Welcome to the fun, "irreverent & informative", award-winning London Underground - Tube Blog.
Click here for other London Underground guidance. Contact me here
Annie Mole's, daily web log (blog) & “guide” to the London Underground
If you like this you'll LURVE One Stop Short of Barking, the fun and informative book about travelling on the London Underground.
Came across a fantastic photoblog about the New York Subway today (thanks to a person called - Timelapse telling the photoblogger - Travis - about this site) and since watching Subway Stories last week, this blog shows that even though the film was made about eight years ago the New York subway still has just as many diverse characters and people commuting as we do. The thing I love about all the pictures here is the amazing quality and that they almost look as though they've been set up or staged.
Big note to self - get some stronger batteries for your camera and get snapping on the Tube again.
Some of it is a bit anoraky, but a lot of it is quite interesting - nothing impressed me more than the rows and rows of old signs from stations that don't exist anymore, old tube maps, and nameplates of places (such as Ongar and Aldwych here!) that you can no longer travel to.
It's only open three weekends of the year at the moment - the next being June 4th/5th 2005, although my contact tells me that the LU museum in Covent Garden is going to be closed for up to 18 months at somepoint soon whilst it's refurbished, and during this time the Acton depot (Nearest tube: Acton Town) is probably going to be open on a more permament basis.
"Recently on BBC2's "Dragons Den" (reality business pitch programme) a man went in and tried to sell the idea of umbrella dispensers and asked for investment, anyways he got over �50,000 to set up a company (Technography) which already has the rights to place umbrella dispensing machines in underground stations..
The machines have TV screens in which can give advertising and I think that the umbrellas cost around �2.. What is your opinion on these?
It's great in case you come off a fairly long journey to realise that it has started to rain.."
Initially, I thought this was a really shite idea. If you're travelling mostly underground how are you going to know if it's raining? Oh yeah, I know, I know - see wet people getting on the Tube or people with wet umbrellas. Then as with most ideas that I think are initially mad, it grew on me, specially when I did a bit more investigation and found out the following from Umbrolly's website:
"The company will sell its umbrellas for �2 (bargain), compared with the �8-�15 that commuters are used to paying when suddenly confronted with a downpour.
In trials at Fulham and Hammersmith tube stations this year, Technography sold an average of 200 umbrellas a month.
The UK umbrella market is worth more than �87m a year and is benefiting from an increasing number of rainy days.
There were 194 wet days in the UK in 2003, up from 176 in 2000."
Any other ideas for dispensing machines on the Tube? Apparently books were trialled at some stage but never really took off. Praph's if we get some good ideas we could form a co-operative and go up for the next stage of Dragon's Den.
A request for some help on another Tube art installation. I remember last year a student from another university got in touch about some help for a "sounds of the Underground" project and we have a similar request. I've snipped quite a lot Andrew's email but if you're interested in helping out I'm sure he'll be happy to provide you with more of the examples he's looking for:
"I was wondering if you and the readers of your �blog� might be able to help me.
The project is concerned with constructing a sound �map� of the London Underground. This will involve capturing sounds that help to mediate the experience of travelling by tube both for visitors to London and regular commuters. It is proposed that these will eventually be used to capture the atmosphere of tube travel beyond the traditional visual representations.
Given that I do not live in London at present (I�m from Northern Ireland) and the sheer scale of the Underground network I feel that the visitors and users of your site are best placed to help me research this project. I am particularly keen to learn of their experiences of Underground travel, particularly in the context of the sounds that proliferate those experiences.
What I am keen to establish are the type of sounds people notice whilst travelling on the London Underground. For example, are there any station announcers at a particular station whose voice sounds somewhat unusual, perhaps pleasant or irritating? Are there particular lines where the famous �Mind the Gap� announcements on board trains are worded differently or presented with a different voice? What of the buskers in stations and on board trains, both legal and illegal? .......
