London Connections - coloured
 

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

--
Plus, you gotta understand I can now type far, far faster than I can
think. This is not boasting - its admitting a personal tragedy. -- D

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 10:52 am, 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


This is actually based on the zones map, which doesn't attempt to
diagram the routes, it simply shows which stations the zones are in
and some rather bizarre routes between them (like the weird branch to
Hither Green between Lewisham and Blackheath).

There is a London Connections map which would be a more useful
starting point and includes the zones as well.

The diagram that's been given out with the National Rail timetable for
years always had a kind of attempt at colouring routes according to
terminus, but the trouble is that it can result in having to have
parallel lines along certain routes, or else sillinesses like having a
colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street and then saying that the route
from Dartford to Victoria is really covered by Charing Cross services
that go to Victoria, rather than have two colours along the
Bexleyheath line.

In the end, the grouping of services by TOC (or former BR division) is
more likely to correspond to some kind of operational reality without
creating incredible complication.

London Connections - coloured
 

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


Why don't you have a look at the NR London Connections map, it has thicker
NR lines and they are already in colour - I reckon your problem really only
applies to Southern and Southeastern doesn't it?
http://nationalrail.co.uk/system/gal...onnections.pdf

Paul

London Connections - coloured
 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, MIG wrote:

On Jul 10, 10:52 am, 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. Here's the first draft, which so far only has the Paddington lines
done:

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

This is actually based on the zones map, which doesn't attempt to
diagram the routes, it simply shows which stations the zones are in and
some rather bizarre routes between them (like the weird branch to Hither
Green between Lewisham and Blackheath).

True, but that's more or less what the tube map does too, so i'm not
overly bothered.

There is a London Connections map which would be a more useful starting
point and includes the zones as well.

Is there? Distinct from this map? Do you mean the NR one? If not, what?

The diagram that's been given out with the National Rail timetable for
years always had a kind of attempt at colouring routes according to
terminus,

This one:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system...onnections.pdf

?

I note that has the same treatment of Hither Green.

but the trouble is that it can result in having to have
parallel lines along certain routes,

Yes, this is inevitable, as with the LU network - you get just this all
around the Circle, out beyond Rayner's Lane, out to Barking, etc, but
nobody seems to have trouble with it. It's a bit worse on NR, but not
colossally so. If you look at the NR map above, no route is more than
three lines wide, except at London Bridge where it's arguably gratuitous.

or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

In the end, the grouping of services by TOC (or former BR division) is
more likely to correspond to some kind of operational reality without
creating incredible complication.

No, colouring by terminus is fine, as i will soon demonstrate!

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.

London Connections - coloured
 

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.

London Connections - coloured
 

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

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 2:37 pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, MIG wrote:
On Jul 10, 10:52 am, 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. Here's the first draft, which so far only has the Paddington lines
done:

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

This is actually based on the zones map, which doesn't attempt to
diagram the routes, it simply shows which stations the zones are in and
some rather bizarre routes between them (like the weird branch to Hither
Green between Lewisham and Blackheath).

True, but that's more or less what the tube map does too, so i'm not
overly bothered.

There is a London Connections map which would be a more useful starting
point and includes the zones as well.

Is there? Distinct from this map? Do you mean the NR one? If not, what?

The diagram that's been given out with the National Rail timetable for
years always had a kind of attempt at colouring routes according to
terminus,

This one:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system.../print_maps/Lo...


That's the one. It's not quite accurate around that area, but in
general it's more accurate (or less inaccurate) than the zones one.
It's not the same though, in that at least it doesn't show everything
going through Lewisham (station). It's a bit better on limited
service routes as well. Also, with most operators, the colours do
correspond to one terminus (I assume you wouldn't try to distinguish
Charing Cross from Cannon Street.)



?

I note that has the same treatment of Hither Green.

but the trouble is that it can result in having to have
parallel lines along certain routes,

Yes, this is inevitable, as with the LU network - you get just this all
around the Circle, out beyond Rayner's Lane, out to Barking, etc, but
nobody seems to have trouble with it. It's a bit worse on NR, but not
colossally so. If you look at the NR map above, no route is more than
three lines wide, except at London Bridge where it's arguably gratuitous.

or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

It's not the most awful thing about that map that comes (came) with
the timetable. I can't find it on the Web.



In the end, the grouping of services by TOC (or former BR division) is
more likely to correspond to some kind of operational reality without
creating incredible complication.

No, colouring by terminus is fine, as i will soon demonstrate!

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.

London Connections - coloured
 

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.

London Connections - coloured
 

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

London Connections - coloured
 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:11:08 -0700, MIG wrote:

or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

It's not the most awful thing about that map that comes (came) with
the timetable. I can't find it on the Web.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%...atic%20map.pdf

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 5:45 pm, asdf wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:11:08 -0700, MIG wrote:
or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

It's not the most awful thing about that map that comes (came) with
the timetable. I can't find it on the Web.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%...lesMay07/Schem...


The very monstrosity I was thinking of; thanks.

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 6:05 pm, MIG wrote:
On Jul 10, 5:45 pm, asdf wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:11:08 -0700, MIG wrote:
or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

It's not the most awful thing about that map that comes (came) with
the timetable. I can't find it on the Web.

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/browse%...lesMay07/Schem...

The very monstrosity I was thinking of; thanks.



Mind you, they have recently fixed a few of the errors that had been
left untouched for years.

London Connections - coloured
 

Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 6:39 pm, XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.



All London stations probably have them when each new edition first
comes out, although the busier stations tend to run out quite soon.
You may find that stations away from London are more likely to have
some left over for longer after each new one comes out. So if you are
passing Oxted while the office is open ...

London Connections - coloured
 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, XmaX wrote:

Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere?

Your nearest colour printer!

tom

--
Pave the world

London Connections - coloured
 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:39:01 -0700, XmaX wrote:

Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.

"One" had some on leaflet racks at Walthamstow Central recently but they
disappeared very rapidly indeed - I did manage to grab one. I would ask
at a National Rail ticket office or at a travel centre if you are near a
main line terminal station in Central London. TfL Travel Information
Centres might also have them but I don't think LU ticket offices hold
them.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

London Connections - coloured
 

or else sillinesses like having a colour for Charing Cross/Cannon Street
and then saying that the route from Dartford to Victoria is really
covered by Charing Cross services that go to Victoria, rather than have
two colours along the Bexleyheath line.

This is bad, wrong, and i will not be doing it.

In the end, the grouping of services by TOC (or former BR division) is
more likely to correspond to some kind of operational reality without
creating incredible complication.

No, colouring by terminus is fine, as i will soon demonstrate!


In a similar vein, in reality, some London Bridge services do extend
to Charing Cross and they come from the same places and are run by the
same operator that is the main user of the London Bridge terminus.

Would you be completely pure about it and consider them to be Charing
Cross services, and have three parallel colours down a relatively
minor branch like Caterham?

Also (did someone already ask?) what colour will you use when trains
travel from one terminus to another, eg London Bridge to Victoria by a
number of different routes at various times, currently two main ones?

I admire your determination, but this is going to be a very difficult
task.

London Connections - coloured
 

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!

London Connections - coloured
 

XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.

Define pocket. I've never seen one the size of a small pocket tube map.
The information kiosk at Cambridge station usually seems to have some
larger brochure-sized maps.
--
Michael Hoffman

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 7:18 pm, MIG wrote:
Would you be completely pure about it and consider them to be Charing
Cross services, and have three parallel colours down a relatively
minor branch like Caterham?

All services to/through London Bridge should be the same colour, since
it's easy enough to change there.

Also (did someone already ask?) what colour will you use when trains
travel from one terminus to another, eg London Bridge to Victoria by a
number of different routes at various times, currently two main ones?

The SR one I posted yesterday has parallel lines in both colours.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 6:29 pm, Michael Hoffman wrote:
XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocket
London Connections map form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.

Define pocket. I've never seen one the size of a small pocket tube map.
The information kiosk at Cambridge station usually seems to have some
larger brochure-sized maps.
--
Michael Hoffman
Pocket = something I can take, as opposed to look at the poster :)
Probably the easiest solution for me would just be to put an image of
the map to my mobile, I already have a London street map and the tube
map on it, so it should be enough.

London Connections - coloured
 

I'm sure there are many stations that do have the map, but I can only
tell you for sure that Harringay station has them, because it's near
me and I picked up mine over there the other day.

It's a London Connections map on one side, and a London and the South
East on the other side; very nice to have.

London Connections - coloured
 

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Mr Thant wrote:

On Jul 10, 7:18 pm, MIG wrote:

Would you be completely pure about it and consider them to be Charing
Cross services, and have three parallel colours down a relatively minor
branch like Caterham?

All services to/through London Bridge should be the same colour, since
it's easy enough to change there.

Yes. I mentioned that in passing in my list. King's Cross and Moorgate
lines will also be the same colour.

Also (did someone already ask?) what colour will you use when trains
travel from one terminus to another, eg London Bridge to Victoria by a
number of different routes at various times, currently two main ones?

The SR one I posted yesterday has parallel lines in both colours.

Hmm. Don't think i like that; it implies there are two services on the
line, one going to each terminus, when really, there's only one service,
that goes to both. My immediate reaction is to treat such services as
orbital, and colour them the same as the NLL etc; whether this is right
depends on how they're used, really. Another option would be to use a line
of alternating colour, as on the old Railway Clearing House maps, eg:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/rjd/rjd-040.htm

However, then we're back to looking vile.

tom

--
Come on thunder; come on thunder.

London Connections - coloured
 

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.

London Connections - coloured
 

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!

London Connections - coloured
 

On Jul 10, 6:39 pm, XmaX wrote:
Just a small diversion from the topic - is it possible to get a pocketLondonConnectionsmap form anywhere? The only place I saw it is on
the wall of the underground stations. It got a bit annoying when I
walked 10 minutes to a station, just to find out that it is in Z4,
when I have a Z1-4 travelcard.


There are some at Cannon Street today.