Color of bridges.

[Sascha]

To my knowledge, and the Tomix catalog, there are four different colored (steel? )bridges. Red,green,blue and yellow. Is there a meaning behind it, or are they just painted to fit the area or something.

[Das Steinkopf]

Good question, I can't say for sure but I think you could be onto something here, from what I have noticed JR Central tends to use green for its bridges on it's 3'6" lines, however I have noticed that bridges on the Shinkansen lines are pale blue as well as those on the JR West sections. I haven't travelled that far on JR East lines outside of Tokyo other than a trip to Matsumoto to really get a good idea, mind you most of that trip was on Chuo Mainline.

[Kabutoni]

IIRC green was mostly used in green areas (forests, mountains, etc.) and red more in populated areas or to make the bridge stand out in the landscape as an engineering feat (as done so for hundreds of years in Japan). Yellow probably for higher visibility where needed and blue and other colours probably to make the bridges less conspicuous.

[Ochanomizu]

Hello,

 

There is no formal reason for any colour.  The colours are chosen to loosely fit with typical bridges in Japan.

[Sascha]

Dang. I was hoping that there was more to it. Oh well.Thanks guys!!!