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Post by jimbo on Apr 29, 2020 1:33:17 GMT
We know that the Bakerloo is the brown line and the District is always the green line, etc, but have these colours much history? The shades may have changed a little in my long life, but this may have been down to printing technology, or colour fastness. Was there any basis for the original colour allocation to each line, or were they just at random? For example, has the Met line colour any association with the original Met Railway? Or green with the original Met District Railway? Did the Central London Railway use red for publicity? How far do they each date back?
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on Apr 29, 2020 6:14:27 GMT
We know that the Bakerloo is the brown line and the District is always the green line, etc, but have these colours much history? The shades may have changed a little in my long life, but this may have been down to printing technology, or colour fastness. Was there any basis for the original colour allocation to each line, or were they just at random? For example, has the Met line colour any association with the original Met Railway? Or green with the original Met District Railway? Did the Central London Railway use red for publicity? How far do they each date back? I've always wondered why they made all the SSL green between c.1937 and 1948.  |
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Post by Dstock7080 on Apr 29, 2020 7:30:28 GMT
In the pre-Beck, Stingemore era the Bakerloo was red and the Central London orange.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Apr 29, 2020 9:11:00 GMT
In the pre-Beck, Stingemore era the Bakerloo was red and the Central London orange. An even older one had the Piccadilly in yellow, the Hampstead in purple, the Met in Magenta, the Central in blue and the Northern City in red. i.pinimg.com/originals/fc/cf/97/fccf972eaf3ae22f4eda2d513cfd02ea.jpgThe only consistent one through all this is the District in green. According to "Going Green", both the Met's and District's original locomotives were painted in the same shade of olive green, but they may have changed by 1933. The SSR has always been a challenge because of the shared running. In the pre-1933 era it was done by ownership, with no indication of through running at Aldgate and High Street Ken. I imagine the all-green SSR in the 1937-48 era following the absorption of the Met was in anticipation of more through-running and more complex services (such as Wimbledon - Edgware Road - Barking). The separate services on the former Metropolitan Railway are now depicted separately (Main, Circle, H&C, ELL, and formerly the Northern City, which was part of the Met from 1913-1940) but, other than its part of the Circle, the District is still shown as one line. I read that Beck deliberately chose the strongest colours of black and red for the substantially perpendicular lines to give some structure to his design. |
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Post by jimbo on Apr 29, 2020 20:53:19 GMT
In the pre-Beck, Stingemore era the Bakerloo was red and the Central London orange. The Central line always appeared orange to me through the 60s and 70s. It may have been that red fades, but even car line diagrams appeared orange from new. Even platform roundels appeared more orange with a blue bar across the system than red! |
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Post by jimbo on May 1, 2020 7:42:58 GMT
Back in the 1960s the Bakerloo & Northern line colours seemed well suited to those dull, dirty lines with their old trains. Apart from the main interchange stations, which were fitted out with fluorescent lighting, most deep level platforms were lit by a handful of bare tungsten bulbs in hexagonal shades. They were very gloomy, but when the bright silver trains of the Picc & Central lines arrived, they brightened the scene with their internal fluorescent lighting, until they once again moved on. The dark red 1938TS with their handful of small tungsten bulbs barely added to the lighting of the platforms. I recall when the VIc line opened with its light blue colour, the Picc line mid-blue was replaced by a deep blue, which under such poor lighting was difficult to distinguish from the Northern line black!
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gantshill
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Post by gantshill on May 1, 2020 8:56:02 GMT
The Central line always appeared orange to me through the 60s and 70s. It may have been that red fades, but even car line diagrams appeared orange from new. Even platform roundels appeared more orange with a blue bar across the system than red! I have a similar childhood memory, when drawing underground maps I would always select an orange pencil or felt-tip for the central line, although I did perceive the bar on the roundel/bullseye as red. I was definitely an adult before I realised that the Central line colour was red. It was possibly only when, for a while, the British Rail lines were shown in orange on the "tube" map that I finally accepted the red of the Central line. Slightly not related, I always liked the monochrome versions from the 1960's and 1970's such as this black and white map. It was something about the way that there were many pairings e.g. the District and Piccadilly lines. I certainly saw versions of this map with the Jubilee line on, and some with the East London Section and Highbury Branch with their own distinct patterns. |
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londoner
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Post by londoner on May 1, 2020 10:27:29 GMT
The Central line always appeared orange to me through the 60s and 70s. It may have been that red fades, but even car line diagrams appeared orange from new. Even platform roundels appeared more orange with a blue bar across the system than red! I have a similar childhood memory, when drawing underground maps I would always select an orange pencil or felt-tip for the central line, although I did perceive the bar on the roundel/bullseye as red. I was definitely an adult before I realised that the Central line colour was red. It was possibly only when, for a while, the British Rail lines were shown in orange on the "tube" map that I finally accepted the red of the Central line. Slightly not related, I always liked the monochrome versions from the 1960's and 1970's such as this black and white map. It was something about the way that there were many pairings e.g. the District and Piccadilly lines. I certainly saw versions of this map with the Jubilee line on, and some with the East London Section and Highbury Branch with their own distinct patterns.
