Submitted by a good number of people, who have all spotted this new map in the latest batch of Sydney Trains timetables and want to know what I might think. I’ve talked about a draft version of this map quite a bit on Twitter already, but I may as well compile my thoughts “officially” on the blog as well.

Transit Maps says:

The most obvious change to this revision of the map is the addition of the new Metro North West Line from Tallawong to Chatswood – which also brings about a name change. Whereas previously this had been the “Sydney Trains Network”, it’s now the “Sydney Rail Network”. One could argue that it’s now an incomplete map of that network as the light rail is nowhere to be seen, but that’s a story for another day…

Overall, I find the inclusion of the new Metro line problematic. The “M” at each station seems like overkill to me: the large “M” bullet at each terminus and the cased line treatment do the job of differentiating this new line perfectly well, I think. The dog leg through Epping adds unnecessarily sharp bends to this new “flagship” line, which ideally should be represented by as straight a line as possible to emphasise the notion that it’s fast and modern.

The depiction of the future Metro down the North Shore as running concurrently to the existing line with the new stations located to the south of the line is – to put it bluntly – incorrect and misleading. In reality, the Metro will run in its own tunnel some way to the north of the old line, and I strongly believe that it’s important to show the proper relationship between these lines and stations. The Victoria Cross Metro station will be in walking distance of North Sydney station, but if you used this map, you’d start walking in the wrong direction to move between them! However, I do really like the way that the “under construction” dashed route line integrates with the orange T3 line between Sydenham and Bankstown, neatly conveying that this section of existing track will be upgraded to Metro standards. I do wish they’d straighten out this part more, though.

My other major problem with this map is the repetition of terminus station names. Leppington and Richmond – hardly the most important stations on the map – get named three times each, which is just ridiculous. Part of the problem is the inconsistency of the nomenclature used for the lines. Sometimes they get named after a general direction or region (“Western” or “Illawarra”), and sometimes they get named after the station at the end of the line, like above. I’ve long advocated for the removal of these redundant destination labels on this map, and this version certainly isn’t changing my mind. The stacked treatment of the “T4 Eastern Suburbs” label is another reason to get rid of them: it’s unlike anything else on the map, and really does look like the designer simply ran out of room to make the label fit properly.

The labelling of the Intercity lines also bothers me. “To the Southern Highlands Line”? No, that is the Southern Highlands Line and it goes to Mittagong, Mossvale and Goulburn – the major destinations along the line. Reuse of the three letter codes that the Intercity lines get on their timetables would also be helpful here: “SHL” for this line, for example.

However, I do have to say that I’m overjoyed to see the familiar red of the old Northern Line reappear on this map: it definitely stops the yellow of the T1 line from dominating much of the top half of the map.

The final word: Sydney’s rail system is in a huge state of flux right now, so this map might change yet again when the rest of the Metro opens – hopefully putting everything in the correct relative positions. As it stands, however, this seems to be a slightly messy, thrown together interim map that doesn’t really work as well as it should. The redundant line name labels have to go. 2.5 stars out of 5.

P.S. In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a reworked future version of this map that I made a while back that addresses a lot of the problems I mention above. Note especially the treatment of the Metro through the lower North Shore and Epping, as well as the way that the T5 Cumberland Line crosses over the main Western line at Harris Park, preventing the awkwardness at Parramatta that the official map has.

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