How the Tube Map Got Its Colours

[@ChazDude]

"Red is also used for the cable car, but no one cares." Truer words never spoken.

[@chrisgironde6669]

Is the cable car of any use to anyone other than tourists ?

[@trentr9762]

@@chrisgironde6669 I suppose if you live next to the station on one end and work at the other yes. Otherwise probably not

[@LolBot720]

@@chrisgironde6669 Is it of any use to tourists?

[@chrisgironde6669]

@@LolBot720 only for them to say “I went on the cable car” Bit like going up Snowdon in Wales. Those who go up on the train buy the hat saying “I’ve been up Snowdon”. Those who walk up don’t need the hat

[@Chris-nq9nb]

@@chrisgironde6669 it's very handy of you want to go from the middle of nowhere to a rubbish dump.

[@TitanicTARDIS]

What a beautiful icon of London Underground history. Harry Beck was a genius. There have been many underground railways that follow this example, but nothing can beat the original.

[@treavongayle8403]

I've been always thinking that the Bakerloo Line is coloured brown because of the 'loo' in the name 😊

[@Sparkle_Fox]

Same here 😂

[@CyclingSteve]

But also 'baker' as in bread if it needed to be a clean pun.

[@eastlancsesteem]

It's brown because it's a crap line.

[@raakone]

"Loo" only got its current meaning during and after World War 2, before that it was always "lavatory" or "W.C." ("Loo" was a mangling of "L'eau", or "the water", because British servicemen who went to France noticed that, outside the main cities, people still used chamber pots, and before emptying one out the front, it was polite to warn "Gardez l'eau" or "watch out for the water")

[@raakone]

@@CyclingSteve more likely....much bread and many pastries are a shade of brown, or at least on the outside are.

[@Thoomas2001]

I chose the London Underground as the subject for my presentation for my final English exams and I made sure to memorize by heart the colors of the Tube Map so that I could impress the examiners by listing it all without having to look at my poster for guidance. As someone who's never even been to the UK, it went extremely well, so that's a sign of how well the map is made and how iconic the colors are. For some lines, the color just 'felt' right; red fits Central, Waterloo & City has a light blue feel to it and the word 'Metropolitan' just screams that shade of purple to me. However, for two lines there were little mnemonics I came up with that I still love myself for: the Bakerloo line is brown like the bread that bakers make, and the Hammersmith & City Line is pink like ham. I also soon noticed that the lines in the index on the Tube map are not only alphabetical, but most of them are also in a bit of a gradient-like order from top to bottom, with the gray of the Jubilee being the only real outlier; even the brown and black fit in well. This made it even more easy to remember if I ever got stuck; I'd just start with the brown Bakerloo, then continue down the rainbow of Tube lines.

[@nutsnproud6932]

Who remembers the monochrome tube maps on the back of the London A-Z maps?

[@roboftherock]

Ah, now I remember it being there, but the detail is lost in the mists of time. Open circles, filled circles, squares, triangles - all contained within thin black parallel lines come to mind. I wonder if my recollections are correct.

[@bordershader]

@@roboftherock you're right, although it was all in dark blue, the same colour as the A>Z logo, no? Blimmin nightmare to read!

[@atraindriver]

It's still produced by TfL, as a PDF you can find here: tfl.gov.uk/maps/track/tube

[@RogersRamblings]

It takes a special sort of nerdism to map colours to a diagram of lines. Good work. (For info; Harry Beck was employed by the Underground as a signalling draughtsman and so was accustomed to using colours and straight lines to depict wiring connections on signalling installations.)

[@Brian3989]

Electrical components often used a colour code to indicate a number: black = 0, brown =1, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, grey, white = 9. Beck probably knew those.

[@SkepticalSteve01]

@@Brian3989 However he arrived at those colours, he did a damn fine job. I have trouble distinguishing between certain shades of red and green, which I understand is the commonest form of colour “blindness”, especially among men. And yet I’ve never had any trouble using Beck-based tube maps - all the colours are vivid enough for even a wonky old bloke like me to work out how to get where I want to go. Unlike plenty of more modern maps and diagrams.

[@andyknott8148]

@@Brian3989 Bye, Bye, Rosy Off You Go Birmingham Via Great Western, if you were taught by the GPO.

[@Andrew.Prince]

I know a direct version, Blacy Brown...

