The other day my 2.5 year old son added a station platform to his train set, and told me “red station is Footscray, green is West Footscray, yellow is Sunshine, and blue is Parliament”. So how does colour get used at Melbourne railway stations?

It appears my son has been paying a lot of attention – Parliament is blue.

Footscray is red.

West Footscray is green.

Sunshine is yellow.

The last three stations were all rebuilt in 2013-15 as part of the Regional Rail Link project, hence the similar design, but the architects were smart enough to give each station it’s own identity through the use of a feature colour.

Compare this to the growing number of stations rebuilt across Melbourne by the Level Crossing Removal Authority.

Gardiner.

Ginifer.

And St Albans.

Notice a common grey theme?

Apparently the Level Crossing Removal Authority does use colour at some stations.

Hi Marcus, we try to make sure it's not just shades of grey at our stations! Colours are considered in the design stage and each one is different – take the colourful Gardiner Station entrance or the new Rosanna Station as a few examples https://t.co/pVsVfYqX8s — Level Crossings (@levelcrossings) March 19, 2018

Ormond, Mckinnon or Bentleigh stations being three of them.

The only problem? They used the same identical colour palette of yellow, orange and red at each station!

Okay, where am I now? Well um orange and red = Ormond, Mckinnon or Bentleigh, I guess.😕 pic.twitter.com/k3EopqxzKk — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) October 23, 2017

It shouldn’t cost anything more to use coloured panels instead of plain grey – so why does every station have to look the same?

A lesson from Hong Kong

In Hong Kong every station on the MTR network has a signature colour.

This interview with the MTR Corporation’s chief architect describes their reasoning

The main reason bright colours were adopted when the first line opened in the 1970s was to lighten up the subway system, according to Andrew Mead, the MTR Corporation’s chief architect. With no windows or natural light, underground platforms can be gloomy. Bright colours are associated with beauty, and they bring a dash of that to the mostly subterranean stations, he says. The corporation could have chosen a neutral white design. But Mead says an important factor in picking different colours was function. Underground, where there are no landmarks to look out for like when you’re travelling by bus or car, colour helped differentiate the MTR stations, and gave each their own identity. That was important, Mead says, because “back in the 1970s, there was still a high level of illiteracy” in the city.

Another place that lacks landmarks is a Melbourne railway trench, or onboard a train with advertising covered windows – so why is the use of colour at Melbourne railway stations so rare?

An update from the Level Crossing Removal Authority

Five identical looking stations have been built as part of the Caulfield to Dandenong level crossing removal project.

The Level Crossing Removal Authority dropped me an email, explaining their choice of station colours:

Carnegie Station – deep yellow Murrumbeena Station – deep red Hughesdale Station – deep green The colours selected for the inner urban villages of Area 1 celebrate

their strong connection to the Boyd family, and have been conceived as

a set of complementary but distinctive colours. The deep yellow, deep

red and deep green pay homage to a series of the Boyd family pottery. Clayton Station – blue Clayton is undergoing a significant transformation towards a larger

activity centre as part of the broader employment cluster. The colour

selected at Clayton Station signifies the precinct redevelopment as an

urban catalyst, and represents its connection to research,

manufacturing and learning (ie, Monash University, CSIRO, etc.) Noble Park Station – bright green Noble Park is a strong community-oriented activity centre within a

well-landscaped setting. The colour adopted at Noble Park Station

draws reference from the bright green used throughout the

municipality, including the skate park in the vicinity.

Say what you want about the reasoning behind each, but I’m glad they picked different colours!

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