A superb cutaway map of the spectacular spiral tunnels on the Albula Railway in Switzerland, drawn for The Eagle magazine in 1952 by prolific artist Leslie Ashwell Wood. Compare to similar spiral tunnels on the Gotthardbahn. Source: ausdew/Flickr
I absolutely love this almost abstract representation of the Gotthardbahn from a Swiss advertising brochure from 1957. Just major cities, the distinctive loops and spirals of the line (described in detail in this post from 2014) and the famous 15-kilometre-long Gotthard Tunnel shown illustratively cutting through a massive mountain. Source: Retours.eu
Submitted by Diego, who says: What do you think of this bus map from Bad Zurzach, Switzerland? In my opinion, Swiss transit maps are generally very readable and well designed, but this one just looks impractical. I find it to be very difficult to follow the routes of the lines (line 2 in particular, which also stops at Thermalbad three times). It also lacks a title and a legend. Still, I have to hand it […]
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 […]
Submitted by Bruno Heemskerk, who says: Flixbus is quite a new company with bus services between several European countries. Transit Maps says: This is another good example of what I call a “boast map”, in that it shows the impressive extent of the network, but reveals very little about actual routing (that’s for the website to tell you). For example, a little poking around on that website tells me that you can only directly reach other destinations […]
Submitted by Nicholas, who says: Please take a look at the transit map of Geneva ! It’s beautiful. It includes streetcars and all buses. Transit Maps says: Okay, Nicholas, I will! I even know who designed this map: it’s a collaboration between designer Andrea Forgacs and architect Oscar Buson, and seems to be part of a suite of maps that include the urban core (this map), the greater suburban area, a night services map and […]
Sent my way by long-time correspondent, Kyril Negoda. I’m not entirely sure of the vintage of this, as the archive it resides in covers the entire period from 1980–2000, and none of the images have dates attached to them. There’s definitely an early 1980s vibe to it, though – mainly from the tightly kerned Futura Bold heading at the top. I’ve seen transit map-styled airline maps before (here and here, for example), but this one […]
In my previous post, I mentioned that the map of the Gotthardbahn showed the spiral tunnels that the track uses to quickly change elevation in areas with limited space. Here are some fantastic maps of those spirals, taken from a 1914 German encyclopaedia and found on Wikipedia. The maps show the spirals from north to south, with the distance in kilometres from the northern end of the line clearly shown along the route. The Gotthard […]
Here’s a beautiful Art Nouveau railway poster promoting the Gotthardbahn that links northern Italy with Switzerland and points north through the famous Gotthard Tunnel. At the time of opening in 1882, the tunnel was the longest railway tunnel in the world at 15 kilometres (9.3 miles). The map shows the then privately-operated Gotthardbahn and its branch routes in thick black lines (the Swiss Railways incorporated the line into its national network in 1907). The tunnel […]
The emergence of a unified Europe has led to a gradual but noticeable blurring of borders between countries in Europe, which now seem to often exist only on maps. With free and easy travel between the European countries that are bound by the Schengen Agreement, it’s not impossible for people to live in one country and work in another, especially when they live close to a border. This map shows transit services in such an […]
