Historical Map: Texas and Pacific Railways Route Map (c. 1950s)
Great little system map from the back of a ticket. Amtrak’s modern-day Texas Eagle route is a direct descendant of the route shown here. Source: Wikimedia Commons
All posts tagged: USA
Submission – Official Map: MetroWest Bus System, Framingham, Massachusetts, 2014
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. […]
Photo: Vandalised/Redrawn SEPTA Map
Someone ripped the map off the wall, so a kind soul thoughtfully drew the routes and stations back on with a pen. If it’s done from memory, that’s fairly impressive work. Source: Josh Kruger/Twitter – link no longer active
Historical Map: Tentative Location of Future Rapid Transit Lines, Philadelphia, 1913
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)
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 […]
Photo: Red on Red
An old photo (taken in 2005 at Charles/MGH station according to the metadata over on Flickr), but even then the spider map was out of date. Love the red wall for the Red Line. Source: quicklyfailing/Flickr
Historical Map: MAX Light Rail, Portland, Oregon, 2001
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 […]
Updated DC Metro Veterans Day Map
Update: the Washington DC Metro Veterans Day Map now includes the Rosslyn–Pentagon shuttle bus service (shown as a dotted blue line with relevant call-out box). It’s like they’re reading my mind! Source: WMATA website – link no longer active
Historical Map: Proposed City Railway Company Lines, New York, c. 1890s
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 […]
Project: McKinney Avenue Trolley Map (Dallas, Texas)
Here's a small project that was inspired by a message to my Transit Maps blog about the currently existing map for the McKinney Avenue heritage trolley line in Dallas, Texas. However, rather than review and criticise a map produced for a non-profit organisation (most likely by a volunteer or staff in their spare time), I thought that I would create a new, accurate, more user-friendly map instead.