MotF 104: Mind the Gap

Krall

Banned
Mind the Gap


The Challenge
Make a map showing an urban rail system.

The Restrictions
There are no restrictions on when your PoD or map may be set. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed, but blatantly implausible (ASB) maps are not.

An "urban rail system" may be any rail line(s) within an urban area - it does not need to be restricted to that one urban area, so showing an inter-city rail line as it passes through a city, for example, is permitted.

If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please feel free to PM me.

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This round has been extended; the entry period for this round shall now end when the voting thread is posted on Sunday the 28th of September.

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THIS THREAD IS FOR ENTRIES ONLY.

Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post. If you refuse to delete the post, post something that is clearly disruptive or malicious, or post spam then you may be disqualified from entering in this round of MotF and you may be reported to the board's moderators.

Remember to vote on the previous round of MotF!
 
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It's been a while since I made a map, so with this being said here's my entry.

The main POD is that just like The Netherlands and United Kingdom the Belgian railways privatize and more companies can service the railways.

The province of West-Flanders is in a interesting position. In the north it borders the Dutch province of Zeeland and in the south it borders the French departement du Nord. The province also has no city big enough to dominate it's surrounding area instead the province is divided between it's 3 biggest cities Brugge, Kortrijk and Roeselare. This allows Westrail to build up a Light Rail network centered locally, connecting many towns and places who lost their rail access. The rail system is partitioned in 4 main zones. Zone Brugge, Zone Roeselare, Zone Kortrijk and Zone Ieper/Veurne. Traveling within one zone is cheap and easy,a one way ticket within one zone is 1.50€. This is easy for commuters who work or go to school in one of those four local centers but live just outside them. The main local centers and some cities/towns on the coast are still serviced by the NMBS and have a rail connection to most major Belgian Cities (Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Liege). And most destinations outside Belgium also have a good railway connection to other cities in their respective countries.

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The Kinshasa-Brazzaville Metro in a Somewhat Less Bad Congo:

Our story begins with Patrice Lumumba getting warned and doing unto Mobutu before the latter does unto him. He then outmaneuvers Kasavubu and, with Soviet advisors to help him with his… domestic political problems, he survives a turbulent first year in office and consolidates his power.

His rule is somewhat like Nyerere's in Tanzania: autocratic, doctrinaire and fitfully repressive, with some ill-starred attempts at forced collectivization, but fairly good at instilling unity and ensuring that everyone feels included. The rebellions of the early 60s are resolved on a no victor-no vanquished basis – Tshombe holds on in Katanga until 1964, but once Tanzania and Zambia become independent, he realizes the jig is up and cuts a deal – and the Congo remains peaceful, if poor, until democratization sweeps Lumumba out of office in the mid-90s. Since then, natural resources and competent government have combined to create a modest prosperity.

At any rate, Lumumba also develops a taste for Big Ideas, two of which are internationalism and urban transportation. He advocates customs unions, Central African federalism and a continent-wide anti-colonial front; what he gets are visa-free travel between the Congos and the designation of the islands between Brazzaville and Kinshasa as an international park. (Léopoldville still becomes Kinshasa in TTL; Lumumba isn't hung up on authenticité, but he also doesn't want a capital named after the man who brought the world the Congo Free State.) The latter manifests in the Kinshasa Metro, one of the expensive projects undertaken during the 1970s, along with vast apartment blocks, parks and heroic statuary, to make Kinshasa into a showplace capital.

Due to Congo's location and strategic mineral resources, the Soviets are willing to fund Lumumba's vanity projects, and thus, much of the metro, including the underground parts in the center city, is built and functioning by the early 90s - but then the Soviet Union goes tilt and the gravy train dries up, leaving the Congolese without the means to keep the trains running. Fortunately, the other Congo, flush with oil money, has started to build its own metro in Brazzaville, and the two countries have set up a binational ferry system between their capitals. After the Soviet collapse, Kinshasa needs money that Brazzaville has, while rich Brazzaville folks want to be able to do business easily in Kinshasa, so the two capitals agree to merge their transit authorities. At present, the metro and ferry system is fully binational (each city still has its own buses), and there are ambitious plans to build a tunnel joining the metros.

