New Zealand musician Anthonie Tonnon is embarking on a very new and very special tour. As he describes it…
Our railways are miraculous, poetic, and mysterious things. They are gifts from the past to the future, and if they didn’t exist now, they would be impossible to build from scratch. Each has a story, and this tour will tell a little of each one.
He found my maps of Dunedin’s historical tramway and rail systems and, finding a fellow NZ transit history enthusiast, he reached out asking if I wanted to design a tour map. I was instantly sold on the idea.
The tour has a focus on the train journeys to and from the performances:
Each show, and the experience of the journey to get there, will be a poetic and practical exploration of passenger rail, and a meditation on what it means to us in the modern era.
These will be earlier shows, with the Auckland, Greater Wellington and Dunedin area events timed to allow return travel by train, while the Palmerston North show will cater to audiences who live locally, and to those willing to embark on a magnificent, overnight holiday by rail.
So, I produced smaller maps for each region that show the suggested train routes to each show, and then combined them as insets on a larger NZ map (kind of going for a NYC subway look and feel).
More details on Rail Land can be found here, and make sure to check out Anthonie’s music! (Anthonie’s Facebook and Spotify). This was great fun, thanks for the project Anthonie!