s revision of their rail map—which will begin to be posted in trains once UTA’s first streetcar, the S Line, opens. Yes, it certainly is better than before. Removing addresses from the map did wonders for improving legibility. But that’s about it. Call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t the lines below the station names roughly correspond to the […]

Historical Map: TTC System Map, Guide and Patron, December 5, 1957

October 28, 2013
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Awesome old publicity photos that seem to feature a helpful TTC guide explaining the system map to Betty Draper. Also, the illustrations around the map itself are kind of incredible. The newfangled subway has only been open for three years at this point in time. Compare to this similarly amazing TTC photo from 1966. Source: torontohistory/Tumblr – site no longer active

Historical Map: San Francisco Muni Transit Routes, 1970

October 23, 2013
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For a long period of time, the San Francisco Municipal Railway, (commonly shortened to just “Muni”) used pretty much exactly the same map in their brochures. It seems that each year, they’d simply make any amendments required – addition of new routes, deletion of old ones, etc. –  and then reprint the brochure/map in a new colour combination. The earliest example I can find, from 1952, uses a sombre two-color palette of black and red, […]

Historical Map: Street Railways, City of Washington, D.C., 1891

September 24, 2013
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As the first segment of the new DC Streetcar on H Street and Benning Road nears completion, here’s a look back at what existed a long, long time ago. As can be seen at this time, no fewer than ten streetcar companies operated in the District. By 1895, Congress authorised consolidation of the companies and the larger, more successful systems bought out the smaller ones. The map itself is very handsome, with the distinctive grid of […]