Why are maps based on distance? It isn’t always important. Travelling time can matter more. In non-technological societies people don’t say how far a destination is as distance, but how long it takes to get there. “Riyadh? It’s nine hours.” That makes more sense! I set out a skeleton map of the mainland, with travelling distance by train as the index. The first step was to plot some major destinations and adjust the coastline.	Once the coastline had been adjusted, the colour coding could be added. Britain has acquired a new shape—one that travellers could find highly useful. The slower travelling times in Scotland confer an elongated profile (indeed, Scotland disappears off this map altogether). The main-line routes to the north-west, South Wales and the south coast ports show how the effect of train travel drags these provincial cities towards London.
The next stage was to add provisional routes for the mainline services. This gives an instantly-assimilable idea of travelling times, which are often very different from distance in miles or kilometres. But the relative positions of towns and cities has changed - aand so has the coastline to mnatch.	Look: Perborough is closer to London than Cambridge Exeter is nearer than Weymouth, Brighton much closer than Eastbourne. For anyone planning a journey by rail, this kind of map immediately provides a guide to the journey time.