Railway Maps Reveal More Than Where You're Going

British author Mark Ovenden has had a longtime fascination with transit maps.  He's published several books of them, the latest is "Railway Maps of the World," which contains both historical and current examples of cartography.

Ovenden says that railway maps tell us about the history of building countries, and that from the beginning, accuracy wasn't always the objective. For example, early train maps were made by private companies, who would exaggerate their train lines at the expense of others, impose their political agendas on their maps,  or straighten out the bends and curves in the routes.