New Delhi: A day after Twitter owner Elon Musk set the iconic blue bird free – and replaced it with a sombre white X logo – the Indian Railways ran a little quiz of their own asking netizens if they knew what the yellow X on their coaches meant.
The Southwestern Railway tweeted a photo of a train coach with the yellow X on its back, and the caption read: “The ‘X’ factor of #IndianRailways. Do you know what the X sign on the coach means?”
The 'X' factor of #IndianRailways
Do you know what the X sign on the coach means? #TwitterX #TheX pic.twitter.com/wjJ0o2W4Z0
— South Western Railway (@SWRRLY) July 24, 2023
The tweet was retweeted more than 1,200 times and got almost 1,88,000 views.
Twitter users cracked jokes that this was from where Musk got the idea for his white X.
Looks like Elon Musk got the idea of ‘X’ from Indian Railways 🙂
— Manas Muduli🇮🇳 (@manas_muduli) July 25, 2023
The right answer is that the yellow X on a coach means it is the last bogey of a train.
In a “Did You Know” post this March, the Railways had explained the significance of the marking. They said that as soon as the X coach passes by, officials know that “the train has passed in its entirety without any coaches being left behind”.
Did you Know?
The letter ‘X’ on the last coach of the train denotes that the train has passed without any coaches being left behind. pic.twitter.com/oVwUqrVfhE
— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) March 5, 2023
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s rebranding exercise has gone as promised. He had tweeted on 23 July that the social media platform would soon bid adieu to “ all the birds”. Musk even tweeted a video with the iconic Twitter bird transitioning into an X.
“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” tweeted Twitter CEO Lina Yaccarino.
Also read: Twitter’s ‘freedom of speech inspiration’ & ‘Fajr vs Usha Pooja’