Designer produces fantasy metro map of Inverness

A designer has created an imaginary metro map for Inverness, taking in many of the city's top attractions.

With three circular routes – Drakies, Crown and Dalneigh – and four lines for Canal, Harbour, Castle and Caley Thistle, it shows how people might travel around the city if a metro system was ever realised.

Michael Kerr (52), from Bathgate, makes fantasy metro maps of Scottish towns and cities under the name wackymetro.co.uk and says Inverness is so diverse it is a bigger map than many of the others he has worked on.

"The idea came about one rainy Saturday during lockdown, over breakfast," he said.

"I was having a bit of a laugh with one of my sons when I suggested a metro system for Bathgate and a couple of ‘daft’ stops.

"He then threw some more at me and I thought it would look good as a drawing. So I drew it out, and added other things like small burns as prominent rivers to add some other features.

"I spent a couple of hours on the drawing then wondered what others thought.

"Then I wondered if I could sell them – so I sourced a printer, set up an online shop, built a simple web page, got a Facebook presence and came up with a name and a logo. I managed this is the space of two to three days, and I was ready to go.

"It was a very slow start, I think I sold two in the first seven days and was thinking of giving up when one of my two buyers posted a picture of hers, framed on her wall, saying how much she loved it.

"And its started moving a little. Then I drew Linlithgow, then Livingston, and then six more to where we are today. Still small and low key, but confident enough to keep it going."

About the Inverness map, he said: "I’m trying to stick to my original plan – ‘wacky’ metro was intended for towns or small cities where a metro would never even be considered.

"Inverness kind of pushes that to edge, but I think still falls into my category. I used to be a regular visitor with work as an IT specialist at the Northern Constabulary HQ, and have fond memories of the early 2000s, of overnight stays and a few beers in the local hostelries."

He said: "The recent ones like Inverness are quite complex and take hours of drawing. I'm not sure actually what is best, the early ones still seem popular, maybe because they are so simple. To be fair, Inverness needs to be more complex and intricate to shuttle around a population of 70,000 compared to Bathgate's 20,000."

He continued: "We’re still a small ‘bedroom‘ project, it's nice to get a bit extra in for next year's holidays.

"I do the drawings, my wife Tracy is integral, she does all the media, and the unglamourous post and packaging. Both our boys are grown up so we have a bit of spare time on our hands and this is filling a void nicely, especially when many social activities are stopped due to the pandemic."

The maps can be purchased from wackymetro.co.uk .

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