On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Paul Scott wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to
colour in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini
trains run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give
it a go myself. Here's the first draft, which so far only has the
Paddington lines done:

Why don't you have a look at the NR London Connections map, it has
thicker NR lines and they are already in colour

Yes, but it's entirely vile, and also de-emphasises the tube, which is as
bad as the tube map not showing the railway lines.

- I reckon your problem really only applies to Southern and Southeastern
doesn't it?

And the Watford services vs the NLR.

tom

--
3.141592666666 and then it's just all sixes for the other 298 digits. Then
after that there's just hieroglyphs of scary eyes.

Tom Anderson wrote:
Right,

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to
colour in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini
trains run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it
a go myself. Here's the first draft, which so far only has the
Paddington lines done:

http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/tmp/Lon...(Coloured).png

Apologies for the weird look; i had to rasterise the PDF to edit it, and
it's come out funny (blame Ghostscript!).

The reason i'm posting it with one line done (well, two, as i'm planning
to do Thameslink in black!) is to ask: does this look completely rubbish
or what? I think colouring in the edges of the quite thin NR lines isn't
visually strong enough. Am i wasting my time doing it like this? An
alternative route would be to dig out Illustrator and see if i can make
the lines a bit thicker.

For those who care, i'm picking colours by associating each terminus
with a tube line, based on the area served, and copying its colour. I'm
currently thinking:

Paddington - H&C
Marylebone - Metropolitan
Euston - Bakerloo
St Pancras - Northern (Thameslink is like the Northern line of railways)
King's Cross - Piccadilly
Moorgate - as King's Cross
Liverpool Street - Central
Fenchurch Street - Jubilee
London Bridge - East London
Cannon Street - as London Bridge
Blackfriars - Northern (as St Pancras)
Charing Cross - as London Bridge
Waterloo - District
Victoria - Victoria (hey, it's a link!)
orbital lines - Circle

I'm not totally convinced about Fenchurch Street and London Bridge, or
the orbital lines.

tom

The address link doesn't work for me!

MikeR

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:54:58 +0100, Mike Roberts
wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/tmp/Lon...(Coloured).png

The address link doesn't work for me!

Your newsreaser is presumably being confused by the brackets. I had to
copy/paste rather than just click.

James Farrar wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:54:58 +0100, Mike Roberts
wrote:

Snip
Your newsreaser is presumably being confused by the brackets. I had to
copy/paste rather than just click.

Closer inspection showed that the .png was not in the hyperlink address

MikeR

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:52:03 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

Right,

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to colour
in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini trains
run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it a go
myself. Here's the first draft, which so far only has the Paddington lines
done:

http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/tmp/Lon...(Coloured).png

Apologies for the weird look; i had to rasterise the PDF to edit it, and
it's come out funny (blame Ghostscript!).

The reason i'm posting it with one line done (well, two, as i'm planning
to do Thameslink in black!) is to ask: does this look completely rubbish
or what? I think colouring in the edges of the quite thin NR lines isn't
visually strong enough. Am i wasting my time doing it like this? An
alternative route would be to dig out Illustrator and see if i can make
the lines a bit thicker.

For those who care, i'm picking colours by associating each terminus with
a tube line, based on the area served, and copying its colour. I'm
currently thinking:

Paddington - H&C
Marylebone - Metropolitan
Euston - Bakerloo
St Pancras - Northern (Thameslink is like the Northern line of railways)
King's Cross - Piccadilly
Moorgate - as King's Cross
Liverpool Street - Central
Fenchurch Street - Jubilee
London Bridge - East London
Cannon Street - as London Bridge
Blackfriars - Northern (as St Pancras)
Charing Cross - as London Bridge
Waterloo - District
Victoria - Victoria (hey, it's a link!)
orbital lines - Circle

I'm not totally convinced about Fenchurch Street and London Bridge, or the
orbital lines.

I'm not convinced by your limited attempt with the Paddington lines. I
agree with you that it does not stand out well enough and using such
thin lines will cause problems for those of us with less than perfect
colour vision when lines cross over each other. I can cope with the
tube map perfectly well because it so bold and clear in its use of
colour.

I think there needs to be a decision as to whether you just want to show
a mini network as one colour into one terminal station or if you wish to
attempt to show service patterns as per the tube map and that old
Southern Railway map that was in a post yesterday.

I liked the old SR map because it showed the service pattern. I'm not
terribly familiar with the service pattern in South London and giving
that information clearly using colour was a genuine help. The Overground
map with trains per hour is moderately helpful but is confusing at
certain points where numbers of train per hour suddenly increase at key
stations but then decline either side of that station. You get no sense
of what trains run where.