[@andyknott8148]

@@creamwobbly I had not heard that, but I shall added to my collection. Anyway they taught me well on resistor colour codes.

[@BroonParker]

As someone with enough colour blindness to struggle with traffic lights, the tube map has never caused me any difficulties. I am suitably impressed and very grateful for that. Feeling the love for the cable car here. Vertigo issue?

[@hansamitamajee1930]

7:18 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@johnm2012]

I bet that's the result of a happy accident. I don't think they'd give much thought to accessibility at the time the colours were chosen. There's a black and white version of the map that uses shapes (tiny squares, triangles, circles, etc) instead of colours but that's more of a concession to printing technology than to accessibility.

[@trickygoose2]

I suspect colour blindness is a reason there isn't a solid green line on the tube map.

[@johnm2012]

@@trickygoose2 The District line?

[@luxford60]

@@trickygoose2 apart from The District Line, which is not only a solid green, but has always been a solid green.

[@michaelsterckx4120]

The first time I went on the tube, was with my dad, up on the District Line from Dagenham Heathway to Old Street. The map looked like a horrfying spaghetti of coloured lines to me, and at Tower Hill, we got off, and dad pointed out our station on the map, and taught me how to read it, in a couple of minutes.

[@mcarp555]

Jago, it occurred to me that by making this video, you might be cementing the origin stories for the Tube colours. Twenty years or more from now, people might cite you as a source for why the colours are what they are.

[@PopeLando]

Yes, he said "there is no definitive history of the choice of colours" and I immediately thought "I think this is it!"

[@michaelwright2986]

Your comment about new colours being possible with better station lighting makes me realise that the choices must have been made thinking about the colour temperature of 1930s electric lighting. And they held up under fluorescent, too. It's magnificent.

[@gormster]

For those desperately googling, as I was - it’s spelled “Midcared”. Literally the only references to it are about the metropolitan railway, except for one google books result which is erroneously merging a hyphenated word across two columns. My guess: it’s a contraction of “middle carriage red”. But I suspect the actual etymology may be lost to history. Maybe set CGPGrey on it, seems like the kind of thing he’d waste six months on.

[@Krzyszczynski]

My guess is that 'midcared' might derive in part from the Midland railway, whose engines were painted in a very similar colour (officially called by them 'crimson lake', a name I remember well from the paintboxes I had as a kid). The 'ca' bit baffles me, though. Carriage?

[@JesmondBeeBee]

Mid carmine red maybe?

[@markwright3161]

Thank you. I was just looking for some more photos of the colour and mis-spelling combined with Google's attempts to find the nearest popular thing, stuff the algorithms 'think' I'd like and autocorrect/complete (for search terms) got me as far as 'mica red', which is apparently a colour common on Lexus', and I gave up. :)

[@EleanorBrimblecombe]

@@markwright3161 If you want it to search for something specific you can put " quotes on either end of the word or phrase

[@2H80vids]

@@Krzyszczynski My guess would be Midland Carriage Red.

[@tobys_transport_videos]

*_"Red is also used for the Cable Car, but no one cares!"_* LMAO Jago, you come out with some good lines!!! 🤣💖

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

but what colour are they? Jago's lines, that is.

[@scythal]

A good line is what the Cable Car wishes it could've been 😂

[@Dragonmdk]

"Or filled in the time you were waiting for the kettle to boil." So one might say, the average ride between Acton Town and South Acton and back? Loved the video Jago!

[@mdhazeldine]

Or the time it takes to ride the Waterloo and City line

[@andyknott8148]

Well at least someone has watched a previous video and listened to the script.

[@richteffekt]

Excellent drop of Jago nerdism.

[@robertfiorini2061]

As a printing apprentice more than 50 years ago the firm I worked for was given an opportunity to print the map, it was a nightmare!!! Offset Lithography employs water, and between each separate colour run the paper would swell and put the previously printed colours out of register I seem to recall they made the plates six times but I could be wrong on that. I really enjoy your videos, keep them coming.

[@superadventure6297]

I always admired the Tube Map, it is a diagram, but one of the best ever designed. Thanks to that I am more familiar with the London Underground than with mass transit in NYC, Chicago, and any other American city where I actually live.

[@mst4309]

My favourite metro line colour scheme is from Hangzhou, China, where they follow standard colours from the rainbow, line 1 = red, 2 = orange, 3 = yellow, and from line 8 they repeat the rainbow using less standard shades, maroon, brown, etc.