I would be delighted if as many visitors to your site could contact me through the comments with as much information as they are able to provide. I would encourage you to provide whatever detail you can, however irrelevant you feel it to be. This project is about unlocking our ears to the sounds of our everyday environment and that is about identifying those sounds that are both individual and often unheard."
It would be great if Andrew (as promised) could keep us informed of this project's fruition and let us know when the final installation takes place. I'd suggest you make a lot of visits to London yourself really though Andrew as it's a very ambitious thing you're trying to do particularly as you don't even live in London. But, anyway, best of luck.
I've no idea how many people's opinions will be taken into account, but it's interesting that at least TfL have made an attempt to listen to what the public say rather than be guided by purse strings.
As you may guess with the amount of times that I've moaned about having to leave pubs and parties early just to make the last train back to Richmond, I am for the proposals. To be honest I hadn't really thought about the effect this is going to have on people who have to get into town early at the weekends - although there was a bit of a debate about this going on over at The Londonist. Happy drunk people or annoyed morning commuters?
Why can't we have our cake and eat it too? Tfl's FAQ's sort of try to explain this by answering a "question" about why this couldn't happen every day and not just the weekend:
"If we are to reduce to a minimum the number of weekend closures, we need to make the most of the night-time close-down. So any extension to the operating hours of the tube at night needs to be balanced by an equivalent reduction in operating hours the next morning.
The number of people benefiting from a later shutdown on Sunday to Thursday nights would be outweighed by the number adversely affected by a correspondingly later start on Monday to Friday mornings. By the same token, extending the tube further into the night on Friday and Saturday would create problems on Saturday and Sunday mornings."
Two guys under the name of 'Project Adorno' visited 26 stations on the London Underground from A-Z in a weekend, in the process writing a song or poem inspired by each location.
Ultimately, they created an alternative cultural guide to underground London, and eventually became an Edinburgh Festival Fringe Show.
I don't know why some really good films get put on in the small hours of the morning, but last night at 1.40am - ITV1 (well the Carlton region) decided to show the American forerunner of Tube Tales. Ten short films based on true stories from the New York subway. HBO asked people to come up with these stories and thousands of people got back. Time Out magazine did the same with the Tube. Like Tube Tales each of the short films in Subway Stories Tales from the Underground had a different director (including Jonathan Demme) and a great cast including Gregory Hines, Anne Hecht, Rosie Perez, Dennis Leary and Christine Lahti.
It was nice to see that the subway in New York has similar stories and predicaments that we have. Overcrowding with a guy comically trying to force himself into an full carriage and "luckily" finding an empty carriage - there's no good reason why a carriage would be empty and he soon finds out why.
Some "love" on the subway, with a couple of strangers getting intimate around the pole in the middle of the carriage. Tramps and beggars with their scams (or not), if a scam is outed, but then the honesty of the person who outed is brought into question, what happens next?
A woman getting stuck "Creep" style on a subway with a pretty similar ending to Creep.
The helplessness of someone, watching a potential suicide or "one under" from the other side of the track.
A young girl getting her own back on some tube drunks.
Whether or not you should listen to the advice of someone you see in the subway every day, specially when you can see their "fortune telling" coming true.
Catch it if it comes out at some more socialable hour - although admittedly I taped it last night and watched it this afternoon.
Interesting that when they travel to Wembley and Wimbledon they'll be going by coach - What's wrong with the District Line????? And the wonderful Metropolitan Line? Or perhaps these will just add to their original views that our transport system was "often obsolete". Anyway, if we do get the bid we've been promised all sorts of wonders to the transport system so athletes can spend time "competing not commuting". Lord Coe is slightly deranged if he thinks athletes would rely on any form of public transport to get to an event - unless they gave themselves at least an hour longer than need be.
Some of the promised transport improvements include:
�1billion spent on the East London Line Longer Jubilee Line Trains Northern Line upgrades Tubes running until 2.30am every day of the Olympics Connecting services allowing visitors to reach the Olympic Park (in Stratford) from 309 stations
To check out the other romantic honours click here. so guys if you want a cheap date tell your lady friends that you're taking them to the most romantic location in the UK and "imagine their surprise" when you say meet me at Waterloo station - they'll think they're off on a romantic jaunt to Paris on the Eurostar, but you'll know different.