Age, experience, state of mind and language all may play a role in how we perceive colour:
You may also be interested to know that TfL continue to produce the black and white tube map. There are digital copies (vector graphics format) dating back to at least March 1996. Vector graphics format (.ps, .eps, .pdf, .svg etc) allow you to zoom in and out without loss of quality and see more clearly the details and patterns you speak of. (Note sometimes a jpg/gif is placed in a pdf, these are not vector graphic images). It took a bit longer for a printable version of the digital colour map to be made available - presumably because of the larger file sizes and the slow download speeds of modem connections at the time. There were still interactive digital maps but many of these no longer work in the archives.
The earliest ( vector graphic) black and white digital map seems to be [ here]. The latest line colour standards is [ here].
Central Line:
EDIT: Originally stated that the black and white map is a vector graphic. Pointed out below that this is not correct.
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gantshill
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Post by gantshill on May 1, 2020 10:46:46 GMT
I always liked the monochrome versions from the 1960's and 1970's such as this black and white map. It was something about the way that there were many pairings e.g. the District and Piccadilly lines. I certainly saw versions of this map with the Jubilee line on, and some with the East London Section and Highbury Branch with their own distinct patterns. The earliest (vector graphic) black and white digital map seems to be [ here]. Thanks for the link - although I miss the old black and white patterns for the lines. I suppose it was part of my childhood. Ho hum: progress and all that. |
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Post by superteacher on May 1, 2020 15:05:50 GMT
I remember the black and white maps on the back of the London A to Z atlases.
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Post by Chris L on May 1, 2020 15:29:29 GMT
I have a similar childhood memory, when drawing underground maps I would always select an orange pencil or felt-tip for the central line, although I did perceive the bar on the roundel/bullseye as red. I was definitely an adult before I realised that the Central line colour was red. It was possibly only when, for a while, the British Rail lines were shown in orange on the "tube" map that I finally accepted the red of the Central line. Slightly not related, I always liked the monochrome versions from the 1960's and 1970's such as this black and white map. It was something about the way that there were many pairings e.g. the District and Piccadilly lines. I certainly saw versions of this map with the Jubilee line on, and some with the East London Section and Highbury Branch with their own distinct patterns.
Age, experience, state of mind and language all may play a role in how we perceive colour:
You may also be interested to know that TfL continue to produce the black and white tube map. There are digital copies (vector graphics format) dating back to at least March 1996. Vector graphics format (.ps, .eps, .pdf, .svg etc) allow you to zoom in and out without loss of quality and see more clearly the details and patterns you speak of. (Note sometimes a jpg/gif is placed in a pdf, these are not vector graphic images). It took a bit longer for a printable version of the digital colour map to be made available - presumably because of the larger file sizes and the slow download speeds of modem connections at the time. There were still interactive digital maps but many of these no longer work in the archives.
The earliest (vector graphic) black and white digital map seems to be [ here]. The latest line colour standards is [ here].
