Lighting quality on trains: are you bothered?

[BRX]

I have noticed the same thing, but I suspect they mostly do care but can't muster the mental effort to understand or alleviate the problem. I find it takes close attention to the small print, plus some degree of "sixth sense" for identifying and compensating for accidental inaccuracy or deliberate mendacity in manufacturers' descriptions, and if there is a picture of the thing working also some understanding of the deficiencies of photographic colour reproduction processes, to attain some reasonable degree of confidence that I am actually buying what I want; and even so the only truly definite knowledge is that gained when you put juice through it. (This is part of the reason I make my own LED bulbs: buying a batch of naked LEDs which turn out to be wrong wastes a lot less money than buying an equivalent number of incorrect complete assemblies.)

I think the correlation between rail enthusiasm and the ability to coherently analyse and articulate one's dissatisfaction with lighting quality does not so much reflect whether or not someone cares, as whether or not they are happy to nerd on about it and pay scrupulous attention to lots of arcane details when making an everyday purchase of a commonplace item.

I have encountered plenty of people with no affinity either for railways or for nerdery who nevertheless moan like billy-o about the disappearance of incandescent bulbs, and do things like laying in a massive stockpile while they still can or ferreting out suppliers of bulbs for "industrial" purposes which the regulations still allow. When I suggest that it would be better to simply pay enough attention to what they are buying to choose LED bulbs which are not horrible, they react with dismissive scorn and refuse to give the idea the slightest consideration.

Before that it was CFLs taking a long time to attain full brightness (so find which models do and don't do that and pick the ones which don't) and before that it was full-size fluorescents being cold and flickery (so pick tubes with a warm and long-persistence phosphor mix). Same reaction in both cases: scornful dismissal to the point of denying that the versions without those defects even existed.

People certainly do care; it's just that the non-nerdy majority would rather follow the brute-force approach of hunting down incandescent bulbs because they're all the same and you know what you're getting without having to think about it, instead of figuring out how to find out what you're getting with the alternatives.

I also believe it's pretty well scientifically established that most people in general do prefer warm-coloured lighting, even if a few don't. Which makes sense, since there's a powerful influence from the relation between the colour temperature of daylight and the weather. It's only natural that people should mostly prefer lighting which more closely resembles nice weather.

So I do think that lighting quality on trains is relevant to the general public - ditto other so-called "minor" factors under the general heading of "thoughtfulness" which affect how welcoming or oppressive it feels to travel on the railway, such as flickering displays in the corner of your eye or seats not lining up with windows. And we know it's not just nerds who object to constant barrages of announcements. I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss such concerns simply because people on here can happily go into detail about them rather than lumping them all together into a general feeling that trains are kind of yuck.

Good post - I agree with pretty much all of this!

 

[Annetts key]

I also believe it's pretty well scientifically established that most people in general do prefer warm-coloured lighting, even if a few don't. Which makes sense, since there's a powerful influence from the relation between the colour temperature of daylight and the weather. It's only natural that people should mostly prefer lighting which more closely resembles nice weather.

So, what colour do you think the light from the sun is?

And do you think it is a different colour on a non-nice weather day?

So I do think that lighting quality on trains is relevant to the general public - ditto other so-called "minor" factors under the general heading of "thoughtfulness" which affect how welcoming or oppressive it feels to travel on the railway, such as flickering displays in the corner of your eye or seats not lining up with windows. And we know it's not just nerds who object to constant barrages of announcements. I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss such concerns simply because people on here can happily go into detail about them rather than lumping them all together into a general feeling that trains are kind of yuck.

Yes, the railways should put more effort into lighting. Just as supermarkets and shops should. Some of which are well aware that having lighting with a good CRI helps improve sales compared to if poor lighting is used.

Unfortunately, I don’t see anything changing while the railways are being run the way they are. This government does not care about this part of the passenger experience.

 

[Irascible]

Sunlight isn't even the same temperature all day on a clear day, let alone a cloudy one. Mix in light reflected from the ground of various colour....

( iirc sunrise/set is about 3000k, mid-day on a clear summer day is about 6000k, and overcast is more like 7500k )

 

[Ediswan]

So, what colour do you think the light from the sun is?

Unsurprisingly, it varies. "Clear blue sky" is usually described as around 10,000 K. The whole business of colour temperature and what (most) people perceive as pleasant "warm" lighting is complicated.

 

[Annetts key]

Unsurprisingly, it varies. "Clear blue sky" is usually described as around 10,000 K. The whole business of colour temperature and what (most) people perceive as pleasant "warm" lighting is complicated.

