All posts tagged: USA

Historical Map: New North-South All-Express Service, Chicago, 1949

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

From a brochure introducing the now-infamous A/B stopping pattern on Chicago’s “L”. A trial run of the (mostly) alternating stopping pattern—designed to speed up operations on lines where there was no extra passing track for express services—had been carried out on the Lake Street Line in April 1948 and had been deemed a success. The next two lines to receive A/B service were the Ravenswood Line and the North-South Route as seen here. The revision […]

Submission – Official Map: MetroWest Bus System, Framingham, Massachusetts, 2014

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Official Maps

Submitted by Miles Taylor, who says:  Here’s a pretty awful map I found of the MWRTA bus system in Framingham, MA. I can’t make heads or tails of these crazy routes. Transit Maps says: Yeah… this is pretty bad. It’s pretty much anyone’s guess as to what’s going on at the northwestern end of the red Route 7, as it looks like the bus just loops around aimlessly until it finds a way back east. […]

Historical Map: Tentative Location of Future Rapid Transit Lines, Philadelphia, 1913

comment 1
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

From A. Merritt Taylor’s Report of Transit Commissioner, City of Philadelphia. At the time, only the current Market-Frankford Line (complete with “Ferry Line” extension at the east end) was operating, so everything else shown here is proposed. Coincidentally, the colour scheme used seems to be almost identical to that used today, although the colours actually indicate immediacy of construction – blue for extant, orange for “immediate construction” and green for “future construction”. Source: 18brumaire/Flickr

Historical Map: Chicago Surface Lines (Streetcar) Transfer Ticket (date unknown)

comments 2
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

A tiny little map of Chicago with streetcar lines and the underlying street grid printed on the obverse of a transfer ticket. It seems to be mainly used for indicating the time and place that the transfer was issued, rather than for any attempt at navigation of the system. If I’m reading the clock face at the top of the ticket correctly, this transfer was issued at 3:35 (or 7:15) on July 2nd by a […]

Historical Map: MAX Light Rail, Portland, Oregon, 2001

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

Portland’s MAX light rail system as it appeared just after the initial opening of the Red Line. Note that the Red Line doesn’t continue out to Beaverton as it does these days, but turns around just west of downtown. Later, the Yellow Line would turn around here as well, before it was rerouted down the transit mall.  The map itself does a nice job with a relatively simple system. The gracefully curved Willamette River is […]

Historical Map: Proposed City Railway Company Lines, New York, c. 1890s

Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Historical Maps

Cutaway diagram, map, and accompanying text describing the construction of an electric motor-powered rapid transit subway that would have run through the basements of “fire-proofed buildings constructed along the line”. Despite shallow excavations of only nine-and-a-half feet, the blurb promises “no perceptible vibrations from the passage of trains”. Hmmm. nyplmaps: The City Railway Company, rapid transit passenger lines [189-?] This map shows the location of a proposed underground rapid transit line and an “alternative line” in […]