Central Line: I managed the production of the first vector graphics maps. The map on the link pre-dates this by several years and the work was after the Jubilee Line Extension opened and the North London line had been removed. |
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londoner
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Post by londoner on May 1, 2020 17:22:32 GMT
I managed the production of the first vector graphics maps. The map on the link pre-dates this by several years and the work was after the Jubilee Line Extension opened and the North London line had been removed. You are quite right about the map I posted, I've made a mistake there. I never bothered to zoom extremely closely before because the resolution was very good it always seemed like a vector graphic*, but if you do zoom really closely into that map, it is indeed actually a gif/jpeg (or whatever) inserted into a pdf! My eyes really are fading me! I will ammend that post shortly. Interestingly, if you look at the next earliest link (that I can find on the archives) [ here], it was archived on July 2003, has the North London Line and doesn't seem to lose any quality when you zoom in up to 6400%. Yes, I really did zoom in 6400% in Adobe  . But this is a large print map. *What is the definition of a "vector graphic" because it appears I am lacking some understanding here? May I also ask a few questions about it: - Do the Jubilee and Northern Line have the same colours on the black and white map as the colour map? - Has the cross hatching styles for the other lines changed over the years? |
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Post by jimbo on May 1, 2020 19:56:48 GMT
The Central line always appeared orange to me through the 60s and 70s. It may have been that red fades, but even car line diagrams appeared orange from new. Even platform roundels appeared more orange with a blue bar across the system than red! I have a similar childhood memory, when drawing underground maps I would always select an orange pencil or felt-tip for the central line, although I did perceive the bar on the roundel/bullseye as red. I was definitely an adult before I realised that the Central line colour was red. It was possibly only when, for a while, the British Rail lines were shown in orange on the "tube" map that I finally accepted the red of the Central line..... Was the Central line shade adjusted back to deep red around the time the East London became orange, for greater differentiation? |
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Post by Chris M on May 1, 2020 20:09:38 GMT
*What is the definition of a "vector graphic" because it appears I am lacking some understanding here? In computing terms there are two types of graphics, raster and vector. Raster images store the colour of every pixel explicitly. A pixel being the smallest unit of information in the image, so if you zoom in you are making each pixel appear bigger. i.e. if at 100% each pixel was 1mm across on your screen then at 200% it would be 2mm across, at 300% 3mm ... at 6400% it would be 6400mm (64 cm) across. If the original pixels are small enough (i.e. there are more of them in the image) then even at 6400% the resolution will still look good. Vector images work very differently, instead of storing information about pixels it stores information about lines and curves based on their coordinates and dimensions. These can be scaled infinitely. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics May I also ask a few questions about it: - Do the Jubilee and Northern Line have the same colours on the black and white map as the colour map? - Has the cross hatching styles for the other lines changed over the years? The December 2019 black and white large print tube map is here: content.tfl.gov.uk/bw-large-print-map.pdfThe Northern line does have the same colour as on the colour map, the Jubilee line is very similar and possibly identical. A comparison with the April 1996 black and white map shows the Bakerloo, Central, H&C, Met, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria have the same or very similar pattern, while the Circle, District, Jubilee and DLR have changed. [/quote] |
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Post by jimbo on May 2, 2020 8:02:07 GMT
Looking at my 1978 NUR diary I was surprised to see a new grey line linking Stanmore and Charing Cross, labelled in the key as Fleet Line! Presumably drawn early in 1977 when opening was planned for the following year. It appears to me that the official diagram is printed in only four colours, red, blue, yellow and black. The Victoria line seems to be a screened version of the Picc blue and the Jubilee a screened version of Northern line black. The District line seems a mix of yellow and Vic line blue, the Met a mix of red, blue and black and the Bakerloo a mix of red, yellow and black, but the final product is of high quality and near the intended colours. Was this an LT product issued to diary makers? Was it used for other purposes around the system?