That’s my exact point.

My other point, is that are people preferring “warm white” because that is what they have been used to for most of their lives?

There was not a great deal of choice of “colour” with tungsten filament conventional light lamps.

Did people think that tungsten filament conventional light lamps were too bright and too white when they replaced gas lighting and candles?

 

[prod_pep]

Warm white lighting is the least like nice weather of the three main categories. There is a reason why 6000K and above lighting is referred to as 'daylight white'.

Caring what temperature bulbs one uses is hardly in itself 'nerdy'. It was only when I started to notice cooler lighting in other people's houses and decided it was an improvement that I made the change.

 

[ar10642]

This never hit home harder than back in 2003-05 when me and my girlfriend at the time used to go to Brighton most weekends in the summer and travelling on the old units back to London was an absolute joy in their beautifully lit compartments with comfortable seats.

Then the 377's started to appear and it became a case of crossing all our fingers that we'd get lucky and not have to travel back in a sterile , uncomfortable, bright and coldly lit plastic, 'taste of 'the future'.

Never been able to understand, either now or then, how the comfort of nearly all modern trains with their ambience of cold bright lights and uncomfortable seats can be considered progress... Surely a little extra thought into small things like lighting temperature shouldn't be so hard?!

Were you travelling first class? The CIGs used to have horrible strip lighting in standard class. I remember many long, long trips on the 0005 back to Eastbourne and Lewes and I didn't find the old slammers particularly great, especially not the draughty old VEPs which had the ambiance of a prison carriage. I prefer the 377s and even the 700s to anything back then personally.

 

[yorksrob]

Were you travelling first class? The CIGs used to have horrible strip lighting in standard class. I remember many long, long trips on the 0005 back to Eastbourne and Lewes and I didn't find the old slammers particularly great, especially not the draughty old VEPs which had the ambiance of a prison carriage. I prefer the 377s and even the 700s to anything back then personally.

I prefer the old slammers. Even the VEP's were rather more comfortable than the high density fitted Electrostars.

And they only ended up with strip lighting at half way through their existence and even then the ambience was considerably less clinical than a 700.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Warm white lighting is the least like nice weather of the three main categories. There is a reason why 6000K and above lighting is referred to as 'daylight white'.

Caring what temperature bulbs one uses is hardly in itself 'nerdy'. It was only when I started to notice cooler lighting in other people's houses and decided it was an improvement that I made the change.

Sunny weather is a warm, slightly yellowish colour, so warm white is the closest. Daylight white as GWR used was like a miserable, cloudy day, indeed even cloudy weather looked warmer through the windows than the lighting did. Awful. Cool white (closest to pure white you get, as e.g. in 350/2s) is like a neutral day, a bit cloudy but not dull either.

I do use cool white in my kitchen but that's because the walls are terracotta and warm white makes them look a bit too imposing. The rest of the house is warm white and it's lovely.

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Unsurprisingly, it varies. "Clear blue sky" is usually described as around 10,000 K. The whole business of colour temperature and what (most) people perceive as pleasant "warm" lighting is complicated.

The sky itself may be, but it's a sunny day today and the light is nothing like daylight tubes as used on GWR etc.

It's not as yellow as the very yellow warm whites e.g. the original Mk3 lighting, but it's a much warmer colour than daylight tubes which replicate a cloudy winter's day.

Having said all that, I care more about the quality of the light than the colour temperature, as long as it's cool white or better and not "daylight white" as I find that really unpleasant - replicating a miserable cloudy day isn't good for mood. To me you want indirect background lighting at a lowish level, spots down the gangway and reading lights at seats. Other than the latter which is rare on the railway, 397s and 196s (both have the same lighting setup) do this quite well, whereas while the Mk3 coach original lighting was a warm colour it was grossly overlit and poorly diffused so was grossly unpleasant, and the least said about the direct undiffused tubes of the PEP and Mk3 EMUs and DMUs the better.

In early LED days there was also a problem with flicker, as some cheap bulbs pulsed at 50Hz, but since that people seem to have discovered that capacitors are actually a thing and you don't seem to see that any more, thank goodness as it gave me a headache and was no doubt even worse to epileptics. This also happened with cheap retrofit LED tail lamp bulbs on cars (deliberately pulsed to dim them), and was really distracting as the light would appear to move after the car did.

 

[bramling]

I prefer the old slammers. Even the VEP's were rather more comfortable than the high density fitted Electrostars.

And they only ended up with strip lighting at half way through their existence and even then the ambience was considerably less clinical than a 700.