[@jimmyviaductophilelawley5587]

This is an educated guess but "Midcared" might be a reference to the Midland Railway which used a very similar maroon colour...maybe its a a shortened version of "MIDland CARriage RED????"

[@highpath4776]

Now were not the Metropolitan Carriages a different shade from the Locomotives ( most were stained Teak of course but something got coloured - maybe the later acquired sets used more recently for network tours and special events ?

[@starsINSPACE]

midcarred could be somebody not spelling med(ium) currant? It sorta looks like a currant paint color to me idk

[@highpath4776]

@@starsINSPACE seems a good rasin

[@56independent]

My dad has different theories. Since the far north is normally dark for half a year, that's why the northern line is black. Since the circle line forms a circle, just like a ring, then it's gold. Because the bakerloo line has the word baker, it means that it is bread-coloured. Since the DLR runs across water, it is blue.

[@ronaldraygoon]

The Bakerloo line has the word "loo" in it, which means that...

[@56independent]

@@ronaldraygoon yeah that too whatever

[@bluemountain4181]

Maybe the North (and Midlands which is also north of London) was associated with coal mining which is notorious for getting black everywhere

[@lexlayabout5757]

I remember when the Victoria Line opened. The blue of the Piccadilly Line got noticable darker to distance it from the lighter blue of the Victoria.

[@BBIAJ]

"Red is also used for the cable car, but no-one cares" Savage, but I LOL'd!

[@stephenhester9804]

I'd agree that the initial colours on the Beck map were chosen as they would be easier to reproduce and still stay clear if the Poster was bleached by sunlight.

[@stepheneyles2198]

Did they have sun in the old days? Everything seemed so dull on the black and white photos of the time...

[@stephenfrost2272]

"Black and Blue" - I love it! Seriously the Beck map is, technically a 'topographical transformation' with links (Lines) and nodes (stations), but as you say, you've got to get your chuckles where you can in cartography

[@WolfmanWoody]

I can remember as a kid that there were lights on the ceiling of connecting tube walkways that showed the colour(s) of the line they led to. All you had to know was the line's colour and make sure that the overhead cluster contained that colour as at some stations it served a few lines. Anyone else old enough to remember them?

[@rolandharmer6402]

I do (69 years old). Coloured lights were also sometimes used on buses to denote operators and routes including the old Edinburgh trams.

[@roberthuron9160]

In the rabbit warren,that was/is the 42nd Street,connecting tunnels,for Grand Central Terminal,all the way to the 8th Avenue line[A,C,E],there were,and probably still is color coded lights,and markers,for guidance 😀! That area is one of the most used underground passage way,in North America! Anyway,the Current MTA map,still has echoes of the old IRT,and BRT/BMT,if you know where to look!! Sometimes history stares you right in the face,but it's not really seen!! A side note,I had a bus map,from Los Angeles,and it had a delicate shade of yellow,that with the paper stock,it sort of faded into the background,not so good for people with weak eyesight!So I wrote to them,and made the suggestion that a darker shade of yellow would be most helpful for other users,and I hoped that the next edition of that map,would be easier to read!! In map making,you really should consider the 10 foot rule,as if the lines,do not show up at distance,then its due for revision!! Old photography trick,and a good test for eyesight! Thanks Jago,for the ins,and outs,of the reproduction/ printing,and the operation of the color wheel!! Thanks 😊!

[@atraindriver]

@@rolandharmer6402 Coloured identification lights on buses were mostly a thing of the 1920s and 1930s. Especially in the rural areas many people couldn't read well (and, in fairness, most rural buses had woefully poor destination displays), but they could easily see that the bus coming had a light of a certain colour above the cab. Lincolnshire Road Car, for example, used a blue light until WW2 and advertised "Look for the blue light". Other companies used their name instead, a practice which lasted much longer; Midland Red's double deckers all had a small illuminated screen with the word "MIDLAND" above the destination display right through to the end of the 1960s when they were mostly painted over (early post-war BMMO single deckers also had them but they were below the windscreen and less visible, so they stopped being fitted by the 1960s).

[@RightAwayProductions005]

Was about to do my homework but 100% intentionally (seriously) clicked on the notification. Cheers for helping me procrastinate, Jago!!

