Given the amount of time New Yorkers spend on the subway, there’s still a lot most people don’t know about the operators and conductors. One thing that has piqued the interest of riders for some time now is the wooden, black-and-white board that they sometimes see conductors pointing to as they pull into a station. The black-and-white striped sign, installed in the middle of train platforms, has a name: It’s called a “zebra board,” and it indicates a prescribed spot on the platform where train conductors should stop. When you’re responsible for moving millions of people on a daily basis, there’s no margin for error. It could spell disaster if a train pulls up short or drives too far into the tunnel. When properly aligned, the indication board is directly in front of the conductor’s window, letting him/her know that the entire train is on the platform and it’s safe to open the doors. The boards were installed on subway platforms beginning during World War I, when the transit system shifted to a multiple unit door control that allowed a single person to operate all the doors on a train. Before that, one conductor was stationed between every two train cars, and doors were opened individually. In 1966, as another added level of precaution, conductors were required to physically acknowledge the boards by pointing to them.