The Medeca – métro des deux capitales – serves the major neighborhoods of Kinshasa and Brazzaville as well as the international parks. Some of these neighborhoods, and the landmarks within them, are of course different from OTL, given that both cities, especially Kinshasa, have developed differently for half a century. Others, particularly in the older neighborhoods, are the same, and there has even been convergence in a few places – for instance, Lumumba, like Mobutu, built a luxury village for the OAU secretariat, and the national stadium is still named the Stade des Martyrs (although it’s named for different ones).

Transportation in the capitals isn’t without its discontents. People in provincial cities aren’t happy about the extravagance. The 30-cent base fare is beyond the means of the poorest Kinois, meaning that many of those employed in the informal sector still use minibuses and motorcycle taxis. The priority given to apparatchiks’ neighborhoods in the 1970s and the affluent suburbs today means that some districts remain under-served and congestion is high on several of the main lines. And then there’s the corruption, both ordinary and extraordinary, ranging from skims and bribes to politically-connected businessmen commandeering metro cars for small-scale freight hauling. (One of the juiciest scandals of 2014 involved a politician delaying the K1 line for an hour so that his mistress, who was moving house, could load her furniture onto the train.) But from the decaying Soviet-style apartment blocks of Kinshasa's Cité de la Nouvelle Ere to the office towers of downtown Brazzaville, the metro will get you where you're going. Eventually.
 
Berlin Wall Subway

Kind of a retro-future from 1984/85: S-Bahn is back in Western hands, but the fall of the Iron Curtain ain't on anybody's mind yet.

This is what happens if West Berlin put the facts on the ground of political geography into revisions of urban planning. Even if S-Bahn renewal is the highest priority, the U10 is back but with a twist: Not as a way to relieve the B 1 highway in parallel to an S-Bahn, but rather to connect a possible dead end into a new line. In this scenario, the unthinkable theoretic possibility (read: end of the Cold War) comes true when said U10 is under construction. Hilarity ensues, but as it's working down there, then put it into use. :D

From www.berliner-untergrundbahn.de, Transit through the East, Plans

Nevertheless the Senate of (West) Berlin brainstormed about ending the transit traffic and substitute it effectively. As mentioned, the BVG in West Berlin built switches for interconnections and making an easy turn of trains. In the long run, a tenth subway line from Steglitz to Weißensee was scheduled to be built. This would have matched with the 200 kilometre project. As this wasn't feasible due to being in East Berlin from Potsdamer Platz onwards, Nationalgalerie was envisioned as its turminus. Of course, this was hardly sensible in a divided city, therefore plans arose to extend the line on the West Berlin side: One variety would have meant going due east from Kurfürstenstraße in direct Kochstraße up to Moritzplatz, equaling the course of the Nazis' East-West S-Bahn plans. Another interesting course of planning would've been continuing the line due north from Nationalgalerie, under the Relief Road along Brandenburg Gate/Reichstag to Lehrter Bahnhof up to the vicinity of Fennstraße. Though this is where the plans end, it's obvious to bring it to line 6, with Wedding station being a viable link. It may well have been possible to merge the northern U6 with the U10 into a continuous subway line from Steglitz to Tegel. The southern U6 would have permanently ended at Kochstraße.

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Here is my crappy map
Idea is that Russian Empire decides to build underground railway line in Tallinn.

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Klick the map for full resolution.


Same universe as this map.

The map is showing the Suburban Rail Network of Berlin, capital of the German Empire. The POD is in 1907 and the current year is 2014.

I hope you and enjoy.
 
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MadRAIL, 1982-2017: CELEBRATING 35 YEARS.

1978 to 1982: Planning and Development
The lingering effects of the oil crises of the mid-1970s encouraged many mid-sized American cities to plan for a rail transit network. The most successful of these efforts centered in the cities of San Diego, California, and Madison, Wisconsin. Initial plans for the Madison network called for two lines running through the city’s isthmus, connecting the university, the airport, the State Capital area, and major shopping nodes.

