As you can see above, the two cities' train networks are worlds apart when it comes to design cues and accessibility ethos.

I began with reordering the map for Melbourne Metro first, it's a very utilitarian map, and picks upfront accessibility of information over succinctity. As such, the main design change here is the immediate simplification of the Melbourne METRO map. This holds immediately evident with the difference in the map shape, with outline of the urban area becoming more minimalist and angled in its presentation.

The most notable difference between Sydney and Melbourne is the normenclature used in their transport maps. The eponymous City Loop has been displaced by the City Circle badge and the termini of Melbourne's spiderweb radial network now have specially named route designations to make it easier to know which trunk route you need to take. Furthermore, the name of the line groups have become more succinct in their destination and purpose, rather than the long-winded line group names. [e.g. Northern Line, rather than Mernda and Hurstbridge Lines]. Some influence from Sydney's normenclature has been invoked to set the vibe. [e.g. the highly trafficked Craigieburn, Upfield and Sunbury route has been renamed to the North Core & Western, in respect to Sydney's North Shore Western line that forms the main backbone of the Sydney network.

Furthermore, the groups lines in Melbourne have now been badged under Tx numbered badges, in order to streamline understanding of route trunks. As much care has been taken to transfer the Tx numbers over to their corresponding colours from the Sydney original, but unfortunately due to group line consolidation, Melbourne has few colours to work with.

Because Sydney Trains is not as anal-retentive regarding train service information, the Frankston Loop dotted line designation has be removed and replaced with a solid green, as is the situation with the similar dual-route services of the Sydney T8 Airport and South Line.

The most notable change in the network routes would be the removal of the V/Line trunks from the map, as Sydney Trains moved away from showing multimodal journeys on their maps following the 2013 rebrand of CityRail and its breaking up into two seperate networks. To suit with the freaky friday rehash, V/Line has been renamed to VicLink in correlation to NSW's TrainLink.

Instead, the V/Line routes have been mildy incorporated as shadowy offshoots of the major line branches, as is in the Sydney Trains map. I have also included the cumbersom "To xxx Line(s)" terminology that Sydney Trains employ, which really doesn't make sense as regional intercity lines don't start at the termini of the metropolitan region, but rather follow express routes on metropolitan lines and then continue out of the city on their own track.

Melbourne has only recently seen the introduction of coloured lines and route names, as it had previously operated with the infamous neon blue and yellow Zone based map. The current iteration of the map is beautiful on its own right, but the consolidation and use of more minimalist and colourful design vision would help Melbourne succeed in catering to its booming tourist population.

Finally after working on the Melbourne map, I continued onwards with transferring the design method of the Melbourne METRO & V/Line map onto the Sydney landscape.

What is immediately noticeable is that the landscape of the map is no longer minimalist and flat, the white Zones 1&2, and grey Zones 3-13 regions from the Melbourne design have been incorporated onto the Sydney landscape as a divider showing the difference between the Sydney urban network and the intercity network outside of it - creating a nice break between the metropolitan and regional networks. The outline of the landscape has also become more detailed as a copyover from the Melbournian design, you can clearly see the lay of the land and its waterways (albeit distorted to fit the network's routes). Furthermore the southeast of the city now displays the airport runways, which would make the airport stations more visible to the passenger.

The beloved Sydney City Circle has been replaced with the City Loop and the modern circle station dot design for stops have been reverted back to notches, much like the old CityRail days. In addition, the NSW TrainLink intercity services have been brought back to the Sydney map, now rebranded as "Onboard NSW's ON/Line", imitating the modern branding of the Victorian regional brand. Finally, the wonderfully succinct names of the numbered Tx lines have been replaced with a more utilitarian termini-based naming structure.

The design method of the Melbourne METRO&V/Line map is that it attempts to consolidate as much information as possible to show the passenger upfront, which can create some overcrowding. However, there are some very beneficial takeaways from the Melbournian design. In particular, this can be seen with the introduction of dotted train routes, which allow for the map to immediately show to the user where the routes usually stop, and where they travel to during peak time or certain events. A good example would be the airport bypass route that the T8 train takes during peak hours.

Furthermore, the re-introduction of regional rail routes through the city now shows the passenger upfront if their journey can utilise an express route such as in the Northern corridor.

To conclude, the freaky friday design changes to the Sydney map are really quite a laugh as they do bring back a nostalgia to the days of CityRail and the Sydney Olympics. There are some good adaptations from the Melbournian model such as the introduction of alternate route designators - and there are also some cumbersome changes such as the removal of the wonderfully ingenous Tx badge numbering system to immediately identify route services.