2012-05-17
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Stephen Walter’s London Subterranea, another art map featured in Claire Dobbin’s book (and one of her choices of the best maps in the London Transport Museum collection). It’s been posted to io9 and Londonist today, with the latter providing close-ups along with a a good description:
Walter has painstakingly charted the buried rivers, Tube lines, bunkers, sewers, government tunnels and other hypogeal secrets of London. He’s also included mysterious and underworld elements, such as unsolved murders, ley lines and pagan burial sites. Like his famed 2008 work The Island, to which this is a companion piece, London Subterranea is a mesmerising tagliatella, combining painstaking research with artistic whimsy.
As they note, it’ll be displayed at the London Transport Museum’s Mind the Maps Friday Late tomorrow.
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Two photos from the amazing, huge pickmix.co.uk site, collecting photographs from the London Transport Museum’s archive. On the left, in a 1977 colour print by Paul Proctor:
The experimental press-button Passenger Route Indicator machine installed in the ticket hall at Heathrow Central (now Heathrow Terminals 1,2,3) Underground station. The indicator incorporated a TV screen designed to display a diagrammatic route map of the chosen journey.
And to the right, a 1974 photograph by H J Hare & Son:
A passenger consults a route indicator machine at Oxford Circus Underground station. Oxford Circus services Central, Victoria and Bakerloo lines.
You can see more of my favourite images from the site. See also: a similar map in Paris.
2012-05-15
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The power is on - so back off, a poster from the East London line’s late 1990s rebuilding at London Transport Museum’s Pick Mix site (thanks, Chris)
2012-05-07
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A Week in the Life of London’s Public Transit System, by Jon Reades (via):
This visualisation shows average entries at each and every Underground, Overground, and DLR station over the course of a week using a 10-minute interval. So in theory there are some 300 * 7 * 24 * 6 data points in this image.
2012-01-07
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stml:
The red structure is the remains of the original Greathead shield used to tunnel the Waterloo & City. It was left in place in 1898 and rediscovered in 1987.
Nice tube geekery there.
2011-03-04
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Tube upgrade chart 2011 (by Darren)
I quite like this graph of the various upgrade programmes.
2011-02-17
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London Transport - Arsenal station design sketches, August 1930 (by Mikey):
A sketch from the offices London Transport Architects illustrating the proposed reconstruction of the facade of Arsenal station in 1933. This swept away the 1906 Leslie Green facade and delivered this uncompromising ‘moderne’ elevation that largely survives to this day. Given the huge LT roundel on the facade and the two cantilevered versions there’s no doubting it is a tube station!
See also: Holborn station reconstruction sketches, 1933 (by the same uploader).
2011-02-04
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A double-page spread from Railways Under London by Marie Neurath, one of the key exponents of the Isotype Picture Language, as seen at The Science Project: Isotype workshop.
There’s an exhibition about the work on Isotype at the V&A. It’s small but, if you’re in or near London, well worth a visit.
2011-02-03
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The end of the ‘67 stock on the Victoria line is nigh, according to The Status of the Underground Upgrades at London Reconnections. I’m surprised it’s happening so soon: I’d assumed I’d get one last ride the next time I was in London, but unless that’s much sooner than I’m expecting, it seems I’ve already taken my last. Goodbye, faithful chariots.
The article’s worth a read for news on the other lines, too.
2011-01-11
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London Underground tube map, c1911 (by Mikey Ashworth, via diamond geezer).
One of the most interesting things, to me, is how much of the central network was in place by this point. The only tube lines built inside the Circle are the Victoria and Jubilee lines.
It’s definitely worth clicking through for the uploader’s notes on the style and the inclusion of the Brighton Railway’s Elevated Electric services, and for his set of Underground maps, including MacDonald’s Gills minimal/calligraphic sketch map.