[@zdxns]

OMG SAME

[@mbrady2329]

Are you saying this isn't homework?! 😉

[@RightAwayProductions005]

@@mbrady2329 good point, but this certainly isn’t Spanish😂

[@zdxns]

@@RightAwayProductions005 or math lol

[@mbrady2329]

@@RightAwayProductions005 have a Spanish lesson on me: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYbXc6eFe75_hJI

[@nigelcole1936]

Thank you for a very colourful video... good to have this down in black and white

[@petertooth2831]

It’s just a wild guess, but, you don’t appear to be a fan of the cable car! The way you mentioned it made me chuckle. I appreciate the dry humour. Thank you Jago.

[@oc2phish07]

Thanks Jago. That lovely, iconic map design has fans and emulators everywhere. Even at the college where I teach we use it to show pathways that students can take to worthwhile careers and it is very effective indeed.

[@hyperdistortion2]

Fascinating as always! I do love the idea that the Jubilee is actually supposed to be Battleship Gray, but simply called ‘silver’ to match the renaming. Oh, to live in the alternate timeline where it remained the Fleet Line…

[@raakone]

Just like the Victoria line, at one time, was going to be called the Viking line (VIctoria and KING's cross)

[@eattherich9215]

I guess the Elizabeth Line - nope, don't like that - is purple because of the assocation with royalty.

[@johnjephcote7636]

Horatio Nelson once spent a period of shore leave in the village of Kentish Town (with its open river Fleet). He said that he "wanted to keep an eye on the Fleet".

[@moaningpheromones]

Thankfully being named the Jubilee Line was a fleet accompli.

[@hyperdistortion2]

@@moaningpheromones And not just a fleeting idea!

[@SFKelvin]

I like how the Elizabeth line is named for Prince’s “Purple Train”

[@TheFrogfather1]

Oh dear :P

[@duhovnik]

Purple colour stands for evelasting love, as it is the last colour in the rainbow. 💜

[@johnm2012]

Purple is a colour that used to be reserved for the use of kings and queens only, mostly because only they could afford it.

[@eekee6034]

A pun so bad, I just had to upvote it! XD

[@TypicallyThomas]

Your channel is so good that I watch every video despite only having gone to London twice and I don't have any plans to return any time soon

[@brianfitzsimons6599]

Hello, my wife and I really enjoy your potted histories of the Underground. With regard to the colour of the Met., they may have tried to reproduce their loco livery which was called 'Midland Crimson' : Pantone 188C; Carter 28; BS 381 C 540. Source: Liveries of the Pre-Grouping Railways Vol 4 p 372 by Nigel J.L. Digby; Lightmoor Press 2020

[@ZGryphon]

This question is significantly easier to answer in Boston, where the lines of the MBTA subway are the Red Line, the Green Line, the Blue Line, and the Orange Line. (There's also the Silver Line, but, like the cable car, no one cares about that. :)

[@LarryJohnVA]

The same with the Washington DC Metro...

[@pwblackmore]

Well, that was fun. Unexpectedly witty, very informative, and somewhat self-deprecating. Thanks a bunch. The purple/maroon colour used over here by Canadian Pacific we call "Tuscan Red"... very striking.

[@SteamCrane]

As did the Pennsylvania Railroad.

[@johnledingham852]

The kettle boiled, but I didn't hear it. My wife will boil it again. The kettle turns itself off, now I'm going no further with this turning on and off conversation. We've survived 55 years as a married couple. I've said too much already for a survivor!

[@DoubleACbg]

I’d always thought of the Metropolitan Line’s color on the Tube map as being a shade of plum, maybe because of a paint color that I’d seen at my previous employer. The light rail map in Pittsburgh was definitely influenced by Harry Beck’s design, even though it has three colors for each line... red, blue and beige (sometimes white depending on the background color, and that’s used for a section that goes through the neighborhood of Allentown).

[@PlanetoftheDeaf]

Good summary. It's interesting that on the very early map 1:00 the C&SLR is black, while the Hampstead line is a very dark colour that's slightly lighter, but very similar. A way of showing that the 2 lines would come together soon as one line, without actually showing them as one line?

[@Bunter.948]

Well Mr H, without a shadow of doubt you've done it again. You've taken a subject which previously had not raised much excitement and rendered it captivating. Where would we be without you? Thanks, Simon T

[@frglee]

In the days when colour printing was a bit expensive (for diaries and guides etc), there were black and white tube maps with rather confusing chains of blobs, crosses and cube patterns for the lines. The Northern Line was still a black line, though. I remember also that the British Rail diagrams of London's railways also once did something similar with the tube connections being shown in glorious monochrome.

