Here’s an absolutely cracking diagrammatic map that appeared as a fold-out sheet in Union Pacific annual reports from about 1978 through 1981, maybe slightly longer. I first saw this as a photograph of a partial part of the map, but it didn’t take me too long to find the whole thing on the internet via the Union Pacific Historical Society’s website. The map features a rigid and consistent use of a 30-degree angle, some neat […]
I found a 1959 map showing Class I railroads in the USA and Canada. The map was beautiful, but what really struck me was the border, which had the logos of the railroad companies featured on the map. It's not often that you get to see so many contemporaneous historical logos from the same industry, so I cleaned them up in Photoshop to make this poster that showcases them.
Here’s a beautiful map from the glory days of American railroading, showing the route from Chicago to San Francisco via Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Amtrak’s modern-day California Zephyr still calls at many of the same locations between Chicago and Omaha to the east and from Elko to Oakland in the west, but takes a different route through the middle, using Colorado instead of Wyoming. Although presented as one continuous route, the […]
