We've come across this beautiful colour-coded map from the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission. It shows the estimated time it took to journey into the city using public transport nearly 100 years ago. Credit to Daniel Bowen from the Public Transport Users Association, who dug the map out from the State Library of Victoria a while back and put it on his blog. He dates it to 1925. (For a hi-res version, click here.) As a quick colour guide: green is 10-20 minutes, orange is 20-30 minutes, pink is 30-40 minutes and blue is 40-50 minutes. When exploring the map, keep in mind that we were probably travelling on trains like the one below. Melbourne's train system was electrified in 1919, with most lines running electric trains by the early 1920s.

The Tait cars (named after then railway commissioner Sir Thomas James Tait) were also known as "red rattlers" for their distinctive colour. They were eventually taken off the network in the 1970s and 1980s, and replaced with Hitachi trains. The faded sepia map is splotched with lovely pastel colours, radiating out from suburbs like bullseyes. Here's a close-up shot of the key, which shows what each colour means. It includes the time it took to get to the station, which back then involved walking. Similar maps in the SLV collection from around the same time estimate a walking rate of three miles per hour.

A trip from the northern suburbs could be achieved in 10-20 minutes from some places. The trip would have come via the now-defunct inner circle, with stations at North Fitzroy and North Carlton. The remains of that line can be seen today in places like Park Street in the inner north. Personally, I'd like to see it return - if only as a convenient way to get to all those hipster bars. Here's a view of trips coming in from the east, which also included the now-defunct outer circle line stretching from Fairfield station (on the Hurstbridge line) to Oakleigh station (on the Pakenham and Cranbourne lines). A trip from Blackburn would set you back between 20 and 30 minutes in 1925. These days an express trip can be achieved in 30 minutes, although offpeak it is closer to 40 minutes.

In a lot of suburbs, the journey today takes roughly the same time as it took in the 1920s. Out Greensborough way, it would take between 30 and 40 minutes to get to the city. On Thursday morning an offpeak service got to Flinders Street from Greensy in 40 minutes. Public transport advocate Daniel Bowen says the map shows how little things have changed in Melbourne in the past century because there hasn't been a lot of new rail infrastructure. Exceptions are the city loop, which was built in in 1981, and the Glen Waverley line, constructed in 1930. Other lines have been extended or closed over the years but the network looks largely the same.

While it might be a bit depressing that times are still broadly similar, Daniel Bowen points out that it's actually pretty good when population growth is taken into account. "This is in contrast to the road system, where travel times degrade very fast as travel demand increases. That's a win for the trains, I'd say," he says. There are about five times as many people living in Melbourne these days as there were in 1925. Commuting was also different back then, with fewer people coming in from the suburbs to work in the city. There are also many more services on the network these days.

Here's the link to a high-quality version of the map - again, if you'd like to zoom in for a closer look. There are more maps at the SLV online collection that are just as interesting. We'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how your train journey today compares to that of yesteryear. Are you in the pink ... or the orange, blue or yellow?