[@iankemp1131]

It would be fascinating to see one of those reproduced again. I will have to have a look at the back of my Dad's old A to Z. Of course they would have run out of different patterns faster than colours.

[@Musa_90]

Hi Jago I love this channel and all of its content. I was wondering if you could perhaps make a video about the burrowing of the tunnels and how the workers knew where they were going despite being underground. It seems astonishing they knew where to go despite being underground

[@JackAaronOestergaardChurchill]

I love the digs towards the cable car

[@DaVane]

I am loving the shade being thrown to the Cable Car - TfLs white elephant perfect alongside the Millenium Dome. I would love to see you do a video on the history of Tube Map design and changes over time between the different versions. But not as much as I would love to see you and Geoff Marshall do a collab video together...

[@tobys_transport_videos]

Bring on both!!! 🤣💖

[@archstanton6102]

Throwing shade - I see what you did there.

[@highdownmartin]

Misha Black also headed the design team who styled the D1000 “Western “ diesel hydraulics. Possibly the most handsome of all the diesel classes.

[@narphizoid]

All of the subway cars/carriages in the US have stainless steel handrails and grips: Before this video I never noticed that the handrails and grips in London match the colors of their lines!

[@TheExcalabur]

It's a good feature, though it does make the bakerloo line even more dreary than it already is. Having been half-asleep on the tube while commuting having a reminder where you are is helpful.

[@peterhoare2058]

I’ve travelled regularly on the Tube since the 1980s and I’ve only just noticed from this video that the handrails and handles in the carriages are the colour of the line they are running on! 😲

[@yetisphere]

I’ve previously always thought of the Metropolitan as ‘plum’, but now I’ve actually taken a closer look for the first time in years and my world has been thrown into confusion and doubt…

[@sewing9434]

An excellent video, and the locomotive livery makes sense as the start of the colour scheme. One note (not to quibble, but a curious detail): up to 1:25, the Waterloo & City Line *is* very subtly emphasized...although it's a thin, light grey line (along with all the other railway lines), its termini are shown as grey circles inside the station symbols for Waterloo (on the Bakerloo Railway) and Bank (on the Central London and City & South London Railways). All the other non-Underground stations are shown as light grey rectangles (including the main line Waterloo Station).

[@sycoraxrock]

Boston’s Green Line is green because it connects the Public Gardens with Olmstead’s “Emerald Necklace” (a bunch of public parks and arboretums and zoos south of the city that were basically Olmstead’s demo reel for Central Park in NYC.) That’s actually the official story per the MBTA. The Green Line includes the oldest part of the line, which was built very soon after they started building the London Underground, so that might be where the confusion comes from.

[@Lazorz210]

I still love the sheer contempt for the cable car on this channel

[@andrewpinner3181]

Thanks Jago, just watched this. At the point (near the beginning) where you say: 'Well l did some digging', l envisioned you enthusiastically digging at the end of your garden to create your own Jago tube station !

[@frenchfriar]

Jago, I always enjoy the spectrum of your color commentary of the various lines of the underground, they really help map out the idea vividly.

[@jamiearnott9669]

I appreciate the simple design of the tube map for one of the largest and oldest transport networks in the world. For why it's a classic, why change something that ain't broke?

[@davidowen6977]

That 1908 map specifically highlights the 'Army,Navy & Auxiliary Stores' 🤔. A stimulating and sometimes challenging discourse 👍

[@corinheathcote9868]

Fill in time while waiting to the Lincolnshire pudding's in the oven, (Yorkshire puddings really, but living in Lincolnshire we would never have anything to do the other side of the Humber) Keep up with the tales.👍🏻

[@littlebootsxxiv6871]

Waiting impatiently for the episode covering the history of upholstery on the tube... 😳

[@henrybest4057]

Vicky Pipe is an expert on railway moquettes.

[@SportyMabamba]

@@henrybest4057 I smell a crossover episode!