Yes the strip lighting in the likes of CEP/CIG/VEP never bothered me at all. Compared to today’s stuff it wasn’t that bright nor harsh, and didn’t seem to create the unpleasant reflections you get on something like a 700.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes the strip lighting in the likes of CEP/CIG/VEP never bothered me at all. Compared to today’s stuff it wasn’t that bright nor harsh, and didn’t seem to create the unpleasant reflections you get on something like a 700.

I don't find the 700s the absolute worst as the lighting isn't overbright and there are some shadows, plus it's brighter in the aisle and a bit less bright over the seats because it all just points down. It's when you have such a bright, universal coverage that there are no shadow effects at all that it feels unpleasant and unnatural. Thus the use of two direct and two indirect strips on the 777s, for instance, is to me about as nasty as one can get. I never liked the bare tubes you describe, though, the glare and flicker is horrible, fluorescent tubes should always be diffused properly.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes the strip lighting in the likes of CEP/CIG/VEP never bothered me at all. Compared to today’s stuff it wasn’t that bright nor harsh, and didn’t seem to create the unpleasant reflections you get on something like a 700.

Indeed. They were better before the florescent tubes though.

 

[prod_pep]

Sunny weather is a warm, slightly yellowish colour, so warm white is the closest.

No, in terms of colour temperature warm white is the furthest away. A warm sunny day is between 5000-6500K on the scale, within the daylight white range and nowhere near warm white.

I'm not a fan of daylight white in lighting myself, although it isn't bad in lamps, just making the point replicating sunny weather isn't necessarily desirable in houses.

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, in terms of colour temperature warm white is the furthest away. A warm sunny day is between 5000-6500K on the scale, within the daylight white range and nowhere near warm white.

I'm not a fan of daylight white in lighting myself, although it isn't bad in lamps, just making the point replicating sunny weather isn't necessarily desirable in houses.

I just put my kitchen lights on (cool white, so warmer than daylight white) and they are definitely considerably bluer than the sunlight presently streaming nicely through the front window. By comparison the milky warm white spots on the lounge ceiling are quite a bit warmer than that, more like incandescent bulbs.

I did consider downloading a colour temperature meter on my phone to compare them, but I can't find a cheap or free one on iOS, they're all useless as downloaded and require costly in app purchases to get any functionality, probably because they're intended for pro photographers and not people who are just wondering!

In reality the difference could well be because direct non cloudy sunlight contains a much wider spectrum than particularly cheap LEDs. I used to have a fake sunrise alarm clock that used a proper bulb which was meant to be daylight colour, and that wasn't like a normal incandescent but had a bit of a blue green coating on it. Those bulbs were the closest to actual sunlight I've ever seen artificial light get.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Apr 2023 ==

Found this:

Lighting 101: Color Temperature – What is the Kelvin Scale? - Larson Electronics

What is color temperature? Color temperature, is defined as “the temperature of an ideal black-body radiator that radiates light of a color comparable to

www.larsonelectronics.com

I'd say the clear sunlight was around 6000, the spots maybe 2500-3000 and the kitchen spots about 7000-7500, looking at that. Interesting. From memory FGW HST lighting was probably about 8000-8500.

 

[BRX]

I'm not sure it's worth getting too tied up in the question of what colour temperature matches what kind of sunshine or daylight at what time of day, because the perception of light and colour is highly subjective and complicated.

It's better to focus on what people in general prefer, and there's loads of evidence that most people go for a "warm white" round about 3000K in a domestic setting, that is, in their living room for example.

That's relevant to a long distance train, because generally a long distance train is somewhere you will be for a while and I think most people want a reasonably relaxing rather than stimulating environment.

It's not unusual for a kitchen to have somewhat cooler and brighter lighting because that's where you are more likely to be focussed on tasks rather than "relaxing" as such.

I think it's fine for metro-type trains, where most people make short journeys, and might feel it's more important to feel that things are safe, to have somewhat cooler/brighter lighting, although overly cool or bright lighting can easily start to feel harsh and intimidating.

On the Thameslink 700s, for example, the lighting is relatively cool, certainly cooler and brighter than the trains they replaced. I use them all the time for journeys within London and don't have any objection to that lighting really - I'm rarely on them for more than 20 minutes. But when I use one of those trains to travel back to London from Brighton, not exactly a long journey, but the kind of journey where you might want to settle in and relax for a bit, then the lighting does feel wrong, not awful but a bit colder and brighter than it needs to be.

 

[cactustwirly]

Good. We’ve already lost the nice fake wooden panels for a cheap looking duck egg.

