Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Three Joy Reports in one - and a word on orange

Oh gosh, I’m stumped. Joy reports are joyous. There weren’t any problems on Thursday, yesterday or today, and on Friday I worked from home. Perhaps District Line chief executives are prowling the line this week.

Has anyone noticed just how bloody cold the refurb’d trains are on this line by the way? Don’t get me wrong, I generally approve of the redesigned carriages, especially the less harsh on the eyes internal lighting. The un-refurb’d trains went from having pinky coloured tubes, chosen when the trains were new in 1979, making them seem rather warm and inviting, to a rather harsh blue shade meant, I think, to emulate daylight, or at least the grey British version of daylight, placed there, virtually overnight and with no prior warning, in 2002 or so. They are actually the same colour as the tubes used in an S. A. D. lamp I have at home. Maybe TfL were doing their bit to combat passengers’ winter blues. When they were first installed, I felt rather nauseous, especially as the internal panels of the trains, and seat coverings, were a rather delicious orange. The two colours didn’t mix well though. Unhappily, the nice orange panels have been replaced with a bland grey. I’m sure this makes the trains harder to vandalise, and I guess they don’t show up dirt so well, but I liked the orange, and salute the genius who chose the colour, and double-salute the person who signed it off for the contract. I reckon I might be in a minority though. Remember the glory of 70s kitchen appliances and you’ll know the kind of orange we’re dealing with. Orange Smartie orange. Scrumptious. Heck, once I can make my camera produce the colour properly I’ll bung a picture of a door panel in so you can see that I’m truly not getting over-excited about it.

The refurbs’ lights are more a neutral yellow colour. But alas, the heat seems to have been turned to half power on these trains. Not quite the refrigerated meat lorries that are the C stock Hammersmith & City/Circle line trains, but a good attempt.

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