[@KevinTheCaravanner]

I’m one of the 1 in 12 men that is red/green colour blind (though I struggle more with green/brown). Whilst some maps aren’t designed with red/green colour blindness in mind, the tube map appears to be, because whilst I couldn’t name some of the colours, I can distinguish them. It’s just as well the colours are distinguishable by colour blind travellers because statistically 210,000 tube journeys are taken by red/green colour blind people every day. The only time I’ve had a problem is not with the map, but the signs. I arrived at Green Park from Westminster and needed to get to Euston quickly. Whilst the Victoria and Piccadilly lines are easily distinguishable on the map, I couldn’t differentiate the colours in the station. It was rush hour and I was swept along with the masses and reckoned I only had a 50% chance of seeing my home again. I’d therefore appreciate Jago doing a follow up video on content.tfl.gov.uk/bw-large-print-map.pdf.

[@Andrewjg_89]

The evolution of the tube map always fascinates people and enthusiasts. And yes the colour of the tube lines is ore simple but still gets confusing for some people who have never been to London. And the London Underground is to celebrate its 160th Birthday next year.

[@RichardFelstead1949]

As always, very interesting and entertaining. You've certainly coloured our lives with this video.I'll see myself out.

[@kevinfitzpatrick444]

So much shade at the cable car, and I'm absolutely here for it

[@1258-Eckhart]

I'm deffo going for black on the Northern Line, because it is the Darkness Line. When I started using it, it had the dimmest station lighting on the system and had a generally spooky feel other lines lacked. The stations have now been upgraded, relit &/or rebuilt (as currently Bank), but the line retains its inherent blackness.

[@chrisprice4203]

"you get your kicks where you can in cartography" amazing ;) hahaha

[@bordershader]

Surprised your research didn't show that the Central Line = red because it's an artery going through the heart of London. As a massive fan of the Northern Line I bristled a bit when you said the City & South London Railway "became part of the Northern Line", as if it wasn't the first (deep level line) - "was the origins of the Northern Line" would have been better! Loved 07:16 😆 Great vid, thanks!

[@nonameuserua]

“Filled in the time while you were waiting for the kettle to boil” It was the baddest 4th wall break I’ve ever experienced

[@6yjjk]

Something I've noticed on the few Tube lines I've been on, there are flecks of the line colour in the floor.

[@johnjephcote7636]

There used to be (at the time of Old Euston Station), coloured lights on the tube platforms...so that one could follow the colour for the correct line (supposing one could not read-like the old LCC tram destinations). My uncle used to suggest "Follow the voilet to the toilet" but there weren't any down below. I guess black was a good 'colour(?)' for the Northern Line as that is the shade of the large N pointer on a compass.

[@Krzyszczynski]

There were similar illuminated signs at Embankment/Charing Cross station.

[@peterjohncooper]

According to my Enormous Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Vol 1) Card is short for Cardinal meaning a red colour. Therefore Mid Card may be a duller version of that. Except that the colour of the Metropolitan Engines seem to be closer to Carmine - sort of purplish red.

[@michaeldonahoo461]

The urban myths are much more interesting than the actual history!

[@GNTel313]

Cheers Jago. ☕☕ 2 cups of tea later and I am fully refreshed with regards to the line colours of the London Underground 😀😀

[@jimtuite3451]

8.10 ....the Northern City line, in its final days as a branch shuttling between Drayton Park and Moorgate, was white with a heavy black border on the tube map. When in 1976 it was transfered to British rail, it stayed on the tube map as white, with a fine white border, just like the north london line had when it was added to the map in 1981 at the GLCs insistance

[@illyasvielemiya9059]

"I did some digging," Show footage of dark tunnel that actually a bit scary

[@oliverstemp9132]

Battleship Grey on a Fleet Line is a work of genius

[@kdisley]

I can remember seeing the tube map when I was a kid in the '80s, going up to see the Christmas lights in Oxford Street... being red-green colourblind, I used to get so confused I would just get an adult to point out the route we'd be taking because half the colours looked so similar I couldn't tell them apart, and trying to follow one specific line would give me a headache. Which is why I laughed when the comment about new colours being assigned on the basis of being "easily-distinguishable" came up.

[@michaeljohnson9421]

Some years ago you could buy a black & white edition of the London A-Z which featured a monochrome version of the tube map. The lines were shown by different patterns. The A-Z is now all-colour, and I haven't seen the monochrome map for a long time. I wonder if it's still available anywhere? I'm sure some people would find it easier to use than the colour version.

[@cigmorfil4101]

​@@michaeljohnson9421 I remember a pre-Jubilee monochrome line map with the Bakerloo line splitting at Baker Street with a branch to Stanmore.