The fake wood was horribly dated though

 

[Bletchleyite]

The fake wood was horribly dated though

It wasn't fake wood, was it? It was a sort of deep red leather effect, with fag-burn pattern on the ceiling conduit (which remains).

Actual fake wood as per TPE would have looked good, though I don't mind how they actually did do it with the dark blue either. What I dislike is just plain boring grey as e.g. TfW are doing.

Lighting wise it's not a bad balance, it's brighter than it was but not garish.

 

[StKeverne1497]

Did people think that tungsten filament conventional light lamps were too bright and too white when they replaced gas lighting and candles?

I have an old book, "The Handyman and Home Mechanic" which has, among chapters on how to build a rabbit hutch and repair a gas engine, a chapter devoted to "how to install the electric light". It's very interesting on many fronts, but relevant to the above is that it suggests a standard lamp with 25W (twenty five Watt) bulb is ideal for reading. Bearing in mind that incandescents were even less efficient back then than they were when they were banned, I don't think you'd find anyone who would consider 25W behind your shoulder - probably covered with a heavy shade - would be ideal for reading by these days but back then when people were replacing candles, oil lamps and gas flames (the gas mantle, which can be exceptionally bright, was not really perfected until after the incandescent lamp became economic) it probably seemed like a revelation.

 

[stut]

This is something I'm very sensitive to, as the "wrong" lighting is quite painful for me, and also a migraine trigger.

"Wrong" can mean many factors, or combination of factors, around brightness, colour and flicker. Too bright, too dark, too blue, too slow a flicker, and it sets me off (for some reason, my brain is bad at filtering flicker).

I do have coloured glasses I can wear in circumstances where this I know this is a problem (my old office, for example, or the refurbished 365s before they went off). However, they cause strain elsewhere, so I try to avoid.

Anyway, I don't expect this small minority of cases to drive the kind of decision making you get about lighting, but I don't think this is entirely unheard of as a reaction to certain types of lighting.

 

[455refurb]

Not sure if the 345's have been mentioned, but that is an example of a modern train with a very pleasant internal ambience to me. The nicely diffused warm light contrasts well with the dark grey panelling, with brighter lighting coming on in the door areas at stops. This is entirely subjective however, as I'm sure to other people they'd be gloomy.

Coupled with the colourful seat moquette I think they have a really nice interior, which shows it can be done! (Shame the seats themselves are rock hard...)

 

[Ediswan]

but relevant to the above is that it suggests a standard lamp with 25W (twenty five Watt) bulb is ideal for reading. Bearing in mind that incandescents were even less efficient back then than they were when they were banned, I don't think you'd find anyone who would consider 25W behind your shoulder - probably covered with a heavy shade - would be ideal for reading by these days

25W would have been fine in a proper reading lamp such as Anglepoise. Those use a reflector to both direct the light where it is wanted, and shield it from where it is not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Not sure if the 345's have been mentioned, but that is an example of a modern train with a very pleasant internal ambience to me. The nicely diffused warm light contrasts well with the dark grey panelling, with brighter lighting coming on in the door areas at stops. This is entirely subjective however, as I'm sure to other people they'd be gloomy.

Coupled with the colourful seat moquette I think they have a really nice interior, which shows it can be done! (Shame the seats themselves are rock hard...)

Yes, I'd agree these get it very much right, the London Overground version too and the 720s aren't bad but lack the spots (there has to be something good about them).

Sadly the 701s (if they ever enter service) have a different, more direct and less classy setup.

 

[thedbdiboy]

I'm old enough to remember traveling in Mk.1 carriages which were usually unlit during daylight hours (the guard had to remember to switch the lights on before going through a tunnel, and switch them off a gain after). Many films and TV shows rely on unlit carriages going through tunnels for effect, such as The Lady Vanishes or the first episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.

That was as much about conserving the batteries before trains had a constant electrical supply and each coach had a generator that topped the battery up. Many preserved railways run with the lights off for the same reason.

Were you travelling first class? The CIGs used to have horrible strip lighting in standard class. I remember many long, long trips on the 0005 back to Eastbourne and Lewes and I didn't find the old slammers particularly great, especially not the draughty old VEPs which had the ambiance of a prison carriage. I prefer the 377s and even the 700s to anything back then personally.

The SR slammers were built with naked tungsten lightbulbs for saloon lighting - including VEPs being built up to 1974!

I prefer the old slammers. Even the VEP's were rather more comfortable than the high density fitted Electrostars.

And they only ended up with strip lighting at half way through their existence and even then the ambience was considerably less clinical than a 700.

