Personal Navigation Devices: 1820s-1970s

From the point of view of the traveling public, portable schedules, maps, and other navigation tools have been vital to getting around on public transportation. Centuries of analog paper tools have given way to digital devices constantly updated with the latest data. Produced across the span of 150 years, the personal navigation devices featured in this case, while only a minuscule selection of what was produced, were once relied upon as heavily as our mobile devices are today.

Navigation Evolves in the Nineteenth Century

When navigating public transit in Boston in the early and mid-nineteenth century, travelers referenced, among other print publications, portable almanacs and guides featuring simple lists of stagecoach services, FT1.1 omnibus routes, FT1.2 or line maps of steam railroad services. FT1.3 FT1.4 In the later half of the century, pocket guides with detailed maps, some for whole networks FT1.5 and others for single operations FT1.8 became the norm. A supreme transit map for late nineteenth century Boston, was Walker’s Vest Pocket Map. FT-CENTER Available at newsstands and train stations, it was regularly updated and reissued as transit lines evolved.

Portable Network Maps

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, consolidation of the street railway and steam railroad companies contributed to a profusion of printed network maps and guides, each published by a single transit operator. The New Haven Railroad’s first timetable and map for service to South Station FT2.1 , the Boston Elevated Railway Company’s (BERy) Guide and Information map, FT2.2 the BERy’s Travel Information map, FT2.4 and the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company’s Ride All Day for $1.00 map FT2.5 each reveal a large network requiring a detailed but highly edited system map.

Unfolding Railed Transit, Local and Regional

For much of the twentieth century, Boston was served by robust, complementary transit networks, each navigable using portable paper guides, schedules, and maps. The rapid transit elevated and tunnel lines of the Boston Elevated Railway Company (BERy) FT3.1 whisked riders through town in speeds faster than typically achieved today. The BERy’s night service lines FT3.2 kept people moving all night. Trains and ferries of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad FT3.3 transported commuters and beachgoers between Boston’s Atlantic Avenue, Revere Beach, and Lynn. Other railroads, including the Boston & Maine, FT3.4 FT3.6 Boston & Albany, FT3.5 and New Haven FT3.7 , provided both commuter and long-distance rail services from Boston.

Navigating The Early Public Control Era

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and its replacement, the MBTA, issued many kinds of portable paper schedules and maps. The MTA produced seasonally-issued and encyclopedic Surface Line Schedules as well as folding system route maps that later became the basis for the MBTA’s first folding maps. FT4.1-4.3 The MBTA introduced itself to Boston with wallet-sized cards sporting its new rapid transit “spider” map. FT4.4 Commuter rail services were always accompanied by paper timetables, as shown by this schedule from the period of Penn Central operation. FT4.5 Over the years, the MBTA has experimented with various map designs, including a striking 1974–76 black-background rapid transit map FT4.6 and an early attempt to make transit maps more accessible by using a tactile overlay with braille FT4.7