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Post by Chris L on May 2, 2020 10:13:58 GMT
Looking at my 1978 NUR diary I was surprised to see a new grey line linking Stanmore and Charing Cross, labelled in the key as Fleet Line! Presumably drawn early in 1977 when opening was planned for the following year. It appears to me that the official diagram is printed in only four colours, red, blue, yellow and black. The Victoria line seems to be a screened version of the Picc blue and the Jubilee a screened version of Northern line black. The District line seems a mix of yellow and Vic line blue, the Met a mix of red, blue and black and the Bakerloo a mix of red, yellow and black, but the final product is of high quality and near the intended colours. Was this an LT product issued to diary makers? Was it used for other purposes around the system? The diary versions were sold to the diary companies as a set of colour separated films. How they were reproduced was down to the printer. The companies were only supposed to use them for a year. Many didn't. The poster maps used to be printed with each line printed in its own colour. A very complex and costly process. Printing technology has improved over the years and four colour printing has been used. The Met & Bakerloo colours were difficult to achieve at first. When it comes to vitreous enamel signs the colours are specially manufactured. The Central line red used to contain cadmium. This is now banned so the colour is slightly different. |
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Post by davidb on May 2, 2020 15:48:41 GMT
May I also ask a few questions about it: - Do the Jubilee and Northern Line have the same colours on the black and white map as the colour map? - Has the cross hatching styles for the other lines changed over the years? I've dug out my very tatty copy of the 1963 edition of the Ian Allan ABC of London Transport Railways which has an official LT black and white map. Unfortunately when I was a small kid I scrawled over it but here's the index panel showing the styles used then for each line:  |
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londoner
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Post by londoner on May 3, 2020 13:13:58 GMT
May I also ask a few questions about it: - Do the Jubilee and Northern Line have the same colours on the black and white map as the colour map? - Has the cross hatching styles for the other lines changed over the years? I've dug out my very tatty copy of the 1963 edition of the Ian Allan ABC of London Transport Railways which has an official LT black and white map. Unfortunately when I was a small kid I scrawled over it but here's the index panel showing the styles used then for each line:
Whilst I was trawling through the archives I found a full scanned copy of the black and white map. Presuambly it comes from a diary (the scan is slightly slanted).
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Post by theblackferret on May 3, 2020 14:20:26 GMT
OK, 1933 map (LPTB in the roundel above the UndergrounD logo, which also announces in a box about Dover Street on the Piccadilly becoming Green Park & British Museum closing as Holborn will be opening Central Line platforms & assume line is a blocked/filled line of colour unless I say otherwise:
(Source- Abandoned Stations on London's Underground A Photographic Record-JE Connor Connor & Butler publications isbn 9-780000000972)
District-- mint green & not today's dark green.
Central---Orange & no way a shade of red, because:
Bakerloo---Today's Central line shade of red!!
Circle Line-doesn't exist of course as an advertised service on maps.
Hammersmith & City--not delineated any differently from The Met's maroon or mentioned in the reference as a separate entity.
East London Line, open orange line & named as East London Line on the reference.
Great Northern & City Line, open line, referred to in reference as Great Northern & City Line-colour is a bit like this
Northern Line is referred to as Edgware Highate & Morden Line & is black.
Piccadilly Line just as today, same shade of blue.
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londoner
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Post by londoner on May 3, 2020 14:23:08 GMT
Did the shade of the Met line become lighter during the 90s?
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Post by theblackferret on May 3, 2020 14:32:30 GMT
Did the shade of the Met line become lighter during the 90s? Well, looking at this: londonistit would seem Garbutt did it in 1962 & it seems to have got a little darker since then, though still not back to the classic maroon. |
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Post by holborncentral on May 3, 2020 18:21:54 GMT
I remember the black and white maps on the back of the London A to Z atlases. My parents had one of those A to Z maps in the 1980s. Sadly it got thrown out  I remember the tube map on the back though. Each line had a pattern instead of a colour. As it was from the mid 80s it had Aldwych, no Heathrow loop, Central line Epping-Ongar and the original Jubilee line on it. It also had no H&C and the W&C was marked as part of BR. I also had a copy of the Usborne Book of London when I was a kid and it had a small piece about LU in it. It had patterns for the different lines as well as colours. I think I still have the book somewhere, I'll have to find it. |
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Post by goldenarrow on May 3, 2020 19:36:14 GMT
A photo from Mike Ashworth's collection showing an UndergrounD map from 1908. You can tell the choice of colours and a presumably rudimentary production technique has caused unintentional mixing in certain places.  London Underground tube map, 1908 by mikeyashworth, on Flickr |
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Post by AndrewS on May 3, 2020 21:33:42 GMT
The poster maps used to be printed with each line printed in its own colour. A very complex and costly process. Reminds me of the time (1980s I think?) when a batch of posters which didn't get sent through the red ink got put up without being noticed. They looked just as "wrong" as the time the river was deliberately left off, but it wasn't immediately obvious what was wrong. |
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Post by xplaistow on May 3, 2020 23:56:28 GMT
I remember a time when the London Connections map used black and white patterns for the Underground to avoid confusion with the coloured main lines.