1982 to 1985: The Red and Blue Lines:
With great fanfare, the Red Line launched on May 24, 1982, running with 17 stations from Deming Way in Middleton to East Towne Mall, including three stations on the University of Wisconsin campus and four on the Isthmus. Enthusiasm for the new line spiked in the fall with the return of university students and ridership exceeded first-year projections by 20%. Commuters to the downtown core were especially fond of the park and ride lots at either end.

With the success of the Red Line, development of the Blue Line kicked into full gear. This line would also include 17 stations, from Junction Road in the west to Hoepker Road north of the city, with Park and Ride Stations at the two termini. The route connected important sites that the original route could not: West Towne Mall, Camp Randall Stadium, Dane County Airport and the newly-built UW Research Park. The route opened in August 1985.

1990: The Gold and Green Lines
With ridership continuing to exceed expectations on the Red and Blue Lines, most notably by those commuting to both the university and the Capital, plans were made to expand the system to Madison’s south and far east sides. Originally the plans called for the Gold and Green Lines to traverse the length of the isthmus like the original two lines, with the Green Line running north-south and the Gold Line running east-west; however, the prospect of four light rail lines sharing the same track sparked neighborhood opposition due to the potential for rail congestion and considerable noise.

As a compromise, the Gold Line was realigned to remain west and south of the Capital connecting along the University Avenue corridor, with the Green Line staying on the north and east sides. Park and ride lots were developed at the termini: at Westport and Buckeye Road for the Gold Line (as well as Dempsey Road), and at McKee Road and McFarland East for the Green Line (as well as Capitol Springs on I-339).

The two lines had a coordinated opening on the same day: June 18, 1990. The integrated network ensured the majority of stations were connected with one transfer or less. Only cross-city trips between the Green and Gold lines required two transfers.

1994 to 1997: Streetcars and the Johnson Line Controversy
Neighborhoods on the Lake Mendota side of the isthmus along East Johnson Avenue were located further away from the light rail lines. Likewise, State Street – a major shopping and entertainment pedestrian mall – was underserved by the light rail system. Plans were developed in the early 90s to return streetcars to the city. The two proposed lines were dubbed the State Street Line and the Johnson Line. The former would run from the university down State Street, around the Capital Building, to the Monona Terrace station. The latter would begin at the Baldwin Street and follow East Johnson Avenue to the Capitol, also ending at Monona Terrace. These routes opened in August 1994.

Marketing for the new streetcars was oriented toward students at the University of Wisconsin, since much of the area served students living off-campus. With a discounted MadRail pass included with each student’s tuition, students embraced the streetcars enthusiastically.

A minor controversy surrounded the main advertising campaign slogan for the streetcar rollout. The slogan “Take a Ride on Your Streetcar” seemed harmless enough – and for the State Street Line, it was. For the Johnson Line, not so much: Students were soon asking one another to “Take a ride on my Johnson,” “Ride my Johnson,” or simply “Ride Johnny.” MadRail authorities’ attempts to squelch the slogan that had taken off in an unintended direction largely failed.

The slogan returned with a vengeance in 1996, when rail officials announced that the Johnson line would no longer end at Monona Terrace but extend to Washington Station to allow riders of the Gold Line to make a direct connection to the Capital. An opinion piece in one of the UW daily newspapers espoused the benefit to “making my Johnson longer and stronger” and “the large amount of pleasure my extended Johnson would give to the people of Madison.” Once again, rail authorities tried to silence the slogan; this time, by renaming the route the Washington-Johnson Line. However, students soon adapted with the phrase “Wash my Johnson” when the route reopened in 1997.

1999 to 2016: Suburban Expansion
By the mid-90s, population growth in Madison’s suburbs were filling inboard park and ride lots throughout the system on a regular basis. In order to grow capacity, MadRail authorities proposed an expansion of the system to the suburbs in three waves.

Wave 1
1999 – Red Line east to Sun Prairie
2000 – Blue Line north to Windsor Center and DeForest
2001 – Gold Line southwest to Verona

Wave 2
2005 – Green Line north to Waunakee
2007 – Red Line west to Cross Plains
2009 – Gold line southeast to Stoughton

Wave 3
2014 – Green Line east to Cottage Grove
2016 – Red Line west to Mazomanie

A fourth suburban wave is currently being discussed with extensions southwest to Mt Horeb and east to Deerfield, or a still undefined fifth rail route along US-14 south through Fitchburg to Oregon. Depending on ridership projections, community input, and funding, construction could begin by 2022 with stations opening by the mid 2020s.
 
