Worst network diagram?

[TUC]

My favourite thing about this map is that Hull is both north and south of York; and that York is both north and south of Hull.

Also that you can make a journey from Warrington to Warrington via Warrington.

Well, York has long been regarded as the South in the North

 

[BeijingDave]

I agree. If you know nothing of the area, could you use it to plan a journey from point A to point B? If the answer is 'yes', it's done its job. Then you get into stuff about how easy that planning is (zig-zag lines vs smooth ones, for example).

Comments about place X being too close to place Y are flawed. Maybe that's 'correct' and other parts are incorrect! The point of a schematic is to show what connects with what.

I think there could be some middle ground.

The London Underground and Beijing Subway map are both pretty effective because they at least get cardinal positions roughly correct. That integrates well with wayfinding in the stations, such as on the tube where stations have platform signs for 'x Line Northbound' and 'Southbound'.

 

[Mogz]

As a regular user of the Borderlands Line (Bidston-Wrexham) I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s finding it rather amusing that the Merseyrail timetable map depicted the Wirral peninsula as pointing up, with the line running vertically, whereas the North Western Trains/ First North Western timetable map depicted the Wirral as pointing sideways, with the line running horizontally.

Of course, this early BR map was much more accurate…

 

[blimmo]

The version I'm looking at showing Thameslink has a similar distortion for Brighton line services going south towards Gatwick. A common technique for adding a long line at an extremity in a complex transit map.

Now check out Tokyo!:

https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/routemaps/pdf/routemap_majorrailsub.pdf

This is an incredible map, thanks for sharing. My favourite part is that it shows the loop of the Yurikamome!

 

[Winthorpe]

I don’t mind because I know it is a route diagram.

However on the Northern map, see how close Buxton and Nottingham are:

https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/sites/default/files/2026-02/Northern%20Network%20Feb%202026%20WEB%202.pdf

 

[frediculous]

This TFL map https://content.tfl.gov.uk/large-print-tube-map.pdf just seems to do too much. Underground, overground and zones. I will not mention the distance between Covent Garden and Leicester Square. I suppose this is just the London equivalent of a tourist tax.

The area around Woolwich is spectacularly bad. The DLR could easily be moved closer to the river, with the labels on the right. That gives enough room to place the DLR & Thameslink Woolwich Arsenals next to each other, put a bend in the Elizabeth line to move Abbey Wood slightly to the right. At the moment the gap between the connected Woolwich Arsenals is enormous.

And don't mention that right angle turn at a station blob at Elephant & Castle, which is one of Beck's golden rules totally ignored

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Metrolink's map really grinds my gears. The East Didsbury branch runs to the south of the Manchester Airport branch but, on the Metrolink map, it is shown as running to the north.

I know why they've done it and it does make the diagram neater, but still.

View attachment 199176

The diagrammatic route maps on the back wall of the Wirral Line platforms at Lime Street and Liverpool Central have also been drawn incorrectly.

They show the Ellesmere Port line branching off to the right of the Chester line at Hooton when, in fact, it branches off to the left.

File:Wirral Line map at Lime Street.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

While the map at Moorfields gets the directions wrong at Hamilton Square and at Birkenhead North.

At Moorfields trains depart to the left while they depart to the right at the other two stations.

 

[zero]

This is the latest map I've had the displeasure of needing to use

 

[plugwash]

Interestingly both maps wrongfully suggest they don't provide direct services between Crewe and Stoke (which is the case for Mancs-Bournemouth trains)

Most Manchester to Bournemouth Trains run from Manchester to Stoke via Stockport and Macclesfield, not via Crewe. I don't think ommiting a 1TPD diversionary route retainer is unreasonable.

 

[stadler]

This was one of the old maps Southeastern used on the front of the timetable books to show which routes it is for:



The line to London Victoria and the line to London Charing Cross are the wrong way round to what they should be.

 

[styles]

This was one of the old maps Southeastern used on the front of the timetable books to show which routes it is for:

View attachment 199452

The line to London Victoria and the line to London Charing Cross are the wrong way round to what they should be.

Is Dover Castle that much of a tourist hotspot?

 

[A S Leib]

Is Dover Castle that much of a tourist hotspot?

In 2023, Visit Britain had it listed as the 19th-most visited paid attraction in South East England, below Canterbury Cathedral and Royal Tunbridge Wells Tourist Information Centre. Maybe marking Harrietsham or Hollingbourne for Leeds should have been done.

 

[CarrotPie]

In 2023, Visit Britain had it listed as the 19th-most visited paid attraction in South East England, below Canterbury Cathedral and Royal Tunbridge Wells Tourist Information Centre. Maybe marking Harrietsham or Hollingbourne for Leeds should have been done.

"Bearsted for Leeds Castle" was a thing for a time IIRC. Might still be, actually.

 

[sprunt]

I wonder how they're going to deal with future extensions because they could end up walking down the TfL cul-de-sac. Take the Stockport extension, with maybe two or three intermediate stations, that could a squeeze.

If necessary I suspect they'd just redesign the whole map to fit it in - they've never been unduly concerned about maintaining the history of the layout as TfL have been (admittedly with less history to maintain than TfL, if they did the radical redesign they need to I suspect the complaints would be off the scale).