[@frankw9619]

I have a book about the tube map somewhere and it has some information about the choices of colours. Interestingly, Harry Beck's design was only used up to - I think - 1959. I'll have to dig it out and check.

[@michaeltajfel]

It seems to be not well known that the Harry Beck map was dropped for a short time at some point in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The colours were the same of course. I was born in late 1949, and I remember the change back to the Beck design, which I hadn't seen before.

[@andrewkerfootphotography]

Your videos continue to fascinate me and dry humour is always the best. Thank you! This was a very cool video.

[@isashax]

A very educational tale from the tube! I had wondered about those colours, so thanks for this video again!

[@stepheneyles2198]

If my kettle took 10 minutes to boil I'd be taking it back to the shop... Or throwing it in the skip... Bin... Wherever old kettles go... Thanks Jago, for this entertaining, interesting, fun and colourful (colorful - for our friends on the opposite side) video about something we'd never though about before but now will remember each and every time we take the tube. Or don't as we don't live anywhere near London and have only been there a few times. Oh, sorry, that comments was too long, wasn't it?

[@bigaspidistra]

The Victoria Line was originally going to be Violet (well they share the 'V') and was shewn as such on the earliest 'under construction' maps of Hutchison. Early tests showed this colour didn't reproduce well on signage though.

[@highpath4776]

Taken out with an eraser - rubbery on Violets.

[@paxundpeace9970]

Have been watching since i discovered those episodes about Thamesmead. Very impressed.

[@KakairoC21]

Don't forget the DLR, which started as double blue lines to match the original blue and red logo, then became double dark teal lines when they adopted their second logo (technically "Petrol Blue", a weird choice for an electric railway) before finally adopting the current lighter teal.

[@ed_menno]

Great video. Another factor in colour choices is the technolology available at the time, and how practical and costly it was to use those colours in a range of situations from maps to signs and other schematic uses. This could be in terms of colourfastness, consistency of colour between oil paint, ink, masonry paint, early coloured plastics/mouldings etc. Hence maybe certain bold simple, reliable colours were chosen because that's all they had available? Certainly getting a consistent orange vs red a hundred years ago (which you mentioned) would indeed have been a real challenge, ditto the whole purple vs maroon vs burgundy vs brown midcared thing. Also the Northern Line being black may have been simply because it was first the first deep tube, and their maps were in monochrome? Thus other colours were added to that to that as the maps evolved. Just a thought?

[@CyclingSteve]

What a maroon! It's clearly burgundy.

[@mikepowell2776]

Haven’t lived in London for over 60 years and try to avoid it these days. Then we lived on the Airways Housing Estate in the angle between the Great West and Bath Roads. Nearest tube was Hounslow West (then the terminus) of the Piccadilly Line. I remembered it was blue on the map but also associate it with 3monthly medical checks in central London. Should be grateful really, I’ve managed another two-thirds of a century. Question: what stock was in use on that line in the late 1950s? Just subscribed on strength of your quality and humour. Thanks.

[@RB-xl1nd]

Great video. Title Sounds like a "Just So story ☺. I saw you already did How the elephant got his castle :) can't wait for more videos

[@PLuMUK54]

Regarding "Midcared", I have seen a reference to it also being called "Hanbury Chocolate". There is also a theory that the colour was a result of an unwillingness to waste paint. When "Midcared" first appeared, it was not unknown for paint shops to mix the remaining paints. It was in the red spectrum because red was the most common colour in many paint shops, but darkened because of other shades added. The theory is that carmine red was the dominant colour, so that the MID is what it says, CA refers to carmine, and RED what it says, so the colour is Mid Carmine Red. The only argument against this is that carmine is a bright red, so "Hanbury Chocolate"/maroon would at best be Dark Carmine Red, or "Dacared".

[@trek520rider2]

I always thought the colour from leftover paint, used on goods wagons, was known as "smudge".

[@stevec5586]

When I heard "Midcared" in this video, with no obvious spelling mentioned, I did wonder if it was a misreading of "Mid-claret", as in the colour of a red wine, which does happen to be a good colour match. Just an idea!

[@dukeofaaghisle7324]

When did the handrails and posts acquire the same colours as the lines the trains were running on? Very useful for when you forget which line you git on to. I don’t remember this as far back as the 1980s. …& love those digs at the Cable Car 😁

[@ajaxengineco]

I love the constant poking at the Cable Cars. They are the picket line to my TfL Strike.

