Violet-white trains to change colours

The new lot of coaches that are expected to add to the fleet of new-age trains from 2012 will not be violet and white, but red and yellow, reports Shashank Rao.

The new lot of coaches that are expected to add to the fleet of new-age trains from 2012 will not be violet and white, but red and yellow.

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The railways have decided to revert to the old colour scheme, which was in use before the violet-and-white Siemens locals started running in the city from November 2007, as they dirtied easily, especially because of paan stains.

“Looking at people’s habit of spitting from trains, the National Institute of Design has suggested painting the new trains with a dark colour like red to camouflage the paan stains,” said a senior railway official, requesting anonymity.

The railways spend around Rs 2 lakh per coach to remove paan stains and clean the exterior using chemicals and detergents.

“The colours selected as combinations are usually based on VIBGYOR schemes. The first three colours of violet, indigo and blue are royal soothing colours that don’t strain eyes and that’s why the violet-white combination was used,” added the railway official.

There were 12 colour combinations suggested for the new-age trains, including violet-white, green-violet, green-white, red-violet, indigo-white and black-white.

“We wanted a visually balanced and composed colour for the new trains and so we introduced violet-and-white ones,” said Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation managing director, PC Sehgal.

Another suggestion by the National Institute of Design was to paint trains according to their type. The alternating current (AC) new-age trains would be painted with one colour, while the old trains running on Direct Current (DC) would have another colour combination.

And when the DC trains would be retrofitted with AC ones then all of them would be of same colour scheme.

The railways are converting all 1,500 KV DC trains to 25,000 KV AC ones to save electricity and travel time.