Transport for London (TfL) take their colours extremely seriously – the London Underground, in particularly, uses colour extensively to brand each line, and the maps and liveries are very well known.
The organisation has a colour guide to ensure that, when referencing the tube lines, the correct colour is used. Somewhat surprisingly, the guide includes hexadecimal (i.e. web) colours for only a “safe” palette – i.e. colours which would definitely work in very old web browsers. They don’t list the “true” hexadecimal for the colours, even though, confusingly, the colour shown is the true one. I couldn’t find anywhere on the web that did this either, all in one place, so here below is a summary. I’ve also included the safe colours so you can see the difference – but don’t use these unless you have to.
| Line | True Hexadecimal | Web Safe Hexadecimal |
|---|---|---|
| Bakerloo | #B36305 | #996633 |
| Central | #E32017 | #CC3333 |
| Circle | #FFD300 | #FFCC00 |
| District | #00782A | #006633 |
| Hammersmith and City | #F3A9BB | #CC9999 |
| Jubilee | #A0A5A9 | #868F98 |
| Metropolitan | #9B0056 | #660066 |
| Northern | #000000 | #000000 |
| Piccadilly | #003688 | #000099 |
| Victoria | #0098D4 | #0099CC |
| Waterloo and City | #95CDBA | #66CCCC |
| DLR | #00A4A7 | #009999 |
| Overground | #EE7C0E | #FF6600 |
| Tramlink | #84B817 | #66CC00 |
Quite remarkable the difference between the true and web safe colours in the Metropolitan Line. Strange how there’s not a more similar colour to the original magenta, than that shade of purple. Also, the difference between th DLR, Victoria, Waterloo and City and Piccadilly lines becomes much dimmer in the web safe version.
Yes, you are not the first person to express surprise over the Metropolitan line colour, in particular. I’ve double-checked the PDF and it is indeed listed like that.
I think I even prefer the web-safe version. Quite often I tend to confuse the Metropolitan line and the Hammersmith and City because of both being two shades of pink. This makes it much clearer.
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