National Railway Museum's Director of Fun

Did you know the National Railway Museum had a seven year old Director of Fun? He was appointed last year after applying to replace the retiring director. Train mad Sam, decided to apply for what would be a dream job, and was pretty surprised to get a role.

Asked what qualified him for the role at the railways museum, he answered: "I've been on loads of trains, including the Eurostar." All we need now is a similar applicant for the London Underground


Anyway, part of Sam's duties appear to searching around for bloggers to send rock too. I was lucky enough to be on his hit-list. I'm a sucker for rock (sorry!) and liked the puntastic "Chew, Choo, Choose, The NRM" label.

I visited the National Railway Museum in York many years ago before the internet existed. But I'd certainly be keen to visit again to see how it's doing under Sam's Directorship.

There's a load of Summer holiday activities for kids and kids at heart, including a sand sculptor making a train from 20 tonnes of sand and the opportunity to climb inside the steam engine "Olton Hall" from the Harry Potter films. Entry is free although is a small charge for some activities.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, August 06, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Bond Street Tube to get £300m facelift

TfL have just awarded the contract to redevelop Bond Street London Underground station to a joint venture between Costain and Laing O'Rourke. Construction is set to be mostly complete by 2016 in time for Crossrail in 2017. However, a £150M risk contingency fund has been added because of fears over inflation during the programme.


Currently over 155,000 people use Bond Street Tube station each day and that's expected to increase to more than 225,000 when Crossrail is finished.

London Underground's work will focus on the north side of Oxford Street in an attempt to increase capacity and create step free access to the station.

A new contract will be awarded by Crossrail in due course. This work will involve constructing two new ticket halls, excavations for two east-west platform tunnels with interconnecting additional access routes and escalator shafts. The western ticket hall at Davis Street (south of Oxford Street) will be built underground. The eastern ticket hall (an artist's impression pictured above) will be in Hanover Square.

The station will also get the benefit of improved pedestrian areas with new seating and lighting.

If you're worried this is going to stop people shopping in the West One centre, don't be. Work is due to start next year and the operations manager of the shopping centre said: "We will remain as we are. They will do the work around us. We are not closing."

For more on the redevelopment see TfL's site.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, August 04, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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First Air Conditioned Tube Train

This morning saw the official launch of the first London Underground train with air conditioning. It will run on the Metropolitan Line and is part of the 191 fleet of new walk through trains. However, many people were around on Saturday when the train made its first appearance at Watford.


First S Stock train in passenger service 31-07-2010 by londonstuff
Londonstuff was one of the first travellers and has a great set of photos and a couple of videos of the ride.


First S Stock train in passenger service 31-07-2010 by londonstuff


The eagle eyed will notice from the video that the doors have buttons. These were disabled on other Tube trains a number of years ago. The driver will have control of the doors, but will close them if the train has to stay on the platform for any length of time, keeping the cool or warm air in. So if that happens new passengers will need to press the button to re-open the door.

More about the air conditioned trains can be found on TfL's website and if you want to see the current one in action it will be running from Wembley Park to Watford from 2nd August. The roll-out on the Metropolitan Line will be complete by 2011. We'll start seeing them on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines from 2011. Then the District line will get the next lot in 2013 and all trains will be on the network from 2015.

Update - the point about door buttons had a number of us wondering why the door buttons were disabled. So I asked TfL who said "LU removed passenger door activation across all lines in 1998 to speed up station dwelling times, as the Underground was getting busier. The new S-Stock doors are opened by the driver but after 45 seconds they close to keep cooled air in during summer, or warm air in during winter. The door can be reopened by pressing the in-carriage button, but ultimately the driver has complete control of the doors and can override them."

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, August 02, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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One Under - Channel 4 Documentary

We've probably all stood at London Underground platforms and heard about delays due to "a person under a train". Most of us don't think too much about them, apart from an irritation about being late, or wondering why the person couldn't have chosen another time or line.


On Friday Channel 4 screened a 30 minute film by Lucy Bennett - called One Under. It looks at Tube drivers who give first-hand accounts of their experiences with the suicides. The interviews are moving and give an insight into the initial shock, anger, attempts at understanding, appearance at Coroner's Court, right through to the permanent marks the suicide left on their lives.

