London U-Bahn Map

Did you ever expect to see the London Underground or “The Tube” referred to as the U-Bahn?  U-Bahn is the German term for subway and is used in just about each German city that has an underground rail network.  Yesterday, I shared a 1973 London Underground map with you.  Today, I’m sharing another London Underground map, except this one is from 1975 and printed in German for the benefit of German speaking tourists.  I don’t speak or read German aside from knowing a few select words, but my guess is that the texts on this map are just straight translations from the standard English language that would be used to German.  It is certainly an interesting addition to my collection as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a London Underground map in a language other than English.

Here are the scans of the map.  You can click on each image to make it larger and see it at full size.

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Taking a Look at the 1973 London Underground Map

As I mentioned last week, I recently inherited a number of old maps from a variety of places around the world and they are now a part of my collection of maps and other transit memorabilia.  I plan to share some of the more interesting additions from this inheritance here on The Travelogue in the coming weeks.

This is a 1973 London Underground Map.  While the London Underground map design has remained fairly constant since Harry Beck’s initial diagram in 1931, there are some notable things on this map that are not the case today.  These include:

  • The Piccadilly Line to Heathrow Airport is under construction
  • The Jubilee Line is not yet open and Bakerloo Line trains operate the branch to Stanmore
  • The Hammersmith & City Line is still depicted as part of the Metropolitan Line
  • The East London Line has a partial identity of its own, but it is depicted in Metropolitan Line purple as opposed to the orange color it would have later on
  • The Docklands Light Railway is not on the map and will not exist for another 14 years

What other differences do you see?  You can click on the images to make them larger.  I apologize for any issues with the quality as the maps were scanned, converted to JPEG, and then compressed to a size manageable for sharing here on Oren’s Transit Page.

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