r/TransitDiagrams

I don't necessarily want to make it too complex, and I stylize the geographic features. It's mostly Harry Beck style, and I plan to do individual cities (not necessarily whole countries, states, provinces) as of now.

My current rules:

1. If a water feature is large enough to be significant, I generally include it.
2. standard station circle design; pill shape for interchanges.
3. Water is pale blue, land is pale green.
4. Mark significant bends or turns, not minor squiggles.

heres a thing i made, no garumzimes or mikstinajumi since the font sucks, and i didnt add the smaller details cause im lazy atm, but ill try to redo it (since the program i was making it in just decided to not save my work) but maybe better :) lmk if any changes are needed!

If y'all like it, I can turn it into a proper diagram. Tried to keep it as realistic and cost-efficient as possible.

Lighter Red is Lite Rail, while Dark Red is Tram.

Couldn't NOT participate in this! Some design principles I tried to honour:

• Keep all station names horizontal
• Convey no actual information through colour, only through shapes and patterns
• Limit the number of colours used, and try to make the most important contrasts work under various types of colourblindness
• Make all lines pass the stations they physically go through even if they don't call there

I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out. I think the coloured bundles of lines jump immediately to the eye and help structure the diagram in terms of its most important routes. On the negative side it might be a tad too "frilly" for a printed chart (which is the ultimate goal of the contest).

May the best map win! Eternal transit-mapping glory beckons!

For mobile users, the PDF is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ku2_Ywr0rUO8H3sDD791xFcul65-7SzF/

I chose to keep the Netherlands as true to its shape as possible, using a realistic map which I made in Illustrator, just like the network.

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Thanks for all the comments and feedback.

Biggest point of discussion is that a true to geography map messes up the west and in particular the Amsterdam area. I fully agree that on my map this is a bit crowded, but keep in mind the map is supposed to be A0- size and it should be more clear then. An insert of this area could be a solution. As someone pointed out, with this lay out there is a lot of blue and grey not used. With our Dutch network, one either has to deal with a crowded Amsterdam-Utrecht area, or change the map of the Netherlands. Some of us chose the latter, I chose the mess of the West. It will be very interesting to see how NS sees this and which design wins (and I am sure there are dozens that are not posted here) and if the winning design managed to solve both issues in one map.

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full res images here:
https://imgur.com/a/u3rWijn

Newcastle Rail Strategy [OC] made in illustrator

The High Speed Rail is coming to Newcastle within the next decade with Broadmeadow slated to become the region’s station. This strategy adapts existing and proposed local rail into a stronger, more frequent heavy rail system and connects these nodal and strategic hubs with light rail.

The heavy rail lines either adapt existing or proposed rail lines like the Lower Hunter Freight Corridor, Cessnock Line and Kooragang freight

Commuter/Suburban Rail

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Newcastle Airport Rail Line

Description: Utilises the existing heavy rail freight corridor on Kooragang Island.

Frequency: 30 min frequency during peak times and hourly frequencies off peak

Interchange: Hunter Line, Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, L1, L5

City Rail Loop Line

Description: Duplicates the proposed Lower Hunter Freight Corridor for passenger rail services. Adds an additional stop at Glendale on the Central Coast & Newcastle Line

Frequency: 30 min frequency during peak times and hourly frequencies off peak

Interchange: Hunter Line, Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle Airport Line, North Coast Regional Train Line, North West Regional Train Line, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5

Cessnock Line

Description: Utilises existing private rail from the Train To Cessnock Campaign

Frequency: Hourly frequency

Interchange: Hunter Line, Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, Newcastle Airport Line, North Coast Regional Train Line, North West Regional Train Line, L1, L5

Hunter Line

Existing rail line

Central Coast & Newcastle Line

Existing rail line

North Coast Regional Train Line

Existing rail line

North West Regional Train Line

Existing rail line

Light Rail/Interurban

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L1 - City Line

Description: Partly made up of the light rail extension from the Light Rail Extension Business Case. This line terminates at John Hunter in the business case but has been extended here.

Interchange: Hunter Line, Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, Newcastle Airport Line, North Coast Regional Train Line, North West Regional Train Line, L2, L3, L4, L5

L2 - Beaches Line

Description: Connects Darby Street with Adamstown Station.

Interchange: Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, North Coast Regional Train Line, North West Regional Train Line, L1, L2, L4

L3 - Swansea Line

Description: Connects Swansea with Charlestown, Adamstown and Broadmeadow

Interchange: Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, North Coast Regional Train Line, North West Regional Train Line, L1, L2, L4, L5

L4 - Warners Bay Line

Description: Connects Swansea with Warners Bay, Cardiff and West Wallsend.

Interchange: Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, L1, L3, L5

L5 - University of Newcastle Line

Description: Connects most lines together with heavy rail. Originates at Warabrook and servicing most of UoN. Connects UoN to Jesmond, John Hunter, Charlestown and Warners Bay.

