An era ends

1967 Tube Stock at Pimlico, originally uploaded by bowroaduk.

After 43 years, the end of an era: the 17.10 train from Seven Sisters to Brixton, the last 1967 Tube stock in passenger service, 30th June 2011. The design was the product of Design Research Unit, the company headed by Mischa Black, professor of industrial design at the Royal College of Art.

Sadly, these days, design has been degraded to become very largely, and little more than, an adjunct of marketing, though the old tradition lives on in Scandinavia. So this example of honest functional design deserves to be celebrated.