i think this one might be in the running for “most esoteric question of the week.”
a city year volunteer in boston, i spend a whole lot of time on the MBTA (for non-mass residents, that is our local public transit conglomerate), especially on the green line train because i have always lived on it. the cars of all mbta trains have fluorescent lights lining the ceilings. the thing is, the green line trains each have on lonely green light casting its sickly glow on the last backwards-facing single seat on every single train.
this is especially confusing because there are no red lights on the red line or blue lights on the blue line or any such nonsense - this is only true of the green lines, and even since they have starting running the fancy newfangled trains the damned lights are still there, practically taunting me all the way home from copley square. can anyone enlighten me as to what the hell the deal is with these sickly-looking enigmas?
The different “lines” of the MBTA are entirely separate railroads; the Green line is a light rail line, whereas the Blue, Red, and Orange lines are rapid transit lines, using different cars and different gauge tracks. (None of the stock on any of the lines can run on the other lines – now that’s nonsense!) That’s why the cars aren’t like the others. Why the dim green lights there? I can’t imagine - both Breda and Kinki-Sharyo make well-lit cars for other transit systems.
yeah, the question lies not so much in why the green line is different in this way, but more in what practical or other kind of purpose could that green light serve?
no, those are generally located in the middle of the train. and even if they were, why would the lights be green and not red or something similarly cautionary?
WAG: It was planned for all MTBA lines (green for green, red for red, etc.), but they ran out of money/fired the guy in charge just after the Green Line lights were installed.
I’ve encountered pale-blue lighting in some Mississauga Transit buses. It make people look horrid, and makes it difficult to read. Only some buses have it.
For years this lighting puzzled me, until I read that it was designed to make veins difficult to see under the skin, so that intravenous drug users wouldn’t shoot up on the buses. I don’t know whether this is the reason Mississauga bought this feature, but it seems plausible as a reason for designing it.
yes, you would be right - also, new info, the new trains no longer do this, which is still more puzzling. the intravenous drug thing doesn’t really hold up because there is plenty of good light all over the rest of the train for a hardy new england junkie to shoot up.
Having logged a lot of hours on the Green Line in my youth, almost all of the cars were double ended… with driver’s seats on either end. Those were the LRVs and it appears they are still in use. I am pretty sure they phased out the Green Line trolleys by now.
The middle of the train had no backwards facing seats.