It's certainly a powerful contrast to the comedy film about one-unders - Three & Out - which led to demonstrations by train union ASLEF.

In One Under, you also hear from the widow of man who took his life by jumping under a train and how she tried to make sense of the events. "John no longer has the pain he was dealing with, but so many other people do", she said.

The film can be watched online for the next month on 4OD.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, August 02, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Seat Etiquette

Well placed spoof sticker spotted by Version-3-point-1 on priority seating:


Last week, I offered my seat to a woman who was clearly pregnant. As well as saying thank you, she also loudly said "Isn't it funny how it's always women who offer up their seats". I imagine it was to shame the many other seated men who hadn't offered their seats & I muttered a rather embarrassed "Spose so".

A few stops further down the line the seat behind me became free. I was about to move myself into it, when a man, who seemed to fall into the "drunks less able to stand" category, plopped himself into the seat.

In London Underground seat chasing selfishness, this took the biscuit. Both me & pregnant lady gave him hard Paddington stares. His seated mate (who had ignored the pregnant woman earlier), said "Oi give that seat up, there's ladies standing". Thinking I was about to get a seat back, another woman behind me leapt at the opportunity & grabbed the seat when he got up.

Leaning against the pole in the middle of the carriage, I then had drunk man, closely behind me, reading The Standard, over my shoulder. I was in the middle of a crossword puzzle and have never been more tempted to write the words "IDIOT", "BUFFOON" and much ruder words on my paper for him to see.

I really felt like I'd been the victim of bad Tube Seat Etiquette. Ignoring the fact that I'd given up my seat in the first place - isn't there an unspoken rule that people who're on the train before you get first dibs at empty seats? Should the woman behind me, have said "No you first"? Shouldn't drunken seated mate have also got up and offered us both seats - rather than chastising his mate for sitting? Am I being super sensitive over this?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, July 29, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Daydreaming turned into art

We all day dream on the London Underground. There's plenty of time when you're paper-less, book-less or iPod-less to stare into space. So, now Art on the Underground have commissiond Daria Martin to produce some artworks based on the simple question "What have you been daydreaming about on the Tube?"


Tube people 4 by Ben Hammersley
"Travelling underground, or spending any length of time there, is not a natural human inclination. Martin wanted to find out to what extent people travelling on the Tube use self imposed psychological tricks on themselves as a distraction from the reality of being under the ground. It seems that one thing people do is to mentally transport themselves elsewhere, into the realms of fantasy." said Art on the Underground.

Freud would probably have a field day with what goes on in people's minds when underground, so it's fitting that Martin has taken objects from his desk - whilst visiting the Freud museum - and combined them with the day dream responses to make posters. These will be on display across the Tube network from mid-August onwards.

"Daria Martin's daydream survey is an attempt to present these fleeting images 'en masse' as a way of revealing surprising, or critical, aspects of the way we live our city based lives and how we deal with everyday situations."

Some of the daydreams reported by travellers on the Jubilee line are represented here. You're invited to add yours to the collection or just see what's behind those "blank looks" on the Tube.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Roundels not on the London Underground

The collection of Tube roundels not in their normal home continues to grow, as you've been kindly spotting them on your travels both in the UK and abroad.

Starting in Manchester and spotted by Richard & John


"It's the Grand Central complex in Stockport, Greater Manchester. It's a grotty, whiffy sort of low-intensity leisure & business area, and is supposed to be due for demolition so they can replace it with something even worse, but we love the roundel. The top semicircle has a representation of the railway viaduct over the River Mersey, and underneath is a bowling ball and wavy lines for the bowling alley and HIDEOUS swimming pool."

Then on their travels further afield:


Richard writes "This one's in Mallorca, about one-third of the way between Palma and Soller, on the railway. I haven't a clue what goes on in there, our train didn't stop there, but it was great to be surprised by a roundel while abroad!"

One much closer to home from Mark: "This one must have been around for a while 'cos I passed it yesterday but being without camera found it on Google StreetView. It says 'Finchley & Totteridge'."



Moving further afield Anno Superstar spotted the roundel in a record shop in Stockholm

Finally, thanks to Rebecca Caroe for spotting this in Dunedin New Zealand


Many thanks to all for being so observant and if you have any pictures of roundels seen in odd places outside of the London Underground, please send them my way and I'll blog the best. Until next time the full collection of Tube roundels outside their home is here.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, July 26, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Grey hair is a sign of greatness on the Tube

Occasionally I'm greeted by proverbs of the day at my London Underground station. I'm assuming the person who wrote this one has more than a few grey hairs himself.


