
The London Underground turns 150. See how the tube map has changed - donohoe
http://qz.com/41893/the-london-underground-turns-150-today-see-how-the-tube-map-has-changed/
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rayiner
I'm always amazed at how modern the world was in 1890-1910. I recently learned
that the train line I take to work every morning (Metro North's New Haven
line) was electrified in 1907!

At Disneyland, Tomorrowland has an exhibit the Carousel of Progress. While
it's ostensibly about the advances in home technology over the last 100 years,
what really strikes you is how quickly it becomes recognizably modern.
Electric lighting and cooking became common in the 1920's, and by 1940 you've
got a dishwasher, television, etc.

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loxs
Don't forget that it was true only for a very small percent of Earth's
land/people. For example in Eastern Europe - Bulgaria, electricity reached
smaller towns and villages during the 1950s and 60s.

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philwelch
Even Americans didn't have electrification or indoor plumbing everywhere in
the 1930's.

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nekojima
Even seemingly modern, developed countries didn't have indoor plumbing in the
1930s.

My parents grew up in houses on modern (for the time) housing estates in
England in the 1950s/1960s without indoor plumbing. Though it was indoor in
the sense that the shed was attached to the house out back, but the plumbing
was not inside the house until the late 1960s.

The number of dwellings in Japan with flush toilets increased from 45.9% in
1978 to 83.0% in 1998.

* Statistics Bureau, Japan.

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dohertyjf
I think this is one of the most interesting parts of the old subway -
<http://www.urban75.org/london/leinster.html>

There are fake houses in London, with very real looking facades, that were
built so that the steam from the engines could escape.

Epic.

~~~
patrickg
Not related, but also interesting. The railway U1 in Berlin going right
through a house. Amazing when you are in front of the house's door.
[http://www.bahnbilder.de/1024/-hausdurchfahrt-im-
uebergangsb...](http://www.bahnbilder.de/1024/-hausdurchfahrt-im-
uebergangsbereich-542267.jpg)

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untog
In case any New Yorkers are interested, historical maps (minus any textual
guide to them) is available here:

<http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Historical_Maps>

Sometimes I wonder what the NYC subway system would look like if it was
centrally administered from the start, like the Tube was. NYC definitely has
made some choices that look strange today.

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jessriedel
> Sometimes I wonder what the NYC subway system would look like if it was
> centrally administered from the start, like the Tube was. NYC definitely has
> made some choices that look strange today.

I'm new in NYC. Could you elaborate on this?

~~~
untog
The subway system used to be operated by different companies. To simplify
greatly- the letter lines were a different company (BMT) to the number lines
(IRT). That's why there are so few stations that allow you to transfer between
letters and numbers, and why trains on lettered lines cannot run on numbered
tracks, and vice versa. It's also why we have countdown clocks on numbered
lines and not lettered ones- they use different technology.

There are even stories of one company intentionally obstructing the other. If
I recall correctly, the BMT built track that they had no intention of using,
just so that they could block the IRT from extending the 7 line beyond Times
Square.

Sometimes I wonder why the subways fascinate me as much as they do.

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jessriedel
> It's also why we have countdown clocks on numbered lines and not lettered
> ones- they use different technology.

This actually came up in a different thread, where I asked how the old
technology could possibly prevent something as simple as countdown clocks. I
never got a good answer when I said

> I don't care about the signal towers or how old the system is. The point is
> that the technology for identifying the location and speed of a few hundred
> giant hunks of metal moving around on fixed tracks is trivial and does not
> need to interact with the old system (or humans) at all. Just tag each train
> with a few RFID's, and stick in a few hundred miles of wiring into the
> tunnels.

>I mean, are you telling me for a 100 million dollars this couldn't be done?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4979988>

The context was this:

> “The existence of this sleek digital interface barely hints at the
> investment that had to be made in terms of hardware and infrastructure to
> make this enormous public benefit a reality,” said Thomas F. Prendergast,
> President of MTA New York City Transit. “Think of Subway Time as the small
> tip of a huge iceberg. For a product of this quality to be available on the
> lettered lines, we will need to commit hundreds of millions of dollars and
> years of dedicated effort.”

> Automatic Train Supervision installation began in 1997. The system was
> activated in segments, with the substantial completion taking place in 2008.
> The project cost $20.8 million per year over 11 years, or $228.3 million in
> total.

<http://www.mta.info/news/stories/?story=921>

I find this baffling. Can anyone shed some light?

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untog
I imagine (though I have no idea) that those millions of dollars are not used
on countdown clocks- they're used to centralise all train operations in one
building, with countdown clocks as a side-effect benefit.

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rplnt
That webpage is a nightmare to use. I love almost any kind of maps though, so
it was worth it.

~~~
tech-no-logical
+1. this is the worst user experience I've had in a long time.

~~~
jammmuel
Care to elaborate? I think it's a well-worked responsive design. The only
annoyance is the navigation bar flitting up and down on scroll.

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sdoering
Well for example Ghostery! kills all functionality, when killing all trackers
on the page. ;-)

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KwanEsq
Huh, bit of a gap between 1974 and 2002, you don't get to see the Jubilee line
prior to its extension south of the river.

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nmcfarl
The light grey zone coloration (In the last 2 maps) is hugely distracting in
these images, though I don’t remember that being the case in real life.
Perhaps it’s an artifact of the size.

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adaml_623
Bit of a gap between 2002 and 2013. That's just lazy. It couldn't be too hard
to find more maps.

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xyzzy123
Mornington crescent!

