Re: (NSW) Route numbers

["Bradley Torr" <btorr@bigpond.nospam.com>]

Quaider wrote in message <3972f931@pink.one.net.au>...
>Has Cityrail ever considered the use of route numbers (or letters) for its
>lines? I remember hearing that the destination indicators on the
refurbished
>sets can cater for route numbers, and if you look at some of them you can
>see that there seems to be a blank space to the left of the destination (ie
>the destination is slighly off centre).

I don't think it would be of much use. People don't even use highway route
numbers or bus route numbers in this country - rather they use names for
highways and simply look at the locality on the bus destination rolls in
their route planning. CityRail has a good system of route colours though,
but it's going downhill. The colour bars on station name signs are starting
to disappear to be replaced by a generic white-on-blue Frutiger font style
which gives no indication to passengers about which stations are on which
lines. Then you had that completely unnecessary colour change for the
Bankstown and Inner West lines (from brown to purple), probably for no other
reason than that purple 'looks better'. So you now have four lines with
similar colours - Carlingford (navy blue), Illawarra (royal blue),
Bankstown/Inner West (purple) and Hunter Lines (dark purple). Good one,
CityRail!

I think they should use the colours on manually-set destination rolls, but
that seems unlikely. They could easily bring back the light-based indicators
which were in use until around 1992..... instead you now have nothing or
those LED destos which don't work most of the time.

I quite like the old system used on Sydney tramways - distinctive colours
and shapes for each destination - e.g. Canterbury was three green diamonds
on a white background, etc. Perhaps a similar system could be used for
CityRail, but it seems unlikely.

Regards,
Bradley.