BTW speaking of offence - the website that hosted the brilliant flash video which goes along with the song has been taken down due to a complaint - I'm sure it more of a political complaint over the use of "backing blair" in the URL rather than anything to do with the London Underground themselves.
Well after CreepRalf - The Cartoonist led me to another fairly weird film from Budapest set on the underground - this time it's not the London Underground though.
Here's a quick summary. Kontroll is about a strange young man, Bulcs�, his mates and a rival group of ticket inspectors on an underground system somewhere in the world. Bulcs� began, but immediately abandoned, a promising career and is now looking for himself in another environment where rules are simple and clear: if you want to go for a ride you have to buy a ticket. The inspectors do their job, inspect tickets.
This sci-fi film looks at the dramatic and sometimes comic relationship between travellers and inspectors.
There's also a strange character who appears from time to time and whose favourite pastime is to annoy the inspectors so after some excitement they can chase him along corridors, platforms, escalators and down tunnels. The lead also falls in love with a train driver's daughter who enjoys riding the underground day in day out.
The trailer looks interesting, the film won quite a few awards, and the BBC website said:
"Going Underground has never been as vivid and intriguing as it is in Kontroll, a Hungarian black comedy cum killer thriller set in the Budapest subway system. Its anti-hero is Bulsc� (S�ndor Cs�nyi), one of a group of oddball ticket inspectors who've got more than fare dodgers to worry about: there's a hooded nutter in their midst shoving passengers onto the tracks. Smoothly switching gears between the surreal and the everyday, this is as unpredictable as the Northern Line but offers a much more memorable ride.."
I'll see if I can get hold of the DVD - which fortunately has English subtitles as my Hungarian's a bit ropey. Shame I missed it when it was on at the ICA last October - D'OH.
BTW (again) - don't enter the webaddress that's at the bottom of this movie into your address browser, as it's also full of porn (Neil - you have been warned again).
Brilliant that they managed to bag www.oystercard.co.uk before TFL. And the ideas hark back tot he days when you were supposed to be able to use your Oystercard by whacking your handbag or wallet on the reader, rather than having to slam it on the reader as you have to now.
BTW - DON'T click on the-london-tube.org.uk in this oystercard's site links as it's just full of porn.
He writes: "I have a Zones 2-4 Oyster card, and travelled from East Putney to Swiss Cottage via Earls Court and Baker Street for a conference. Thinking it would charge me on PrePay for going through Zone 1, I decided to top it up, but when I got to Swiss Cottage, I was amazed to find it didn't. It was free. Gratis!"
"I've racked my brains about this, and I think that the Oyster system must have assumed that rather than taking the District line to Edgware Road, transferring for one stop to Baker Street, and then the Jubilee to Swiss Cottage (the normal person's way) it must have decided that instead I got off at West Brompton, took a Silverlink train to Willesden Junction, then took another Silverlink train to West Hampstead, walked about 300yds to the Jubilee line station, and took the tube south to Swiss Cottage. This way is obviously retarded, but doesn't involve going through Zone 1."
"So I think that there must be some code in the Oyster system that decides to be as kind as possible to you when pricing your journey on Pre Pay; even if that journey is utterly stupid. Is this something you've had experience of?"
But Jon Allen today gave me news that will apparently please people: "who complained about the Oystercard being a rip off if you use pre-pay more than a couple of times in one day".
From the BBC's site we learn that "From 27 February capping on pre-pay cards will be introduced allowing passengers to pay the lowest daily fare once every journey has been assessed. The cap will apply at the appropriate one-day Travelcard or Bus Pass rate.
The London Transport Users' Committee (LTUC) has urged for capping to be introduced for a long time."
Nothing on the LU website at the moment. So read more on the Beeb's.
"When changing to the Piccadilly line from the Jubilee/Victoria (after that long long walk) at Green Park you go over the Westbound line before descending the stairs.