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Unimaginative MS-Paint TOAP rip-off is unimaginative. Done mainly for my own amusement than as a serious entry. Starting point: one of the entries for the last MOTF posited Oxford as capital of England. And a capital city obviously needs a metro. Only one of the stations is a made-up place.
 
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So, I've finally got this finished, my incredible Parochial entry featuring an expanded Nottingham Tram Network of the future.

I shall briefly go over Phases 1 and 2, as they're entirely OTL and more information can be found here for anyone interested.

Planning for Phase 1 began in 1988 and took 16 years to completion, opening in 2004. The line on initial completion extended from an elevated platform at Station Street northwest through the City centre to the Theatre Royal via the Lace Market and Market Square. From there it heads by road to Hyson Green where the system features a one way loop. From Hyson Green, the line follows the Nottingham to Hucknall Railway Line, which was converted to 1 track from 2, though a spur to the Park and Ride at Phoenix Park splits off at Highbury Vale.

Planning for Phase 2 began in 2006 and is currently under construction. It features two individual lines extending south from a new stop at Nottingham Station where the recent renovations to the train station have allowed the tram stop to be integrated. Line 2 has been the easier of the two, being predominately segregated, and travels through the Meadows area, Wilford and Clifton, with the section from Ruddington Lane to just short of Wilford Village lain on the trackbed of the old Great Central Railway on its approach to Nottingham from Leicester. Line 3 has been more problematic, with long delays due to overrunning construction work on University Boulevard and in Beeston. It has featured some innovative ideas such as bringing the track through the Queen's Medical Centre site via an elevated bridge, following which it connects Nottingham University and Beeston via the Town Centre on road, branching off through what was formerly an open corridor through Chilwell. It currently terminates on the northern outskirts of Toton just south of the Bardill's roundabout on the A52.

Phase 3 represents the departure from OTL for the first time. Planning is currently in its earliest stages, with a campaign from local residents leading to an initial study on the route through Kimberley being commissioned. From Phoenix Park it extends along the southern flank of Hempshill Vale before heading north to follow the route of the Great Northern Line's Derbyshire and Staffordshire Extension through a new housing estate on the north edge of Kimberley, one branch heading into the old town, and one continuing via Watnall to cross the A610 twice and finishing at the Ikea Retail Park in Giltbrook.

The planning process sparked protests from the population of Gedling however, who felt that they were more needing of a new tram route as the east of the city was the only direction not yet serviced. While a road route was found to be too expensive to be feasible, a solution was found in the utilisation of existing railway lines both in use and disused along the fringes of Gedling and Carlton. From the new interchange at Broadmarsh, the line heads east on road through the new regeneration zone of the CityLink area, home to the BBC Local radio and television services, and then via Sneinton to join the Nottingham to Skegness/Newark line at Colwick, linking also to the existing large car park at Colwick Racecourse. From there, the line remains on the lines at all times, leading to the first use of the tram-train system in the network. The opportunity was thus taken to extend the service out to Bingham and Burton Joyce, with the biggest expense being the reopening of the Gedling Colliery line and construction of access routes to the elevated line through Gedling, though this did allow for almost total segregation of the route. The route was thus able to open in 2019.

The 2020s saw a period of great debate on further expansion. Early on in the planning process it was identified that there were two routes with the best potential returns. One north to Arnold, which would connect more areas of dense housing, and one south into West Bridgford, connecting less people but including stops for the great sporting nexus of Trent Bridge, where the home grounds of Nottingham Forest and Notts County sitting on opposite sides of the bridge lie next to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground. Despite early hopes for utilising the old Nottingham-Melton Mowbray line through West Bridgford, this was found to be unfeasible, and thus both lines would have to be almost entirely on road. With severe obstruction from the residents of West Bridgford, it was the Arnold Line which was built first, followed by signing of a partnership with the Robin Hood Line bringing close cooperation with that route which had failed to get backing from East coast Mainline.

