Cartes kilométriques
Distance maps of European railways
Nederlandse versie
The recently published book A history of railways in 100 maps by Jeremy Black features railway maps of all shapes and sizes. Only a few of them are distance maps or 'cartes kilométriques'. These are maps that show distances or travel times between stations. Travellers can plan their journey by adding up the distances or by writing down the times.
Some of these distance maps are regular topographic maps with numbers added, others have a schematic design or look more like diagrams than maps. Often, all railway stations in a country or area are indicated, resulting in very detailed maps with a lot of information. In such cases, a clear design is essential for comprehensibility.
Over time mapmakers and designers found various solutions to avoid clutter, such as omitting topographical details, using straight lines and applying different colours. Sometimes distance maps are designed as board games with steps that each have a distance as a 'score'. Travellers determine the beginning and end point themselves, although the capital often serves as a central point. Without a recognisable start and finish, such a jeu de course quickly becomes a maze.
Because multiple routes are possible, the number of travel options is large. However, the more inventive solutions to indicate travel times for each variant, the less accessible the maps become. This was not always problematic: some maps were designed for railway employees of travel agenents. Others were aimed at 'professional travellers' such as sales representatives and military staff. Maps for tourists had the simplest design and the most attractive presentation.
France
One of the earliest railway distance maps was the Itinéraire kilométrique du réseau des chemins de fer français by F.T. Salomon in 1862. This Parisian cartographer had previously made a plan of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, with all the graves numbered. Although much larger in scale, he was familiar with using numbers. Salomon kept the railway map simple by omitting geographical details. The crowded areas around Paris and Lyon were enlarged on inset maps. Distances between stations were printed in black; the distance from Paris was shown in red for major towns and terminals. Perpignan was the furthest away at 1002 kilometers. Although France already had over 1000 stations in 1862, that number would quadruple later.
Innovator of the distance map was E. Gourdoux (father and/or son). In 1878 he presented his Carte commerciale des chemins de fer at the Paris World Exhibition. This map of one square metre was designed as a complicated game of goose. The railway lines were strips with boxes in them, containing the names of places and distances. The kilometer count ran from the beginning to the end of each railway line. In the first version of 1878, Paris was an elegant circle with the capital's eight terminal stations in it. The various railway companies and their regions each had their own background colour, such as Nord, Est, Midi and Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (PLM).
Gourdoux's map became a success and was used by the city of Paris in education at trade schools. For (sales) travellers, a smaller version was published on canvas that could be folded into a cover, to be carried as a pocket book. Gourdoux published a new version of the map almost every year, each time with a slightly modified design. The strips (railway lines) became less wide and the perfect circle of Paris transformed into an irregular oval. Keeping up with new stations and modified railway lines was a tedious job, which was done for Gourdoux by civil engineer M.A. de Vilaine from 1898 onwards.
Apparently there was great demand for kilometer maps with all French railway stations: Gourdoux got several competitors. J. Maupin, 'sous-chef à la direction des chemins de fer au Ministère des travaux publics', published such a map every year from 1882 onwards. Didot-Bottin, publisher of a trade annual that went back to the early nineteenth-century printer Firmin Didot and statistician Sébastien Bottin, also issued a railway map with distances from 1898 onwards. These were more regular topographical maps, of course with distance indications, but less abstracted than Gourdoux's designs.
An intermediate form was the map by J. Forest from 1890, on which the railway lines were indicated wider again and in the same colours per railway region as Gourdoux used. In 1912 the 'Inter-Bifur' (between junctions) was added to the series of distance maps, a publication by the Union Industrielle et Commerciale, compiled by Ch. Clément. The Inter-Bifur would continue to be published until after the foundation of SNCF in 1938, the national company that absorbed the railway regions.
Europe I
The French distance cartographers also ventured into European railway maps. With many more connections and stations, it was all the more difficult to keep the maps clear. Including all railway stations proved unfeasible on a European scale. For example, both Gourdoux and Ditot-Bottin chose to show only about 50 stations in the Netherlands; in reality there were hundreds.
Ditot-Bottin's Europe Kilométrique was compiled in 1902 by 'éditeur géographe' Henry Barrère. The map had a traditional layout with colours per country and red railway lines. The distances throughout Europe were calculated from Paris, except in England: there they were calculated from London. The number of kilometers was only indicated at main cities; in between were cross-bars every 10 kilometers.
Like his French maps, E. Gourdoux's European distance map of 1899 was very simplified. Remarkably enough he did not indicate national borders, not even with a colour difference like the French regions. As a result, Europe seemed to be one large country, which made orientation difficult. Gourdoux did not only print the distances between cities in kilometers, but also as travel time in hours-minutes. The large cities were green circles with the number of inhabitants inside. The result was a quite monotonous map with a lot of numbers.