At that twist/turn, the passageway is blocked off by a grille. On two occasions, I've walked past and the lights are on in the passage (much like sometimes the maintenance lights are on in the train tunnels themselves). Despite this, I still can't see the end of the passage. It's at least 20 yards long if not longer. For a while I thought it would lead to another platform, maybe going to Aldwych.
But of course, the old tube maps say that branch line started at Holborn (where you can see the links to the old platforms). So what's down there?
Two trains should be in service (says the website) by 2009, but the TV news report I watched just now said 'by 2007' ! So take your pick.
Interestingly, I got wind from a friend yesterday that there appears to be a new campaign coming up to 'promote' the Vic line as the PR agency were looking for people's suggestions to straplines that could be used. Whether this is for the current system, or whether they're doing all their work 4 years in advance of the new trains being rolled out I'm not sure, but amongst my friends we managed to come up with the following gems:
There's a fine line between E17 and SW9
Your only way to hook up with Seven Sisters
Your fast track to the West End
Two Parks, a Circus and Seven Sisters. What else could you want?
The Queen, Kings Cross, a stones throw from Walthamstow.
Tottenham Hale, Oxford Street sale...
The thin blue line: Keeping you on the straight and narrow
Completely unofficial, and so not quite the inside scoop you might wish for (as it's written by people who use the Tube, rather than any of its staff). But plenty of promise as it grows in popularity. "Things I'd like to see on the Tube: a penalty ticket inspector who isn't a sadist; a Photo-Me booth you can fit more than a mouse into; a District Line train that doesn't stop between every stop." Also full of "Tube rules" (how to sit, how to dress, how to ignore the weirdo in the carriage). Sprawling (so you'll need to wait for the page to load) and enjoyable, and written by someone who - gasp - is not afraid to ring up, say, the people who devised an advertising campaign based around the Underground and ask them why."
Check out the other 11 blogs here. And many thanks to the teccy journalist Charles Arthur for selecting us.
Basically he wants to try to bring together a user edited resource linked to a clickable tube map so you could find out a whole range of netty things based on or around a particular tube station.
He said: "It's a bit difficult to explain without HTML so I posted a bit more
detail here and I have made a rough start here".
So each station would have piccies of or around the station, a webcam, streetmap link, bloggers who live nearby, search engine links to the station, the list could go on and on and include wikipedia entries, official TFL or tubeplanner.com info about the station etc etc. Personally I think it's a great idea (but very ambitious) and if anyone has any thoughts or would like to help out with the project please leave comments below or email Dominic directly.
"More than 50,000 copies of the doctors' version, protesting against strikes and delays, have been downloaded from their website and they are getting around 1,000 emails a day asking for a copy."
This figure obviously doesn't include the thousands copies that were flying around the net days (including Geoff's copy here - blogged on the 11th January) before we discovered who actually wrote it. Plus the many downloads of the flash movie of the song which we blogged on 31st January.
Adam continues: "Having lived in London all my 24 years you get used to the Tube service,
"Once in a while you are three hours late after what should have been a 20-minute journey. It has struck a chord with people. They also like the swear words, they seem to get people going."
After exposure in The Standard it's just going to get bigger and bigger. Nice work guys.
This is going to disappoint Marjorie Dawes and the Fat Fighters Club from Little Britain who loves dust because it is low in calories, but this entry is about the nastier side of dust and how to avoid it on the tube.
People who read the comments would have noticed commenting regular Anthony Smith with his one man campaign to promote the wearing of dust masks on the Tube. Recently he asked me why we never blogged it and although I think I have blogged about dust levels on the Tube in the past, I said, I'd never seen anyone wearing a dust mask on the Tube, but if he would like to send in a picture of himself wearing one, that I would blog it.
Sooooooo, no sooner said than done, we have the brill picture of Anthony resplendant in 3M dust mask reading a copy of Tuesday's Metro which featured a picture of a woman wearing a dust mask.