I realise the service pattern option would get very busy in South London
and some parts of North London and this might mean having two maps to
deal with it. If you could get sufficient clarity / scale to
accommodate service patterns then it should be possible to show the
frequency of trains per hour for each service which would allow people
to better see how frequently direct trains ran vis a vis the options of
changing at somewhere like Lewisham or Clapham Junction or Sutton.

If you wished to show just one colour for a group of lines then the
other option is to designate service patterns with route codes (like the
RER) and show which codes stop at which station. To some extent we used
to have this with headcodes but, of course, the public are so thick as
to not understand what they mean (well according to railway company
market research!).

I applaud your efforts for trying and hope you come up with a neat
solution.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:52:03 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to colour
in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini trains
run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it a go
myself.

I'm not convinced by your limited attempt with the Paddington lines. I
agree with you that it does not stand out well enough and using such
thin lines will cause problems for those of us with less than perfect
colour vision when lines cross over each other. I can cope with the
tube map perfectly well because it so bold and clear in its use of
colour.

Agreed. I'm going to go back and do this (when i get a round tuit) by
editing the PDF; the NR lines are drawn as thick coloured lines (like the
tube lines) with slimmer white lines sitting on top of them, so i just
need to reduce the stroke width of the white lines to make the visible bit
thicker. Easily done.

I think there needs to be a decision as to whether you just want to show
a mini network as one colour into one terminal station or if you wish to
attempt to show service patterns as per the tube map and that old
Southern Railway map that was in a post yesterday.

Not sure what you mean. Do you mean stopping patterns along a line? If so,
i'm not going to show that, any more than the tube map shows them along
the Met. Do you mean a route carrying trains to multiple termini? If so,
i'll show that, just as the tube map does, eg east of Aldgate East. Where
services to different termini sharing a route have different stopping
patterns, i'll show it, as with the Picc and District west of Hammersmith.

The only tricky bit will be if there are sitations where there are trains
that go A - B - C - D - E and others that go X - B - C - Y - E, but not A
- B - C - Y - D; there, there have to be two lines between B and C,
connecting to the relevant lines to A/X and D/Y, even though they're the
same colour. As with the line through Blackwall on the DLR:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/dlr-zones.pdf

Where you have Tower - Beckton and Bank - KGV services, but not vice versa
(IYSWIM).

Basically, the rule is simple; if you can follow an unbroken line from one
station to another without reversing, there is a train that runs between
them that follows that route. It may not stop at either station, but it at
least goes past them. The lines will then be coloured according to their
terminus.

Bonus freaky map:

http://www.itsworldcongress.com/its_...be_dlr_map.htm

I liked the old SR map because it showed the service pattern. I'm not
terribly familiar with the service pattern in South London and giving
that information clearly using colour was a genuine help.

That's more or less what i'm aiming for. My map will be slightly simpler
because i'm not showing stopping patterns along the lines, meaning i don't
have to show the Lewisham bypass. Also, my map doesn't go nearly as far!

The Overground map with trains per hour is moderately helpful but is
confusing at certain points where numbers of train per hour suddenly
increase at key stations but then decline either side of that station.
You get no sense of what trains run where.

Yes, that's annoying. I assume it's because you have, say, a 4 tph
suburban service along the Windsor line, but there are also county trains
that stop at, say, Putney and Waterloo only, so you have more tph at
Putney than the stations either side. Effectively, a stopping pattern
thing. I'm dealing with this problem by not showing frequencies!

I realise the service pattern option would get very busy in South London
and some parts of North London and this might mean having two maps to
deal with it. If you could get sufficient clarity / scale to
accommodate service patterns then it should be possible to show the
frequency of trains per hour for each service which would allow people
to better see how frequently direct trains ran vis a vis the options of
changing at somewhere like Lewisham or Clapham Junction or Sutton.

I think i'm going to leave this to someone else.

If you wished to show just one colour for a group of lines then the
other option is to designate service patterns with route codes (like the
RER) and show which codes stop at which station.

Certainly something to consider. This can also be shown by parallel lines
of the same colour with different patterns of station markers, as is done
on the Metropolitan line's strip maps (which i can't find online). I think
i'd only resort to this in extreme cases, though; if not showing this
detail is good enough for LU, it's good enough for me.

I applaud your efforts for trying and hope you come up with a neat
solution.

Thank you.

tom

--
Come on thunder; come on thunder.

