If you love maps, if you love trains, if you love the T, you’ll love WardMaps, and you just might feel like you’re in paradise when you visit. Steven Beaucher, the owner, has been enamored with maps and trains as long as he can remember, calling himself a “lifelong rail fan” though his working life began in food service and shifted to architecture. When his personal map collection began to get unwieldy, he began selling some of it at street fairs – and participated in the very first SoWa Open Market, a decidedly casual affair consisting of four vendors at card tables. Next to him, Will Gilson, now of Puritan & Co. fame, was selling veggie burgers.

The first incarnation of WardMaps opened in a tiny space in Harvard Square on Bow Street in 2008 while Beaucher was still working as an architect. A few years later he moved to a larger space on Massachusetts Avenue near Porter Square. It’s now ensconced in much larger building on the site where I recall the natural foods vendor Erewhon had a store years ago, and more recently Abodeon sold design goods. It’s a nice big open space, much better than a card table!

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I was surprised as I looked around the store. I’d imagined maps, mugs with maps, canvas bags with maps – but the depth and range of the merchandise impressed me. Of course the store has a lot of maps, both original antiques and reproductions, organized by countries. And of course there are maps on mugs and magnets. There’s also an impressive collection of vintage train timetables, and I spied a booklet titled “General Manual of Instructions for Conductors and Ticket Collectors – Superseding all Previous Instructions.” It has the classic “Entering Cambridge” (or Somerville or Boston) sign on mugs, magnets and wall pieces.There’s a wooden NYC subway set and a nice selection of antique prints – magazine ads, animals, birds, animals, plants, engineering and military.

Beaucher is licensed to produce all products for the Boston MBTA, so WardMaps has a wide selection of T-related items. There’s an umbrella with a map of the T. There’s wooden T trains, red line, green line, orange line, blue line. Mugs, subway station signs, baby onesies, “T” shirts for adults and kids in, of course, red, green, blue and orange. T magnets, mugs and glass Christmas ornaments, T actual tea, small soft T buses, T wooden cutting boards, an MBTA-branded wooden train whistle and some very cool light-up boards that track T trains in real time.

The store also has a quirkier side. I noticed some ceramic cat dishes and cat magnets (when queried about this, the staff said: “We love cats”), a six pack of Coca-Cola from 1997, some old train conductor lamps, vintage U.S. political campaign pins, some striking old posters – “Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds” and “No Appeasement, Czechoslovakia Will Live Again” – vintage airline and train-branded playing cards, vintage Boston postcards and even a pair of antique china candlesticks. My favorite unexpected item was a sweater. Designed by a staff member “ugly Christmas sweater” style, it featured a red line’s end car on a black background with green and red flashing lights. Very fun!

The last item I’ll mention is a book published by MIT Press. “Boston in Transit: Mapping the History of Public Transportation in The Hub,” researched and written by Beaucher. It tells the “complete story of the creation, construction, usage, and evolution of public transportation in Boston, from 1630 through the early twenty-first century.” Clearly a labor of love, as is the store.

WardMaps, 1731 Massachusetts Ave., Baldwin near Porter Square, Cambridge (10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday)