If you are an astute observer, you may have noticed several weeks ago that a new link appeared over on the right of the site, entitled the Harlem Line Historical Archives. Basically, I thought it would be kind of cool to scan a bunch of my old collected timetables, and to put up my digital collection of timetables (most of them I do not have hard copies of). Now that the collection online has over 40 pieces, mostly timetables, as well as a few maps, I thought I would sort of “announce” it. And now you will notice, there is now an image on the right side of the site referencing the archives.

Anyways, note that this is a work in progress. Currently you can view the archives only by chronological order. In the future I’d like to implement additional features, so you can search the archives by viewing thumbnail images, or by keywords. Keyword searching is only partially implemented, I can keyword entries from the back-end, but as of currently, you can’t really search through the keywords (although some may show up in the tag cloud on the lower right of the site). I suppose it is an interesting challenge for myself, because I’ve already had to write some minor things in PHP to get the collection working as it is (such as the handy previous and next links you get while viewing pages).

Outside of learning a bit of PHP for myself, the other thing I love is looking at all this printed material in chronological order. And the way the timetables have evolved visually over the years, from the New York & Harlem days, to New York Central, Penn Central and beyond. My personal favorites are the two Penn Central timetables above, both from the late 1960’s, with the groovy typography. It would be awesome in the future to acquire a timetable for every year, and to do a timetable evolution video or something. Which just reminded me, if you have any timetables, maps, items of interest that you digital versions of and would like to donate/share/let me use, please let me know… especially if they are from a year that I don’t currently have.

Enter the Harlem Line Historical Archives

PS- I swear, I am working on something really awesome for the site. Another little mini-project. Here is a hint: it is a flash based mini-game. If you do not see it by the end of the week, I urge you to harass me about it, and when the heck I am going to be finishing it.