On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:34:54 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:52:03 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

All that stuff about maps got me thinking. It should be possible to colour
in the lines on the London Connections map to show which termini trains
run to. Since i'm a dab hand with the Gimp, i thought i'd give it a go
myself.

I'm not convinced by your limited attempt with the Paddington lines. I
agree with you that it does not stand out well enough and using such
thin lines will cause problems for those of us with less than perfect
colour vision when lines cross over each other. I can cope with the
tube map perfectly well because it so bold and clear in its use of
colour.

Agreed. I'm going to go back and do this (when i get a round tuit) by
editing the PDF; the NR lines are drawn as thick coloured lines (like the
tube lines) with slimmer white lines sitting on top of them, so i just
need to reduce the stroke width of the white lines to make the visible bit
thicker. Easily done.

I think there needs to be a decision as to whether you just want to show
a mini network as one colour into one terminal station or if you wish to
attempt to show service patterns as per the tube map and that old
Southern Railway map that was in a post yesterday.

Not sure what you mean. Do you mean stopping patterns along a line? If so,
i'm not going to show that, any more than the tube map shows them along
the Met. Do you mean a route carrying trains to multiple termini? If so,
i'll show that, just as the tube map does, eg east of Aldgate East. Where
services to different termini sharing a route have different stopping
patterns, i'll show it, as with the Picc and District west of Hammersmith.

If you take the Paddington example you used for your trial. Note I'm not
100% certain about real service patterns these days. Ideally I'd like to
see the principle that LU use where the Picc / District run parallel.
This shows there are two services and also that one is fast and one is
stopping. On the Paddington example I'd perhaps see it like this

Paddington - beyond London area expresses have one line
Paddington - Greenford has a line showing all the stops it stops at.
Paddington - Windsor has a line showing all the stops it stops at
Paddington - Slough etc

Each line on the map should, IMO, have a code number to reflect the
service group / stopping pattern and ideally that code number would be
shown on the train, in the timetable and on all information displays.
Then a passenger could see easily that any "75" or a "82" train on any
day would call at, say, Ealing Broadway. I suspect this would impose
too much rigidity on the TOCs but this consistency of approach to
services and all related information would be a big step forward. It's
no different to S Bahn numbering in Germany.

I appreciate this would look very busy and the lines might be very wide
on the approach to Paddington but conveying the service patterns and
grouping would be helpful.

The only tricky bit will be if there are sitations where there are trains
that go A - B - C - D - E and others that go X - B - C - Y - E, but not A
- B - C - Y - D; there, there have to be two lines between B and C,
connecting to the relevant lines to A/X and D/Y, even though they're the
same colour. As with the line through Blackwall on the DLR:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/dlr-zones.pdf

Where you have Tower - Beckton and Bank - KGV services, but not vice versa
(IYSWIM).

Basically, the rule is simple; if you can follow an unbroken line from one
station to another without reversing, there is a train that runs between
them that follows that route. It may not stop at either station, but it at
least goes past them. The lines will then be coloured according to their
terminus.

I think that sounds like what I am suggesting above but I confess you
ABC examples are a bit confusing.

The Overground map with trains per hour is moderately helpful but is
confusing at certain points where numbers of train per hour suddenly
increase at key stations but then decline either side of that station.
You get no sense of what trains run where.

Yes, that's annoying. I assume it's because you have, say, a 4 tph
suburban service along the Windsor line, but there are also county trains
that stop at, say, Putney and Waterloo only, so you have more tph at
Putney than the stations either side. Effectively, a stopping pattern
thing. I'm dealing with this problem by not showing frequencies!

Your assumption is completely correct for the SWT example you quote.

You could show frequencies in a circle or similar at the end of each
station name or overprinted on to the line diagram.

I realise the service pattern option would get very busy in South London
and some parts of North London and this might mean having two maps to
deal with it. If you could get sufficient clarity / scale to
accommodate service patterns then it should be possible to show the
frequency of trains per hour for each service which would allow people
to better see how frequently direct trains ran vis a vis the options of
changing at somewhere like Lewisham or Clapham Junction or Sutton.

I think i'm going to leave this to someone else.

You're not adventurous enough!

If you wished to show just one colour for a group of lines then the
other option is to designate service patterns with route codes (like the
RER) and show which codes stop at which station.

Certainly something to consider. This can also be shown by parallel lines
of the same colour with different patterns of station markers, as is done
on the Metropolitan line's strip maps (which i can't find online). I think
i'd only resort to this in extreme cases, though; if not showing this
detail is good enough for LU, it's good enough for me.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...politan(1).pdf

is what I think you need. The link will not work properly as pasted
because of the brackets but I'm sure you can cope!
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!