Animated ads in Red Line tunnels

Well, now thay have installed another rolling ad on another tunnel portion SOUTH of Park Street. This time it's the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ad in the southbound tunnel portion between South Station and Broadway. Looked cool as I saw it for the very first time last night, and the ship scenes looked awesome..........

Now, is it possible to do the shared tunnel portion between Andrew/Broadway? The tunnel walls can be seen from both trains, so one may be seeing two ads at the same time, maybe seeing one of them backwards.

The sped of the train is the major factor. The train must operate at 35-40mph. Andrew to Broadway is 50mph

Andrew to Broadway is 50mph

Actually, the trains that I have been at least on that segment have been only doing 39 mph, never 49.

Unless they can try out a rolling ad at 55 mph of course!!

from a foggy memory the 50 codes on the red line are:
Harvard to porter northbound
broadway to andrew north and south
a small stretch some where between kendall and central
a similar small stretch onn the south shore
(I'm sure the last one was wiped out by 10 codes)

a similar small stretch onn the south shore
(I'm sure the last one was wiped out by 10 codes)

You're right, it's 10mah now on approach to North Quincy Southbound, and on approach to Wollaston Northbound still ever since the 8/12/04 derailment......

Now back on topic, as I was riding the portion between Broadway and South Station in BOTH directions, I noticed that *neither* ad panel lit up at all, not the Target one or the doctored Royal Caribbean ad, all I could see was the poster in dark lit, but neither lit up as we whisked by them, something must have gone wrong with the backlit.

Rob, come to think of it, I haven't noticed the Harvard ad being on the last couple mornings either, but maybe I just don't see it anymore (and usually my coffee hasn't kicked in at that point, so a lot goes over my head at that hour).

I've seen the Target ad near Harvard within the past week.

But obviously, if you see it every day, its effectiveness becomes pretty minimal. The first time, my reaction was WOW, what was that? The second and third times were pretty cool too. But when months go by without changing the ad, nobody is noticing it anymore. Perhaps the advertisers don't realize this.

Rob, come to think of it, I haven't noticed the Harvard ad being on the last couple mornings either, but maybe I just don't see it anymore (and usually my coffee hasn't kicked in at that point, so a lot goes over my head at that hour).

Well, I was able to look hard out the window and under the tunnel lights and was able to see the darkened ad poster as it was continuing along between South Sta and Bway, just not lit up as usual.

Hopefully they'll have new Ads, like some Airlines and maybe a Wal-Mart ad banner along those tunnels in the future (I would like to see that yellow happy face on the tunnel side )

You want Wal-Mart's name in more places than it already is?

There's a first for everything, I guess.

Given that there are no Wal-Marts anywhere near T stations (a situation that I hope lasts forever), I sure don't want any Wal-Mart ads in the T.

Target is at least sort of walkable (though unpleasantly) from Wellington or Andrew.

There's a Wal-Mart near Quincy Center station, and presumably more in the vicinity of commuter rail stations.

On the subject of the novelty wearing off... I love watching other people's faces when they spy it for the first time. I will watch for the signs starting up as we approach, and then I scan the faces of people facing that wall. It is still totally unexpected by a lot of first timers. Coming in from JFK, you get a lot of tourists riding the system, so there is always a fresh reaction!

How long was the contract for? Could possibly be that the contracts for those ads ran out and new ones may be on the way in the near future...

And I think Frank is onto something here with the first time viewers...this time of year has less of them so it may not be worthwhile for the ads to be operational since they don't have their bang any more. In the next few months that should change though.

Pete wrote:There's a Wal-Mart near Quincy Center station, and presumably more in the vicinity of commuter rail stations.

Plymouth station is located directly behind a Wal Mart.

Robert Paniagua wrote:Well, I was able to look hard out the window and under the tunnel lights and was able to see the darkened ad poster as it was continuing along between South Sta and Bway, just not lit up as usual.

After seeing the Target ad outside Harvard not light up many times now I have a theory as to why sometimes they light and sometimes not... I'm betting there's a train-speed sensor near the leading end of the sign that only trips the strobe lights on if the train is up to some minimum speed. (After all, if the train isn't going exactly the right speed the "movie" appears to drift side-to-side. A *really* slow train wouldn't give a viewable movie, and I'm sure the designers of the signs thought of that.)

I bet it's some sort of air-pressure sensor (faster train = more air pressure in tunnel) or ultrasonic reflective speed sensor. I doubt it's radar, but someone could bring their car radar detector on the train sometime.

Also - anyone besides me noticed that the Harvard sign is looking much dimmer these days? I think they need to change the strobe bulbs - or dust 'em off.