Photo: New York Subway Quilt
With stitching based off a vintage subway map – beautiful! Source: the workroom/Flickr
All posts tagged: subway
Photo: San Francisco Muni Metro Sign, Church Station
Source: Jean (tarkastad)/Flickr
Official Map: Rail and Tram Network, Budapest, Hungary
Budapest boasts the second oldest underground metro line in the world: its Line 1 (Yellow Line) dates from 1896 and was added the the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2002. Only the London Underground predates it. Wikipedia also claims (without attribution, unfortunately) that Budapest’s comprehensive tram service has the busiest “traditional city tram line” in the world where tram lines 4 and 6 combine, with the world’s longest passenger trams (54-metre long Siemens Combino units) […]
Photo: Let The Game Begin!
Today I learned that there’s another game based on the London Underground apart from (the somewhat ridiculous) “Mornington Crescent” – “The London Game”. Where can I get a copy? Source: Zed.Cat/Flickr – link no longer active
The Incredible Shape-Changing Island of Manhattan
The distortion of Manhattan on NYC subway maps over the years, expressed as a height-to-width ratio. Fascinating stuff from a New York Times article in 2010 enumerating the changes in the latest version of the map.
Historical Map: Diagram Showing London’s Underground Railways, Power Stations, Substations, 1933
Here’s a fascinating reworking of Harry Beck’s original 1933 Tube map that I haven’t seen before. Apparently it’s from an article in a journal from November 1933 that details the work required to upgrade the electrical services on the Underground. Apart from the stark black and white treatment and addition of the power stations and substations, what’s really interesting about this map are the little tweaks and changes that have already occurred since the first […]
Historical Map: London Metropolitan Railway and Connections, c. 1930
A fantastic old in-car map from London’s old Metropolitan Railway: the world’s first underground railway and the precursor to the modern London Underground. Today, former Metropolitan Railway tracks and stations are used by the London Underground’s Metropolitan, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines. I’m guessing this map is from around 1930 or so, as the Railway’s lines are substantially complete apart from the Stanmore extension out of Wembley Park, which opened in […]
Unofficial Map: Istanbul Rapid Transit by Kerim Bayer
One of the things I love about running this blog is when amateur map designers send me their work for review. The quality of these maps is often amazing, and this one of Istanbul’s rapid transit network by Istanbul native Kerim Bayer is a fantastic example. Design- and quality-wise, it far surpasses the official map (shown above for comparative purposes), which is a bit of a shambles: weird angles, muddy colours, poorly drawn and a […]
Historical Map: Boston Commuter Rail Map, Mid-1980s
Great old map of Boston’s extensive commuter rail network. I really like the way the subway lines are included to give scale to the whole network, and I especially like the square that the main interchange stations on the subway lines make — an understated design choice that gives a nice central focal point to the map. I suspect that the odd colours of the Orange and Red Lines are due to aging ink discolouration […]
Official Map: Metrô Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2012
Here’s a map that’s going to be seen a lot by tourists over the next few years as Rio de Janeiro hosts both the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. Will it stand up to such international scrutiny and join other transit maps as a definitive icon of its city? Probably not. Have we been there? No. What we like: Suitably bright and exotic Brazilian colour scheme. Relatively clean and simple design. What we […]