[@barrydysert2974]

Being from the US, at the age of 20 i was blessed with spending the entire month of October 1982 in Bracknell, Berkshire. One night i missed the last train from London to Bracknell. After a rather cold night wandering around that big old station, who's name i can't quite remember, i got on the Circle Line the minute the tube opened up. For about 4 hours i rode around that wonderful warm circle. i have misty memories of people and faces glimpsed during infrequent moments of wakefulness. i was very sad to hear of its demise. In my memory (i can't find my official London Transport Tube Map tea towel!) it was the beautiful, unbroken red line i climbed aboard !:-)

[@johnm2012]

The main London terminus for Bracknell would be Waterloo. The Circle line still exists, it just doesn't run as a circle any more. In fact it's been extended into a spiral or "e" shape and if you get on at Hammersmith at the end of the curl of the "e" you pass through Edgware Road on your way round the circle to Edgware Road, which is also the other terminus! In the opposite direction, it runs from Edgware Road to Hammersmith via Edgware Road. So, although it's lost some of its charm by not running in a continuous circle any more, it's still quirky and interesting.

[@martyonline1957]

Being blessed with a month in Bracknell, is not something you see or hear everyday ha ha

[@Pinkybum]

I always perceive the yellow of the Circular Line getting a orangy hue when it is next to the Hammersmith and City Line/Metropolitan Lines. As opposed to when it is next to the green of the District Line where it stands out very well.

[@Krzyszczynski]

Weird, isn't it, how colours can seem to vary depending on what other colours they're adjacent to. The Impressionist painters understood the phenomenon very well.

[@Pinkybum]

@@Krzyszczynski My point being that yellow was not a good colour to choose for the Circular Line because it doesn't work with the adjacent line colours.

[@cigmorfil4101]

​@@Krzyszczynski The same effect happened with CRT TVs: the screen was grey when switched off and yet could display a darker black! (due to the contrast with the surrounding colours.)

[@aidanfolkes]

Fun fact, brown is actually just dark orange. Technology Connections did a video on it.

[@highpath4776]

Didnt Tom Scott do something on Orange does not exist ?

[@AaronOfMpls]

The Technology Connections video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZmXkoqQh9mHrbc . In his words, "Brown is orange with context."

[@highpath4776]

I think John Hampden is a Static, its Sarah Siddons that was (is/does/can?) run on its power on the network.

[@ninasolomon4628]

I could see your videos being part of a great bbc documentary. Love ur stuff !

[@peterdawson2645]

Interesting on the (always slightly strange) Northern City Line. I have a very old card folder map which I'd assumed was about 1908 when they were introduced, but if the NCR was originally orange it must be later, because it's shown in Metropolitan red. Wiki says they took it over in 1913. I've got another fold out one which was originally part of a street map, which I foolishly got rid of years back as I only wanted the Tube bit. On that one it's indeed orange, sort of.

[@stekra3159]

In Vienna we recently voted for the culer of the new U5 line the coise was between Thurkis and Pink Thurkis won

[@colinmaynard2879]

Thanks Jago…glad you’ve not bought a modern kettle yet. 😊

[@iangriffiths9840]

Bakerloo - Brown, always reminded me of Holmes' briar pipe

[@Blade_Daddy]

You are knowledgeable and humorous.

[@thomaswilson3437]

I purchased a framed a huge map of the tube circa 2015 and have it on my studio wall for no other reason than I think it looks neat….

[@6643bear]

Very interesting how the colours came about . Great video. Regards mark

[@Hiro_Trevelyan]

In French, the "dark red" of the metropolitan would be called "bordeaux" after the wine region. It's not just a dark red, but more of a dark red with hint of purple.

[@stephengreenwald5271]

And pretty much the same colour we call claret.

[@stephenweston1807]

@@stephengreenwald5271 ... or Burgundy...

[@eekee6034]

@@stephenweston1807 Or what Philistines like me call wine. ;)

[@LondonWalkbyLondonSocialite]

Thnaks for sharing 🦋🦋🦋 very interesting 🦋🦋🦋

[@GreenJimll]

I wasn't waiting for the kettle to boil whilst this video was playing. The very thought! Humpf! Though in other news, my veggie burgers have cooked beautifully in the 10 minutes or so I've been watching it...