Another Railway Map

[Basil Jet]

You erroneously show Hackney Wick as closed, and you omit Dalston Kingsland completely, also Bandon between Waddon and Wallington.

 

[Chris Butler]

I hope you don't mind me posting this here, but over the past few years I've been working on a railway map covering the passenger railways of Great Britain and it's now at the stage where I am happy with it and want to make it available to others. It's very much a work in progress, and I will make corrections now and again when I spot an error or see something missing from it.

I wanted something to depict open and closed lines, and I wanted a bit of colour in it, but not by reusing the colours that other excellent maps have used, so I decided to settle on the 6 regional colours that were part of the Nationalised British Railways of 1948.

This isn't a detailed track atlas, but more of a simplified route map, however I have tried to depict most junctions in sufficient detail albeit with some minor adjustment of lines to show the general layout of a junction. Most stations are shown but there's bound to be a few that I have missed, probably because they were short lived and never appeared on historical maps that are publicly available. There's also bound to be some misspelled names and where stations have been renamed, I am not showing the different names.

The regional colour allocation is generally correct for lines that actually were around in 1948 when nationalisation happened, but for lines that closed before nationalisation then it is pure fantasy on my behalf as to what colour they are shown in and that includes lines that remained private. Also, it's not always obvious where the boundary between 2 regions was actually placed, for example did the Scottish Region actually extend into England or was the Scottish/Midland and Scottish/North Eastern boundaries bang on the national border. Quite a few lines also were transferred from one region to another over time since the initial nationalisation.

I hope this map is of use to someone and any feedback or comments, positive or negative, gratefully received.

On a technical note, the map is in PDF format, and it is quite large, weighing in at about 4.5mb. It opens and displays perfectly in a PDF viewer such as Adobe Acrobat Viewer. It also opens using Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Opera browsers although it doesn't zoom in far enough for my liking but it is still readable at maximum zoom. However, it doesn't perform with the Firefox browser - although it opens, the image remains blurred and is useless. It seems to open and zoom in quite well in a PDF viewer on an Android smartphone, but I cannot confirm how well it performs on Apple devices, it should be ok I hope.

EDIT: Removed the attachment in this post - see post #28 for the newest version of the map.

I like it a lot. Small enough to sit permanently on a phone or tablet and easy to refer to since the whole country is in one file and also shows historic railways. It's just what I want as I'm travelling to show good detail of the current lines and yrt give a sense of the historic stuff around the existing network. Thanks a lot.

 

[NewburyDrinker]

I like it a lot. Small enough to sit permanently on a phone or tablet and easy to refer to since the whole country is in one file and also shows historic railways. It's just what I want as I'm travelling to show good detail of the current lines and yrt give a sense of the historic stuff around the existing network. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Glad it is of use, and that was a primary reason for making it - so that I could have a file with enough detail that I could carry around on my mobile phone and use whilst travelling by train. It's not perfect and it won't tick every box, but it's good enough for my purposes.

 

[NewburyDrinker]

I attach a new updated version. Many new spelling errors have been found and fixed, including an appalling error down in the West Country, but in my defence, I honestly thought that was how the town was spelt! Some missing lines have been added, and some have changed from Freight to Passenger and v.v. Also I have re-coloured several independent lines which remained outside of Nationalisation and so don't belong in the 6 regional colours.

I have also produced a version of the map that includes the year a line closed to regular timetabled passenger service although some lines may have carried summer dated, excursion or diverted traffic after a closure year. The majority of years taken from the excellent Register of Closed Railways website.

As before, there's still bound to be some errors with my map.

 

[Basil Jet]

I attach a new updated version. Many new spelling errors have been found and fixed, including an appalling error down in the West Country, but in my defence, I honestly thought that was how the town was spelt! Some missing lines have been added, and some have changed from Freight to Passenger and v.v. Also I have re-coloured several independent lines which remained outside of Nationalisation and so don't belong in the 6 regional colours.

I have also produced a version of the map that includes the year a line closed to regular timetabled passenger service although some lines may have carried summer dated, excursion or diverted traffic after a closure year. The majority of years taken from the excellent Register of Closed Railways website.

As before, there's still bound to be some errors with my map.

Thanks. Still no Mitcham Eastfields. I can't see any dates on either version...

 

[jumble]

A few more possible corrections if I may from my manor


Chorleywood is one word
Wembley Hill is solid not greyed out
Did National Rail ever stop at Northwood
Harefield Halt ?
HARROW & WEALDSTON (no e )
WOOSTOCK ROAD Chiswick (no d)

 

[NewburyDrinker]

A few more possible corrections if I may from my manor


Chorleywood is one word
Wembley Hill is solid not greyed out
Did National Rail ever stop at Northwood
Harefield Halt ?
HARROW & WEALDSTON (no e )
WOOSTOCK ROAD Chiswick (no d)

Thank you, I will correct those mistakes when back in front of a computer. 1906 Bradshaw on Timetable World shows a 7.10 am Marylebone to Leicester calling at Northwood 7.33 so I think it should appear.

edit: Chorleywood, Harrow & Wealdstone and Woodstock Road now corrected. Harefield halt added as South Harefield. Wembley Hill is still open, but now known as Wembley Stadium. I am not sure whether to rename it or not - I've tried to keep with historical names of stations and I wasn't planning on depicting various different names a station might have gone through.

 

[NewburyDrinker]

Thanks. Still no Mitcham Eastfields. I can't see any dates on either version...

Sorry, I have added it now and I will update the files later today. The dates are there but unfortunately viewing the PDF in some browsers doesn't allow a close enough zoom in to see them. In a few PDF viewer apps it does allow a closer zoom. I cannot make the dates, names and lines any larger, without losing detail, or I would have to split the PDF into 2 or 4 parts. This screenshot does give an idea....

 

[Basil Jet]

Thanks, I can see the dates now, I don't think I zoomed in close enough before!

 

[Basil Jet]

Also there are three abandoned stations between St P Thameslink and West Hampstead, and one about to open at Brent Cross West. Also Maiden Lane on the NLL, and Blackfriars / Blackfriars Road Station on the Charing Cross line. All locations shown on https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php

 

[NewburyDrinker]

Also there are three abandoned stations between St P Thameslink and West Hampstead, and one about to open at Brent Cross West. Also Maiden Lane on the NLL, and Blackfriars / Blackfriars Road Station on the Charing Cross line. All locations shown on https://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php

Thanks. I have added the abandoned stations, but not the Brent Cross one. I have also corrected more mistakes found and tidied up a few areas. I have also made a version of the map that does away with the regions of British Railways, so all lines are in black for open and grey for closed. Hope someone finds these new file(s) useful.

 

[Basil Jet]

Thanks. I have added the abandoned stations, but not the Brent Cross one. I have also corrected more mistakes found and tidied up a few areas. I have also made a version of the map that does away with the regions of British Railways, so all lines are in black for open and grey for closed. Hope someone finds these new file(s) useful.

Thanks. City Thameslink!