Interchange: Hunter Line, Central Coast & Newcastle Line, Newcastle City Loop Line, Newcastle Airport Line, L1, L3, L4

Hi everyone, now that the submission deadline for NS's design contest has passed I decided to put my own design up for examination on this subreddit.

I went for the slightly unconventional approach where I didn't mark lines themselves, but only where they stopped at individual stations. Line numbers are inserted at all interchange stations (considered all stations with 2 or more lines running through them); stations served by only one line are marked with tickmarks.

I kept most other features pretty standard to (hopefully) aid with familiarity for new users: the map uses an octagonal grid (45 degree angles throughout) and all text is placed horizontally.
Names of central stations (stations ending in "Centraal") are written in all caps, other stations follow standard naming conventions. (The relatively modest differences between central stations and other stations was sorta a deliberate decision, to emphasize the decentralised-ness of the Dutch railway network). Line colours are roughly grouped by concession.

Feel free to give feedback!

Updated (my 2021) Sofia metro diagram because three new stations on line M3 opened on August 14th 2026.

Another station is also under construction planned to open this year.

It's good to see that the metro network is constantly expanding.

Feedback and corrections are welcome.

Chris

Made with Adobe Illustrator

From next year onwards the NS (Dutch railways) will introduce trainline numbers to each line in the country. IMO this moves encourages viewing the national rail infrastructure as a near country wide metro network.

The current map won't be used in this transition and a contest was called. I was wondering why the map won't be reused. Since I had an awkward time-gap in my architecture studies I decided to partake. I started with analyzing the current map for strengths and possible shortcomings to help my own design be better suited for the numberings.

I took away the following

Current map takeaways:

Only 2 tiers of hierarchy in stations (large transfer hub - small transfer hub/no transfers

Thin lines with thin gaps cannot support the minimum sized characters while noted in parallel

Trainlines follow reality with great distortions in distance, but little distortion is present in relationships between trainlines (Real direction changes always followed in the diagram, Trainlines on parallel tracks always follow with other trainlines even if no stops are made)

No clear distinction present in NS operated lines and other providers

Many bends and angles produce a pcb-style vibe

Foreign borders/distinctions absent

High frequency routes have lines that are multiplied since the "thickest" line only support 2 trains an hour. (EG 4 copied parallel tracks from Amsterdam Centraal to Hoofddorp)

And others....

The contest contents put forward a focus of inclusivity and readability.

Therefore I have decided that in my design i will allow more distortion in the trainlines, to only portray where each line stops (and not visualize a pass through a station without stopping).

All lines will have a greater thickness allowing all necessary information to be portrayed within the line itself, including varying train frequencies. Trainlines are freed of kinks as much as possible.

Highly frequented routes are prioritized in the design through clear geometry to assist the viewer in following.

Stations are never broken up by a line that does not stop there, except for Amsterdam Muiderpoort because of its true split (i dont like sloterdijk). This was by far the most difficult feature to implement, but I believe it does help assist understanding where which line does and does not stop.

A greater hierarchy is introduced between stations. Bubble sizes and font sizes were determined with a secret formula including: transfer directions, total stopping trainlines, daily passengers (when data was available) and population/serving area.

The only additional information added are the national parks. Naturally the national parks often remain with little near train presence in the area, granting itself space in the document.

Not all trainlines on the current map were in the contest documents. Since I have found numerous mistakes in these documents i believe these might be forgotten. I still left space for these through dotted lines (except long distance international travel).

I could go on but this is probably enough, please give feedback!

They shouldn’t have missed building Quaker Lane/Eisenhower Valley (J01) and Wolf Trap (N05) in the first place

Decided to tilt the entire grid by 9 degrees to anchor the design on the IC 27 line. I’m quite happy with how it turned out, especially in legibility and hierarchy. E.g every station name is horizontal and lines barely cross considering how intertwined the network is, and all text is in line with WCAG AA level of contrast (minimum 5:1). The contest also mentioned making the map accessible to people who don't know topographically where their station is, so I included a full station list and added a (slanted) grid underneath the map.

I also made the decision to separate out the network into three sub-networks: NS Intercity trains (dark blue), NS Sprinter trains (yellow) and other train operators (other colours). Each network is separated physically, so it's easy to jump around the map when you're following an intercity line. The interchange stations (“knooppunt”) are the places where it makes sense to change between any two of those three networks. (Although NS provided the list of what constitutes a "knooppunt", so there are some odd ones in there.)

It should also be pretty obvious that I’m heavily inspired by the 1972 and later Vignelli maps of NYC. I tried to make the 6 big stations stand out like the boroughs on that map, for example.

I’ll be heading to bed soon but I’ll come back tomorrow to answer your questions. :)