Switzerland
Around 1882 the Carte Kilométrique Officielle des Chemins de Fer Suisses or the 'official' kilometer map of Swiss railways appeared. However, the Swiss federal railways did not yet exist; Switzerland had many different private companies. The publisher of the beautiful map was not an official body at all, but the small firm of H. Chanel & Cie. from Geneva. All indicated distances were calculated from the capital of Bern, as explained on a label that was added afterwards.
Mapmaker P. Hennequin included the Swiss mountain lakes as the only geographical elements, in addition to the borders of cantons. Around the railway map, with lines in striking yellow, are small engravings of well-known places, such as Geneva, Bern, Zurich and Interlaken, created by J. Weber. Among them is a picture from 1881 of the Teufelsbrücke on the Gotthard pass road, while the Gotthard railway and tunnel were opened in 1882. This rail connection to Italy — with the border town of Chiasso at 325 kilometers from Bern — is already indicated on the map.
Italy
In 1885 the then private railways of Italy merged into a few large networks. The mainland was divided lengthwise into Rete Adriatica (network along the Adriatic Sea) and Rete Mediterranea (network along the Mediterranean Sea). On this occasion, cartographer Enrico Gambillo from Bologna created an overview map of 100 by 130 centimetres large. Although it covered the entire country, the management of the Rete Adriatica was the initiator. The railway lines of that network were printed in blue, those of the Rete Mediterranea in red. The distances between the more than 2000 stations were indicated in kilometers. The map also contained a distance table and an alphabetical index.
In the revised edition of 1896, Gambillo sacrificed the table and index for no less than fourteen frames with small railway maps of countries en regions such as France, Spain and Portugal, Central Europe and the Balkans, but without distances. Kilometer indications were present however on the inset maps of the city lines of Naples, the tram network of Tuscany and the Ferrovie Nord Milano, the network north of Milan around the great lakes. The publisher Sauer & Barigazzi from Bologna continued to issue editions of this map after the formation of the Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) in 1905, into which the previous networks were absorbed.
Half a century later, FS published a foldable distance map for tourists with the title In treno attraverso l'Italia (by train through Italy). All railway lines are included, but only the larger stations. In between kilometer numbers are printed, but there is also a separate distance table. The longest journey is between Palermo and Tarvisio: 1720 kilometers. The map is illustrated with small pictures of famous buildings, local saints, regional dishes and sports activities such as (water)skiing.
Europe II
In the twentieth century distance maps became increasingly abstract. Already around 1910 a Tourist Railway Diagram of Europe was published, aimed at American visitors. It depicted the railways as straight lines between the most important cities. Travel times in hours and minutes were printed in red, and the fares for 2nd and 3rd class were indicated in black. Between brackets the distance was also shown in English miles. The map was created by R. Korbgeweidt for the Berlin publisher Hobbing & Co.
In 1932, the French Chemins de fer de l'Est issued a leaflet for the Orient Express (a luxury train via southern Germany to the East) and the Arlberg Orient Express (via Switzerland and Austria to the same direction). Two diagrams with travel and departure times ran parallel to the geographical route map. This way the map image was not disturbed. The design was by J. Barreau & Cie in Paris.
Even more abstracted was a 1938 timetable table for the Simplon Orient Express to Istanbul and the connecting Taurus Express to the Middle East. The cities on the route were shown as circles relative to each other. Small arrows around them indicated the direction of travel as well as the departure times. A different colour represented a transfer. For example, a traveller who left London at 14:00h would arrive in Istanbul at 7:25h three days later and in Cairo at 22:35h after another four days. Total journey time was difficult to derive because the times given were local.
Germany
Around 1925 modernism emerged in graphic design, which became prevalent after World War II. This straight and minimalist style, using sans serif fonts, also influenced cartography. An example is Das F-Netz in der Brieftasche, which was published from 1958 to 1969 by the Kursbuchstelle of the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB). From 1951 onwards fast and luxurious F-trains (Fernschnellzüge) opened up West Germany that was still in reconstruction. The Trans Europ Express (TEE) provided connections to cities abroad. These two networks were shown on a highly abstracted 'metro map'. Arrival and departure times were printed on the red lines (TEE) and blue lines (F-net).
Hardly a map anymore is a nice circular travel time diagram from 1928. It shows the fastest train connections between Frankfurt am Main and the European capitals. It was part of the publication Frankfurt-on-Main: Economic Facts and Statistics, intended to attract foreign investors. On the 'map' most cities are in the inner circle; Lisbon turns out to be the furthest away with a travel time of 72 hours. The diagram does not indicicate distances in kilometers but in actual travel times.
