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The all-line timetable
MY first job after leaving art college in 1973 was as a draughtsman with Hunting Surveys in Borehamwood, Herts. My interest in railways was known to my manager, so when Hunting won the contract to produce the rail map accompanying the 1974 BR timetable (see TRM May issue), the job fell to me.
Although there were all-system maps previously, this version was a total redraw. I liaised with Bernard Slatter of British Rail and together we produced exactly what was required.
The map was made by scribing the lines on a waxed sheet and then dyeing them with an etching ink; the‘sea’was cut from a laminated plastic sheet and all the lettering was applied by hand on another sheet, one word at a time. I remember being annoyed at having to put timetable numbers by the lines, as I thought it spoilt the artistic purity of the map, but timetable references were after all one of the main reasons for producing it.
It all took weeks to do and was a real labour of love. When it was all finally finished, I took the plates to the process room for them to be scanned by a huge camera, which ran on its own short railway. Imagine