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londoner
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Post by londoner on May 4, 2020 4:14:55 GMT
I remember a time when the London Connections map used black and white patterns for the Underground to avoid confusion with the coloured main lines. British Rail London Connections 1988 (first image only) thanks to Steve Collins [ source]: Later they also started using black and white shadings on the underground lines. Here is a map dated Sept 2002. I don't know when this started or stopped.
However TfL also had their own "London Connections" map! For example, here is one from October 2002 (see below). Between around 2007 and 2009, it got renamed to something like "Train Travelcard Zones" map on their website but the design and colour scheme stayed the same.
Between 2007 and late 2009, TfL also had a "High Frequency Services Map" which used the same design as "London Connections" map:
Towards the end of 2009, TfL stopped making the "London Connections" map as well as the high frequency map. Instead, they produced a "new" map, called "Oyster Rail services in London": At a quick glance, I don't believe National Rail put this Oyster map on their website. Around the summer of 2011, the "London’s Rail & Tube services Map" was formed as a joint collaboration between TfL and National Rail and produced by ATOC (see below). On the National Rail website, it appeared at some point in Sept 2011 labelled as "London's Rail & Tube services map by TfL/ATOC". All other "London Connections" maps were removed from the main public page and it seems to have stayed this way ever since. Note that National Rail still produce the "London & the South East Map" which shows the greater area of South East England.
I don't know if TfL ever made a black and white version of their London Connections map. National Rail, rather confusingly, also made a map called "London & the South East Map by Network Rail" and the underground lines that were left in were shown in black and white. This seems to have ended in Sept 2016 though I may be wrong. Here is an example from 2014:
One individual has written about the history of the "London Connections" map but I've not had a chance to read it:
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Tom
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Post by Tom on May 4, 2020 12:17:09 GMT
The BR version of the London Connections map had certainly moved to black shading by the early 1990s.
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Post by John Tuthill on May 4, 2020 14:09:13 GMT
I remember a time when the London Connections map used black and white patterns for the Underground to avoid confusion with the coloured main lines. British Rail London Connections 1988 (first image only) thanks to Steve Collins [ source]: Later they also started using black and white shadings on the underground lines. Here is a map dated Sept 2002. I don't know when this started or stopped.
However TfL also had their own "London Connections" map! For example, here is one from October 2002 (see below). Between around 2007 and 2009, it got renamed to something like "Train Travelcard Zones" map on their website but the design and colour scheme stayed the same.
Between 2007 and late 2009, TfL also had a "High Frequency Services Map" which used the same design as "London Connections" map:
Towards the end of 2009, TfL stopped making the "London Connections" map as well as the high frequency map. Instead, they produced a "new" map, called "Oyster Rail services in London": At a quick glance, I don't believe National Rail put this Oyster map on their website. Around the summer of 2011, the "London’s Rail & Tube services Map" was formed as a joint collaboration between TfL and National Rail and produced by ATOC (see below). On the National Rail website, it appeared at some point in Sept 2011 labelled as "London's Rail & Tube services map by TfL/ATOC". All other "London Connections" maps were removed from the main public page and it seems to have stayed this way ever since. Note that National Rail still produce the "London & the South East Map" which shows the greater area of South East England.
I don't know if TfL ever made a black and white version of their London Connections map. National Rail, rather confusingly, also made a map called "London & the South East Map by Network Rail" and the underground lines that were left in were shown in black and white. This seems to have ended in Sept 2016 though I may be wrong. Here is an example from 2014: One individual has written about the history of the "London Connections" map but I've not had a chance to read it: I hope I'm not alone in this, but they look hideous. If Harry Becks was a Rembrandt, then these are all Jackson Pollocks. |
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Post by rapidtransitman on May 4, 2020 14:14:10 GMT
National Rail's "London & the South East Map by Network Rail" is not only hideous, it's bloody useless! The others do have utility, with some patience. I particularly like the Oyster Services and London Tube and Rail maps as they distinguish mainline rail services by terminal.
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Post by theblackferret on May 4, 2020 14:33:49 GMT
John Tuthill I happen to be a great Jackson Pollock fan. But I wouldn't have commissioned him to produce an Underground Map, that's for sure.
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. But this is a large print map.
I remember the tube map on the back though. Each line had a pattern instead of a colour. As it was from the mid 80s it had Aldwych, no Heathrow loop, Central line Epping-Ongar and the original Jubilee line on it. It also had no H&C and the W&C was marked as part of BR. 