I'm sure people will now prove me wrong by saying they have seen loads of people wearing dust masks on the Tube. I'm not sure seeing a Japanese person in a mask counts, because don't they wear masks if they have colds to prevent themselves spreading germs? correct me on this, I'm not a doctor or an expert in Japanese culture.
Anyway, Anthony also went a step further and supplied a picture of a new mask next to one which has several days/hours/minutes????? use on the Tube.
Not in the news that recently, but I do remember reading something about travelling on the Tube being the equivalent of smoking 10 fags a day (or some such figure) and in the past people have sent me delightful emails describing the contents of their handkerchiefs after they've blown their nose after a morning's commute.
Anthony has now produced a webpage with some more information on the masks which he'll be updating over the weeks to come.
He wondered if I knew of anywhere where he could get some background sounds of the Tube, to use as background "music" to add to the effect of his installation (more pictures here).
"Sounds of the roaring trains, their brakes, the crowd on the platform and in the trains, various buskers, dogs, and especially the lady's voice saying things like, 'please stand clear of the doors,' or 'this is a Bakerloo Line train to Elephant & Castle,' and all the other wonderful things she says. Even that man who shouts out so loud over and over about the Gap, why not."
I directed him to the two usual suspects that I know although the former are just official pre-recorded announcements and the latter toward the bottom of the page has some more "in situ" announcements with accompanying Tube train noises. I even sent him a recording of some Tube buskers singing Going Underground (not the spoof one).
If anyone knows of any other places that have Tube sounds Alan Nazerian would love to hear or even if you fancy going out and recording some for him, you know that people in an art gallery in Chicago may well be listening to them. His contact details are at the bottom of his webpage.
Yesterday when I was coming up on the escalator at Waterloo, I remembered that another thing that makes tourists stand out a mile is how they stand on escalators. Not just the annoying way they will stand two abreast or stand on the right even when there are loads and loads of signs saying "stand to the left" (Freudian Slip right). But it's when they stand right behind you. Everyone knows that you're supposed to leave a step in between you and the person in front of you. Or maybe this has happened because they've been doing the annoying two abreast thing and then someone has made them realsie the error of their ways and they've moved into titcy one step space remaining.
Also on the subject of escalators Rob from the Londonist reminded me today that there's a cool song by a band called Florida about finding love on an escalator. The song is a duet between a bloke who pines for a woman who passes him on an escalator and a hypothetical version of the girl in question. You can download it here.
"The magic, mystery & sometimes maddening shortcomings of London's Tube are documented with love,
enthusiasm & sometimes despair by its unofficial social historian." The Guardian
"On some mornings it can feel like the only reason to be grateful that the Tube exists" Time Out
"a big hit on the Web...one of London's obsessives" Metro
"an irreverent and informative must-read for everybody, not just subterranean commuters" The Times
Some of it is a bit anoraky, but a lot of it is quite interesting - nothing impressed me more than the rows and rows of old signs from stations that don't exist anymore, old tube maps, and nameplates of places (such as Ongar and Aldwych here!) that you can no longer travel to.
"Recently on BBC2's "
Interesting that when they travel to Wembley and Wimbledon they'll be going by 
Purrrrlease, seriously have people no imagination. I know that under the clock at Waterloo station is a popular meeting place. I've met many people there, but it's hardly romantic. Or maybe people like the romance of hearing loads and loads of delayed train announcements. Or they love the smell of Millie's Cookies, or the Burger King nearby. Or they like dodging the tramps clutching their cans of Special Brew wandering aimlessly around the station. 
Probably cos I was travelling at the tail end of the rush hour last night, the lift wasn't full of tourists but people who were laughing about Loyd Grossman (for it was his voice, extolling the virtues of the London Transport Museum) and people were loudly wondering how much he got paid for doing that voice over.
Just seen on the TV news, and then looked it up 
Sooooooo, no sooner said than done, we have the brill picture of Anthony resplendant in 3M dust mask reading a copy of Tuesday's Metro which featured a picture of a woman wearing a dust mask.
