On 8 Apr, 16:39, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 02:15:07 -0700 (PDT), Offramp
wrote this gibberish:

On Apr 8, 9:49 am, MarkVarley - MVP
wrote:

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 21:32:32 -0700 (PDT), Offramp
wrote this gibberish:

(snip)

Here is a question you can ask fellow-travellers.
On either side of the inside of doors on a Northern Line train there
are two vertical yellow bars.
(You can see them in this picture http://tinyurl.com/5uws7q). These
slightly slanting yellow bars are the same as any other yellow bars,
vertical or horizontal, in the carriage, EXCEPT that there is a black
bit of plastic about 6 inches from the top. The question is: What is
that piece of black plastic there for?

I'm going to be on the northern line in an hour and now this is going
to be really bugging me, what is it there for?

I hope you get this in time.
If Visually Impaired People put their hands on the black bit then
their hand is level with the Open Door switch. That was how they were
meant to find it.

I just got back to see this, I figured it was because the handrails on
the trains are colour coded to their routes (lines) but the northern
line being black someone decided to make the handrails yellow as it
looks nicer and brighter and added black bits for the colour coding.
Thats what I came up with anyway :-)


I hadn't noticed them before but I immediately thought of the
explanation that Offramp has subsequently offered - it makes sense.

The handrails were never going to be coloured black for the Northern
line trains these days, not given the emphasis now placed on 'safety
by design' - they need to be a clear prominent colour so they can
easily be seen by VIPs (Visually Impaired Persons) and indeed anyone
and everyone else.

The seat moquettes on the Northern line trains used to be of a
specific Northern line design (as can be seen in the photo linked to
above) - as indeed was the case on all LU lines - but the Tube Lines
infraco, responsible for the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Northern lines
has instead replaced most (if not all) the seat moquettes on 'their'
lines with a new, standard design. (Someone will be along shortly to
say I'm incorrectly using moquette in the plural!)

Losing the distinctive line identities on the seat fabrics is in many
ways a shame - however that said on the Northern line at least the
new, colourful design is perhaps more vibrant and cheery than its
black and grey predecessor.