I will not mention the distance between Covent Garden and Leicester Square. I suppose this is just the London equivalent of a tourist tax.

I'm not sure what else they could do there - if they moved the station along the line segment to be closer to Leicester Square on the map it could equally give the incorrect impression that it's worth making a journey from Covent Garden to Holborn, and coud look cramped. I think this kind of thing will always be unavoidable on diagrams when you have stations so close together in central areas.

 

[voyagerdude220]

I notice that Weston super Mare isn't on the XC Network Map referred to by the OP, but is however included in the map referred to by Styles in post 39.

 

[vlad]

As a regular user of the Borderlands Line (Bidston-Wrexham) I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s finding it rather amusing that the Merseyrail timetable map depicted the Wirral peninsula as pointing up, with the line running vertically, whereas the North Western Trains/ First North Western timetable map depicted the Wirral as pointing sideways, with the line running horizontally.View attachment 199366

On a similar subject, note how far away Warrington BQ and Warrington Central are (and also note where the direct line between Liverpool and Runcorn goes).

Regarding the FNW map, I thought it worked well to fit the stations in the space allowed. Then FNW started serving London so the entire map was shrunk a bit and the stations south of Crewe included giving a lot of white space. I can't find a copy of this online but it did look weird in my opinion.

 

[stevieinselby]

The worst is the new "interactive map" with childish text that attempts to make a tube map at every scale and shows more stations as you zoom. I find it loses any context and the animations are a diatraction, though I concede it's a smart idea.

https://railmap.nationalrail.co.uk/#/mapview

I like the idea, but the implementation is dreadful:

• Really weird selection of which stations get shown at each zoom level
• Far too many fiddly lines trying to be geographically accurate
• Where there are parallel lines, there is often too little colour difference between them and one slides behind the other as you zoom out making it hard-to-impossible to see what colours are there.

 

[Gonzoiku]

Obviously these schematics are simplifications, but I thought it was perhaps a bit off having Aberdeen as far 'west' as Penzance.

Yeah, everybody knows that Penzance is west of Stornoway.

Not quite, but it's close!

GZ

 

[Helvellyn]

I find the current Network Rail route diagram to be an abomination. Schematic maps work well for metros and local extracts but not for displaying the whole country with the geography distorted (as below).

A great step backward from the map that used to accompany the National Rail Timetable until it ceased publication.
View attachment 199104

Yes, i never knew why the old BR Passenger Network Map needed ditching. It felt like change by NRE for the sake of it (I also personally find Project Mapping a little smug on their website).

The joy of the old BR map was the schematic diagrams for major urban areas. A nice mix of those on the back of the geographical representative map.

The other operator map that worked well was final incarnation of the InterCity schematic map, The Routes of Britain. A large plastic version was fixed in the vestibule of every InterCity coach. I wonder how many thousands just got skipped during those initial privatisation refurbishments.

1993 InterCity Train Route Map Of Great Britain - Brilliant Maps

The map above shows British Rail's InterCity routes of the UK as they existed in 1993, the year before the EuroStar services started running out of Waterloo International.

brilliantmaps.com

 

[Mcr Warrior]

The other operator map that worked well was final incarnation of the InterCity schematic map, The Routes of Britain.

Not a bad map that. Noted, however, that Manchester Victoria wasn't included / didn't rate a mention, and also that the 'direct' line for Eastbourne seems to branch off just after Gatwick Airport!

 

[zwk500]

and also that the 'direct' line for Eastbourne seems to branch off just after Gatwick Airport!

Not inaccurate, though, at the resolution of that map. Slightly bigger gripe that Eastbourne is shown as the junction for the lines from Gatwick and Brighton, instead of Lewes!
However, arguably the omission of Newhaven completely despite being a Sealink port is worse than either of those errors.

 

[Merle Haggard]

There was also a GNER map which seemed to be intended as a successor to the Inter City map (though obviously showing only East Coast routes) and also fitted in vestibules. They were the same dimensions (I think) making replacement simple.

Virgin West Coast had theirs, too, but was perhaps not so stylish..

The Inter City map sometimes crops up at 'railwayana' swap meets and auctions - I bought one at Quorn for about £50. The material seems pretty rigid and durable, some laminated combination of board and plastic. Acceptable to hang on your hallway wall, in my opinion.

 

[Retorus]

Yes, i never knew why the old BR Passenger Network Map needed ditching. It felt like change by NRE for the sake of it (I also personally find Project Mapping a little smug on their website).

The joy of the old BR map was the schematic diagrams for major urban areas. A nice mix of those on the back of the geographical representative map.

The other operator map that worked well was final incarnation of the InterCity schematic map, The Routes of Britain. A large plastic version was fixed in the vestibule of every InterCity coach. I wonder how many thousands just got skipped during those initial privatisation refurbishments.

View attachment 199830

1993 InterCity Train Route Map Of Great Britain - Brilliant Maps

The map above shows British Rail's InterCity routes of the UK as they existed in 1993, the year before the EuroStar services started running out of Waterloo International.

brilliantmaps.com

God that takes me back. Remember staring at it in wonder as a child.