These Trains Have Eyes!
Do the subway cars in Boston, Massachusetts, have faces? No, but they have eyes!
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Fans of Thomas the Tank Engine or The Little Engine That Could, listen up! Just as those fictional trains have faces, some real-life trains do too. Eyes have been added to a few subway trains in Boston, Massachusetts, making life a little more fun for the city’s travelers.
Phillip Eng, who runs Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), said the idea came from a group of city residents. The group even brought a package of plastic googly eyes to the MBTA headquarters and suggested sticking them on the front of the city’s subway trains.
“When I saw it, it made me laugh,” Eng told the Associated Press. “I thought we could do something like that to have some fun.”
Eng loved the idea but decided not to use the plastic eyes, fearing they’d fall off the trains and become a safety hazard. Instead, the MBTA used decals (stickers) that look just like googly eyes, without the moving eyeballs. Added to the other details on the front of each train, the eyes make it look like the trains have faces.
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
The MBTA added the eyes to only five of its trains so that getting to ride a train with eyes would be rare and special for travelers. Eng compared this to Where’s Waldo, the book series in which readers try to find a man named Waldo in a series of complicated pictures.
“When we chatted about it, [we decided] it would be like finding Waldo,” he told the Associated Press. “It gave us all a chance to have a laugh and for the people who use our service to have some fun.”