Little piece of advice too - check your spelling before putting up messages about being wise. Otherwise nice thoughts and I'm sure it will keep those of us with grey hair happy.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, July 22, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Photo of the Week - Angel Tube Cat

Not only is this a lovely shot of a cat outside a London Underground station, it's also a lovely story. I'll let the photographer, Stuff n Nonsense, explain:


The Big Issue Cat by Stuff n Nonsense
"There's a Big Issue seller who has a pitch in the afternoons outside Angel Tube station.

A while ago, he found a stray cat with a badly bust up leg, so being a kindly soul, he took the cat along to an animal shelter to get it sorted out. He wasn't expecting them to tell him when the cat was healed, he was to take the cat back with him - but that's what they said and that's what happened.

The cat became incredibly attatched to its rescuer and would try to follow the man whenever he went out. Realising that cats do what they want, the man gave up trying to get the cat to stay home and allowed it to come with him and these days the cat will be sat outside the station as the man sells copies of the magazine, calmly guarding the takings and posing for photos.

I don't think you could meet a more calm tempered cat if you tried."

He or she is certainly the closest I've seen to a contender for Japan's station master cat, who's also happy to pose for photos & brings in huge revenue for the station.

Great spot by Stuff n Nonsense and thanks to him for finding out & sharing the backstory.

Update - The cat's called Bob and Alexey Kovalev interviewed his owner outside Angel Tube in the video below, where you can see Bob posing happily for pictures and learn what happens when he wants a loo break!



Update 4th August 2011 - Bob has a Book Deal

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Super hero uses elbows to cool Tube

Following on from last week's announcement that the budget to cool Tube carriages on the London Underground has been slashed by £10m, a drinks company, have decided to make a stunt around this by creating FanMan.

Photo: David Parry

It might look like FanMan is about elbow the woman in the face, but apparently he has cooling equipment in his sleeves.

Apparently the Emmi FanMan, is a six-foot fan-wielding super-hero, using "state of the art technology to blast those around him with a refreshing jet of cool air" . Look out for him on the Tube in the next few days.

Emmi FanMan said "I’m just someone who wanted to make a difference. In a world where heat exhaustion, dehydration and profuse sweating are rife I knew I couldn’t just stand by and watch any longer. Commuting is an exhausting business but coupled with the crippling heat of a packed tube carriage it becomes unbearable. I’m there for people in their time of need."

FanMan’s helpers will also be handing out cold Emmi Caffe Latte at several Tube station entrances.

Let's hope they focus on the Piccadilly, Northern, Central, Bakerloo and Waterloo and City lines, as these lines are marked as high risk on a LU "Passenger heat strain" map. They're the lines that are the highest risk to people should they become stuck on a stalled train.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, July 19, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Daily Mail as Tube Map

Ever wondered what subjects for Daily Mail articles would look like as a London Underground map? Probably not, but the guys from PokeHQ have and it makes for a fun read. Follow the link here for map in full and names of the lines, such as PC Gone Mad, Medical Scares and Arch Enemies.


They said: "Speculation that The Daily Mail's success was down to a top secret formula started in the late eighties, but it was dismissed as Fleet Street legend along with the real parentage of the Hitchens brothers and that thing Una Stubbs is into. Though such explicit mapping of the newspaper’s friends and enemies have set tongues wagging, the main surprise seems to have been the bizarre use of the underground system. Reports that The Daily Star’s secret formula is based on the number 10 bus route remain unconfirmed."

Hat tip to the ever wonderful b3ta for finding this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, July 16, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tour of abandoned Tube Station

Wonderful footage in this short film by the BBC where the London Underground's David Leboff, shows us St Mary's Tube station in East London. The station was closed in 1938 and used as an air raid shelter in the 2nd World War, and rarely visited since.


