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Over the years there have been various different designs of what we know today as "The Tube Map" and is produced by TfL.
There is a full Wikipedia page with even more information.
Each time there is any type of alteration, a new one is then released, sometimes the changes are quite obvious, like the introduction of the Elizabeth line in May 2022, but sometimes they are a lot more subtle, like having step free access. TfL do update their website on a regular basis.
Have you got your own collection of maps and would like to keep a record of them, or would you just like to see a collection of pocket maps? This website is the one for you!
As shown below, you can see how they have changed over the years. the 1979 map is printed on card and the 2022 map is printed on paper. As these are photographs (as the maps are copyright of TfL) of actual pocket maps, some of the writing is slightly blurry.
In the useful links page on this website is one labelled Carto map. If you have not seen this, you may find yourself looking at it for hours. It shows all lines past and present in a geographical form, it also shows platforms and tunnel portals, along with dates when the lines were opened/closed
Some night tube maps, showing only the services that run at night
Some pocket maps from 1979, 1998, 2001 & 2022
If you have an iPhone, there is an app called Station Master, which shows the layout of most stations.
If you have your own collection of maps, or if you would like to see more from over the years, this site is great for that.
If you wish to see all the Leslie Green Stations on one map, this can be found here.
If you click on the button below "Maps from 1863", you will see that the map shown for 1935 - 1945 shows the proposed Northern Heights that started to be built, including stations, but was never completed owing to the second world war.
There are axonometric diagrams of the stations that are underground (excluding Elizabeth, Overground and Thameslink), which can be seen on the IanVisits website here, which is where a lot of the station depths information was pulled from to create this website.
1979 pocket map inside
May 2022 pocket map inside
As you can see, the 1979 map has significantly less stations and lines, in particular the DLR, the Elizabeth line, the London Cable Car, the Overground (although there are sections which are there; labelled as British Rail - North London Line from Richmond to Broad Street, East London section from Shoreditch to New Cross/Gate), the Hammersmith & City line, which is represented as the Metropolitan line, the Tramlink and you can also see that the Waterloo & City line is labelled as "British Rail" as this was owned by them at this time.
If you look closely, there are also some stations on the 1979 map, which are no longer on the 2022 map, such as North Weald, Blake Hall, Ongar, Aldwych. The Bakerloo line stops at Queens Park, although provides peak services to Watford Junction, the Jubilee line from Stanmore terminates at Charing Cross and the grid is labelled A - Q (across) and 1 - 11 (down), whereas the 2022 map, the grid is 1 - 9 (across) and A - F (down). There lots of other differences, such as the end of a line in 1979 is shown by a straight line across and in 2022 it is shown by a circle and in 1979 there were no step free access points shown on the map.
1979 map unfolded - with list of all the stations shown
May 2022 map unfolded with a longer list of stations shown
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