Construction of the 'Southern routes' expansion thus began in 2026, with the Ruddington expansion continuing to follow the GCR route through Ruddington town where it met the head of the restored stretch of the GCR, now fully reopened as the only fully double tracked heritage line in the country and offering services from Rushcliffe Country Park to Loughborough and Leicester. Concurrently the route into West Bridgford was begun.

Matters were brought to a halt, however, with the arrival of Phase 2 of the High Speed 2 rail link. Feeling that the planned tram route expansions- from Chilwell to the East Midlands Hub Station at Toton Sidings, and then on to provide an express link to East Midlands Airport- should open at the same time as the station itself, resources were diverted from West Bridgford, where the route had been laid as far as Trent Bridge, to the new lines. Here routes by road from Chilwell north to the housing estate at New Stanton*, Stapleford and Saniacre were matched by an extension by road through Long Eaton, down the pedestrianized High Street, and then joining the existing rail lines at Fields Farm Road. From there, the route, as a tram train, extended south to East Midlands Parkway Station and then linked to Nottingham University's campus at Sutton Bonnington, as well as Kegworth and East Midlands Airport, with a second branch set of branches extending to Long Eaton Railway Station and using the existing freight line to Castle Donnngton. From there the route headed south to link with the racing track at Donington Park. The expansion was opened in 2032, a year before the HS2 line itself.

In the meantime the completed segments in Ruddington lay silent and unused, wrapped in legal battles over overrun payments. As construction of Phase 6 wound down, the West Bridgford expansion was resurrected and the line was finally opened in 2034, a partnership with the GCR being signed the following year.

The controversies over the West Bridgford Line were to delay further expansions in the city proper, and thus it was Ilkeston which was to resurrect a tram route that had been closed since the mid 20th Century. Extending from the Kimberley Line, and with the Bennerley Viaduct ruled too unsafe to use, the line extended through Amsworth to Ilkeston Junction Station and then to a line extending down the spine of the town. For the first time Ilkeston's lay connected to Nottingham by tram, the plan for the former line to be joined to the Ripley Rattler line having never come to pass.

By this stage reopening the Ripley Rattler was an ongoing campaign in the region, but was deemed uneconomical by NET. It thus fell to a consortium of private individuals who, with the help of a Euromillions win, managed to raise £350 million to build a tram route from Giltbrook to Ripley. The planning and construction process was protracted, and it wasn't until 2043 that the line was finally opened, with a partnership agreement signed after 5 years of marginal profits to help support the route.

Construction slowed over the years following the HS2 expansion, with one line opening each decade. First an 'orbital' route from Dunkirk, via Nottingham University's Jubilee campus, to join the Nottingham-Hucknall line south of the existing routes. Here an existing spur was utilised to connect Wollaton and a new park and ride at Bramcote. The main line extended north to Apsley, before taking a road route to connect the three main remaining radial lines at Basford, Arnold and Gedling.

By this point a sister operation had been established in Derby, and with the dawn of the late 2050s an idea 150 years in the making had finally been realised. With construction split between an extension of the Derby tram route from Spondon to Draycott, and one of the Nottingham rail line through Long Eaton and Breaston** to the same location, the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Corporation dream of tram routes from Nottingham to Ripley, Ilkeston and Derby had finally been accomplished.

*Currently the Stanton-on-Dale works, this estate is already planned.
**Alright, I'm getting really Parochial with this one.
 
First of all, thanks to Islander for letting me spin off of his map for MotF 102.

Umayyad Caliphate lasts longer in the Old World, leading to earlier colonization. The presence of the Caliphate weakens Spain, and causes the HRE to band together and strengthen against the new threat. Spain eventually gets back onto it's feet, but not before Germany and Portugal have gotten a good head-start.

The map shows the different cultural and linguistic 'spheres' of South America (or Sapienzia, as it's known as in the Islamosphere). On the right of the map are the cities corresponding the labels on the map. On the right is an example of a metro hub in the region. The lines that are the same color as the border represent international lines.

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