Atlas
A trail is a short, ordered route through the atlas. Each stop says why it comes next, so a journey reads as an argument rather than a list. Start one, leave, and come back: your place is kept in this browser, and you do not need an account for that.
From a steam turbine that outran the Royal Navy's own fleet to the largest diesel engine ever built, these fourteen engines trace how propulsion changed transport across land, sea and air, arranged in the order each...
14 stops
A named route earns its name because people keep using the same path, whether it is an ancient overland trade corridor, a luxury train with its own history, a metro line threading a modern city, or a signed scenic...
9 stops
Most transport history runs through the car, the train and the airplane, but a whole family of modes exists because a slope, a river of traffic or a city budget refused to cooperate with any of those three. This trail...
15 stops
Before the 1923 Grouping folded most of Britain's railways into four large companies, the network was built by dozens of small independent companies. This trail follows eleven of them in the order they were founded...
11 stops
A short walk through the founding wave's own story: a steam locomotive winning a trial in 1829, a flight lasting twelve seconds in 1903, a canal joining two seas, and a converted tanker that changed how the world ships...
6 stops
Some of the biggest gains in moving people and goods came from cutting straight through the land that stood in the way. This trail follows nine canals and tunnels built to shorten a ships voyage or carry a train under...
9 stops
Roads carried people, armies and trade long before there were engines to ride in. This trail walks from the ancient highways of Persia and Rome, through the disputed question of which one came first, along the long...
8 stops
A ticket that crosses airline boundaries, a report that closed a third of a railway, a flatcar built to carry a truck trailer, a fee for a ship that will not leave port on time. This trail follows fifteen of transport's...
15 stops
Trails are curated by the atlas. Where you have got to in one is remembered by your own browser and is never sent to us.