I didn't like the post-facelift strip lighting - I don't mind the Electrostar ambience. The worst lighting of all as several have commented was the Standard Class HST Mk3 saloon lighting post-refurb on FGW/GWR. Designed for strip searches in a holding cell...

 

[Bletchleyite]

I find the metal diffusers with holes on the Electrostars and S-stock do give quite good results, but they're quite wasteful of energy as they require brighter tubes than would be required for a traditional plastic or grate-shaped diffuser because they block so much light.

 

[Annetts key]

In early LED days there was also a problem with flicker, as some cheap bulbs pulsed at 50Hz…

No, LEDS in mains fittings (which the exception of very cheap or fake Chinese export ‘products’) flicker at 100Hz if smoothing capacitors are not used.

Filament lamps and fluorescent tubes (when used with conventional control gear) also flicker at 100Hz.

The difference is that the thermal mass of the filament reduces the amount of visible flicker to the human eye. And the phosphor in good quality fluorescent tubes should have a long enough decay time such that again, the flicker is not visible to the human eye.

The problem with fluorescent tubes occurs when either lower quality tubes are used, the tube is reaching the end of its life, or there is a fault with the fitting or control gear.

If electronic control gear is used, this can operate at a much higher frequency. Both for fluorescent lights and LED lamps. Now the frequency is far to high for the human eye to see.

However, the LED electronic control gear (or driver) can fail. Or the bond wires in the LEDs can fail. Either of these can result in a very visible flashing or flicker. More sophisticated electronic control gear can detect this and just shut the LEDs off.

Note the above frequency of 100Hz applies to 50Hz AC supplies. In 60Hz areas, the flicker will be at 120Hz.

This also happened with cheap retrofit LED tail lamp bulbs on cars (deliberately pulsed to dim them), and was really distracting as the light would appear to move after the car did.

This is due to a poor design of pulse width modulation. Or variable frequency modulation.

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I'm not sure it's worth getting too tied up in the question of what colour temperature matches what kind of sunshine or daylight at what time of day, because the perception of light and colour is highly subjective and complicated.

It's better to focus on what people in general prefer, and there's loads of evidence that most people go for a "warm white" round about 3000K in a domestic setting, that is, in their living room for example.

That's relevant to a long distance train, because generally a long distance train is somewhere you will be for a while and I think most people want a reasonably relaxing rather than stimulating environment.

It's not unusual for a kitchen to have somewhat cooler and brighter lighting because that's where you are more likely to be focussed on tasks rather than "relaxing" as such.

The trouble is, that some of the railway companies market long distance trains as somewhere where a passenger can work. Hence they may think lighting should be suitable for working and reading.

How many offices have warm white lighting?

 

[Bald Rick]

As a result of this thread I have now been on the look out for different lighting types / levels / colours etc in different trains. I’ve done this for a week now on about 7-8 different types of rolling stock. My conclusion:

It really makes no difference! (To me).

 

[GoneSouth]

Also I distinctly recall a CrossCountry Voyager that had purple luggage rack accent lights (in about 2019 maybe). It looked pretty cool but I've never seen it since.

Could this have been a Virgin west coast voyager? Sounds like the sort of thing they might do.

No mention of the East Midlands 222s. I like the idea of their subdued warm lighting but to be honest last time I was on one it was knackered, some bulbs didn’t work whilst others had been replaced by brighter cooler bulbs.

GWR do a spectacularly bad job with lighting interiors. The IETs are like sitting in full sunshine whilst some of the 165s have really cool yet dim tubes which makes them feel both cold and dingy, it’s like Glasgow in January

 

[Mikey C]

The trouble is, that some of the railway companies market long distance trains as somewhere where a passenger can work. Hence they may think lighting should be suitable for working and reading.

How many offices have warm white lighting?

That's a good point. The same carriage will have
People trying to work (laptop, documents)
People just chatting with friends
People watching movies on their phones/tablets
People reading
People relaxing and enjoying the scenery

All will have different lighting requirements.

 

[ar10642]

I prefer the old slammers. Even the VEP's were rather more comfortable than the high density fitted Electrostars.

And they only ended up with strip lighting at half way through their existence and even then the ambience was considerably less clinical than a 700.

Each to their own I guess. I'd not want to go back to them. I can still smell them somehow

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The SR slammers were built with naked tungsten lightbulbs for saloon lighting - including VEPs being built up to 1974!

Yes I vaguely remember that but I was very young. They had flourescent tubes for a long time after that.

 

[yorksrob]

Each to their own I guess. I'd not want to go back to them. I can still smell them somehow

I wish I bloody could