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The Metropolitan

OBS Chief
Joined
Apr 13, 2006
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Location
Baltimore, MD
It is the oldest railroad map trick in the book - make your routes look good and straight, and make your destinations look good and close.

With this in mind, I set out on an experiment - to MAP the Amtrak system, but in a color coded schematic form. The result is something that looks like a London Underground map, but showing EVERY stop in our national rail system.

I thought this would be an easy adventure, seeing as how we often discuss how skeletal the system has become, but let me assure you, this map took a tremendous amount of work to create a sharp looking, detailed and colorful rendition.

Every train is listed, save for the Auto Train, and stops are noted for their status (full time, partial, seasonal, directional, flag) as well as Commuter Rail and Transit Options (still could use some completion on this part.)

Though it's 30x40, it's less than 100K in size in its PDF format. Since this forum does not have an attachment function, I've posted it in my own forum that does (no membership or registration is needed to get the file), and you can find it at this link...

http://monumentalcity.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=18107#18107

Feel free to let me know your thoughts regarding this little impromptu project of mine!

Regards,
 
After clicking on the link above, when the green forum page comes up, you should be able to go to the DOWNLOAD link on that page, right click, and do a SAVE TARGET AS to get the file.

EDIT - I had to revise a permission for guests to Download files - it should work fine now! :)
 
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...wow! That's a lot of work. I'm really really interested in this sort of thing. I'll come back with more useful comments after I have had a good close look :D

*j* :blink:
 
The Metropolitan said:
It is the oldest railroad map trick in the book - make your routes look good and straight, and make your destinations look good and close.
With this in mind, I set out on an experiment - to MAP the Amtrak system, but in a color coded schematic form. The result is something that looks like a London Underground map, but showing EVERY stop in our national rail system.

I thought this would be an easy adventure, seeing as how we often discuss how skeletal the system has become, but let me assure you, this map took a tremendous amount of work to create a sharp looking, detailed and colorful rendition.

Every train is listed, save for the Auto Train, and stops are noted for their status (full time, partial, seasonal, directional, flag) as well as Commuter Rail and Transit Options (still could use some completion on this part.)

Though it's 30x40, it's less than 100K in size in its PDF format. Since this forum does not have an attachment function, I've posted it in my own forum that does (no membership or registration is needed to get the file), and you can find it at this link...

http://monumentalcity.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=18107#18107

you did a great job making this map. AAA+

Feel free to let me know your thoughts regarding this little impromptu project of mine!

Regards,
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the accolades!

Looking at the scale map in the Amtrak books and site, I was a left a bit confused regarding many parts of the Amtrak operation. Not knowing the California geography much at all, the whole Surfliner, Capitols, and San Joaquins setup left me VERY lost when reading travelogues and such, so I decided to break each route down to show where and how often it stops.

I didn't know how complex it would be until I dug into the timetables. Lots of stations with "R" and "D" notes on some trips - but not all, and other provisions, such as Naperville where riders aren't carried locally to Chicago, but are allowed if connecting from other Amtrak trains at CUS. These were the sorts of things I found myself struggling to denote.

Designations were another nightmare. Initially, I planned to integrate the Pennsylvanian with the Keystone, but since it doesn't make all the same stops, I had to add another route color. Ditto for the Illini vs. the CNO.

Probably the most irksome setup was trying to determine whether the TE's path to LA over the Sunset should get its own route color, even if its simply tacked onto the Sunset. Since it's marketed as its own route, I opted to put a mirror line in, even if it makes it look like El Paso gets two tri-weekly trains.

Giving it a good look over, I do see a few cosmetic blunders - such as no "EB" label on the Empire's balloon, and reversed colors in the key for the keystone, but these are easy to fix. I also need to add transit connections to at least Kansas City and St. Louis, probably Miami too.

I've always had a bug for transit maps, as well as trains, so I thought it was high time to combine my interest in the two to an expandable map. Now if only Mr. Hughes will allow me to expand it!
 
Nice work. Must have taken quite awhile to do all that. Let's see..... Savannah is actually in GA, not SC, so move that a little bit south. Winter Park (WPK) is only about 10 minutes north of Orlando, kind of in the same major urban area, so maybe move that a little south of where it shows now, then a much larger gap between WPK and Deland than between ORL and WPK. . . Others can probably come up with some other minor corrections... But all in all, quite a feat. Thanks!!
 
The only typo I spotted is pretty minor, and it's an easy mistake to make: Albany Rennselaer, always a tongue teaser.

It's a great job... aesthetically it's a tough one because there are so many more stations crowded in the n-e than the west. The absolute benchmark for any schematic mark has to be that of the London Underground, still a design classic after all these years. You'll see from the tube map the problems that remain with colours: after about ten lines it gets difficult to differentiate flat colours, and dashed lines seem to remove from the strength of a map. Don't be afraid to compress distances either: the suburban stations of the tube can be miles apart, when the ones in the centre of town can be less than half a mile apart.

My only recommendation is to embrace the schematic nature of the map even more: the appearance can be simplified by straightening out the kinks, such as in the SWC, the City of NOL and in the north-west (why not make it one vertical line all the way from Sacramento to Vancouver, for instance). However I appreciate the including indicative state lines imposes some problems. Suffixing the state codes to the stations could be an option, but I think you should probably step away from the computer and take a breather after all that work :D

Btw, what programme did you use to create the map... Illustrator?

*j* :blink:
 
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Thanks again!

I corrected the Savannah issue (moving the state lines), and minorly tweaked the Winter Haven station a bit closer to Orlando. Keep in mind that with the schematic though, the station distances will be very misleading. As you can see, the map makes Eugene, OR look just about as close to Sacramento, CA as San Jose is.

James, I had the London Underground in mind the whole time I was playing with this. I'll likely work towards cleaning up some of the curves and such soon - the SWC's curves out of LA came from my realizing too late that both it and the Surfliner made the stop at Fullerton. That's why this line shows an awkward curve that no other line has. The straight line from SAC to Vancover BC does sound like a good idea as well, and should not be too hard to accomplish.

As to how I did it, I used Corel Draw 8, and a print-to-PDF converter. I'll likely toy with it at work on Illustrator once I'm done, as I can get better colors, and we also have the Amtrak type font (Myriad) I can use for the station labels.

One thing I'm suprised no one has mentioned - I rather deliberately used "legacy" colors where I could for the lines. This is why the CNO has Brown and Orange (mocking the IC), the Cardinal and Pere Marquette have navy and cream (like the C&O), and the Zephyrs have silver and red (like the Burlington) among many others.

And of note, please don't take the STATE "shapes" in to your Geography teacher! They're only for designation!
 
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Very nice! Also note that San Diego, Solana Beach, San Diego-Old Town, and Stockton-ACE have commuter rail service. Making the distinction of the two Stockton stations might be a good idea to ahcieve this.
 
Thanks to all for the clarifications and corrections. I'll hope to have a "final" version by the end of the week.

One quick question to the Cali crew though. My map shows the Sunset/TE leading Southeast out of LA, while the SWC heads out that way before curving after Fullterton to its alignment. Looking at scale maps however, it looks as if Pomona and Orange are ABOVE Fullerton, and that the SL/TE and SWC cross somewhere in the vicinity of San Bernadino.

Any suggestions on how to correct the LA approach?
 
Guest said:
Thanks to all for the clarifications and corrections. I'll hope to have a "final" version by the end of the week.
One quick question to the Cali crew though. My map shows the Sunset/TE leading Southeast out of LA, while the SWC heads out that way before curving after Fullterton to its alignment. Looking at scale maps however, it looks as if Pomona and Orange are ABOVE Fullerton, and that the SL/TE and SWC cross somewhere in the vicinity of San Bernadino.

Any suggestions on how to correct the LA approach?
Click to expand...
It's a little weird with the track route. On Southwest Chief from San Bernardino, it continues riding south to Riverside and then go east along the CA 91, stopping Fullerton. Remember that Fullerton serves to Amtrak trains- Pacific Surfliner and SWC.

On Sunset Limited, it follows along I-10 (pretty much). Look up the metrolinktrains.com. There are about 3 corridors (it might be 4, but I'm not sure) running toward east of LA. San Bernardino Line of Metrolink is the northernmost. Next one is Sunset Limited, then Riverside Line of Metrolink, and then combinations of SWC and Empire Line/91 Lines/Orange County Lines. Noticed that the Orange County Line and Pacific Surfliner serves the same track to San Diego.

You might want to check on Union Pacific's and BNSF's websites to see if there are map of railroads.
 
Oh yeah; the Heartland Flyer doesn't appear to be on the map. It is not the same thing as the Texas Eagle. It runs as its own line from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City. And regarding the Sunset Limited/ Southwest Chief crossing issue, they should shown as interlined through Fullerton if going for accuracy. The lines should be marked as separate and should cross between Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Palm Springs.
 
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