The film is part of the Radio 4 London season and featured in The London Nobody Knows programme. It's going to fuel the interest of anyone fascinated by abandoned Tube stations. This is a hot topic at the moment as Ajit Chambers continues in his quest or re-opening disused Tube stations.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, July 15, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Star Wars Subway Car

So people on the Tube ignore herds of cows in suits, guys dancing to Michael Jackson and other stunts that we've seen on the London Underground over the years. How would they react to seeing Darth Vader? The crazy team who bought No Pants/Trousers Subway Day to the world, Improv Everywhere, decided to re-enact the first Princess Leia / Darth Vader scene from Star Wars in a New York City subway car.


Like them, I was amazed at how many people got out their camera phones and actually paid attention to this.

They said "One thing we learned is that almost every human will immediately take out their camera when they see Darth Vader. We've done lots of crazy missions on the subway over the years, but I have never seen so many people taking photographs of our performance. How can you not take a photo of Darth Vader? It's impossible to resist!"

Hat tip to @manima for spotting this. Will someone in London put ImprovEverywhere's thesis to the test? Can we rely on Tube commuters to studiously ignore Darth & Co?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, July 14, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Cows on the Tube

Bringing a whole new meaning to cattle-class travel, commuters found themselves squashed against cows on the London Underground this morning.


A herd were seen gathering outside Euston station at 6.30am, who then ‘coMOOted’ on the Tube.


Picture credits - Friends of the Earth
It was a stunt by Friends of the Earth volunteers to highlight the hidden chain linking meat and dairy to wildlife and rainforest destruction in South America. More information can be found at their site. A full set of pictures including the cows with copies of Moo'tro are on Flickr.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, July 13, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Photo of the Week - Free Hugs

Spotted at Waterloo London Underground station last week. "Free Hugs Here. Please ask a member of staff".


Wonder how many people took them up on their offer?

Thanks to Wanyee who apologises for the blurriness of the shot taken on his camera phone. It would have been just as blurry if I'd taken it, as I think I'd have been doing a double take & giggling from having seen it in the first place.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, July 12, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Have you heard of West Ashfield Tube?

Yesterday, some London bloggers & Tube enthusiasts visited a fake London Underground station used for training. Both IanVisits and London Reconnections have two great blog posts on the visit organised by The Institution of Engineering and Technology.


London Reconnections kindly let me use the picture above and said:

"It would be easy to think that West Ashfield station was simply a visual gimic - something to enliven training sessions - but this is not the case. West Ashfield isn't just a decorated corridor, its a micro-station environment with a very clear purpose. It may contain a number of rooms and facilities that your average station doesn't (more on those later), but it also places trainees, when appropriate, in an atmosphere that is as similar as possible to that in which they may find themselves working."

Ianvisits told how they were "let loose on the system and told to basically run the the network, getting trains into platforms, slidings etc without causing traffic jams and the like.

The true purpose of the model train set though is to train staff on dealing with problems, and a simple flick of a switch can simulate any sort of network failure you care to imagine. It was here that we leant why it can sometimes take ages to get trains out of tunnels when things go wrong."

Thanks to both for providing fascinating posts & photos!

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, July 09, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Signs of Summer on the Tube

Could someone tell this guy it's meant to be London's hottest day of the year so far? Michelle spotted him this morning on the London Overground and he's clearly missed the memo. Perhaps he was feeling the air conditioning on these overground trains a little too much.


Michelle said "The girl on the left seemingly noted how hot it's going to get today. Where's the guy on the right been?!".

Have you noticed any other appropriate or inappropriate hot weather clothing on the London Underground recently? How have you seen people dealing with the heat on the Tube

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Friday, July 09, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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July 7th - Five years on

Today you are going to see & hear much from a variety of news sources, blogs and websites about July the 7th. It's hard to know what to say right now, as so much was felt and reported at the time. This time five years ago, I was blogging virtually every half an hour trying to keep people informed. Then for about a month or so following the horrible day, virtually every day's post was about the aftermath as the London Underground & travelling on it had changed so much.


Monument to the Victims of the London Bombings on July 7 by The Londoneer
However, we got on. We stopped looking suspiciously at people with rucksacks, or beards, or men of a particular race. We stopped being anxious every time a train got stuck in a tunnel. We stopped seeing pictures of people in Florida wearing "We're not afraid" T-Shirts. We began to travel on the Tube with the same "freedom" and in the same numbers that we did in the past.

July 7th 2005 changed me in a variety of ways, but fortunately I am still alive to be able to think and talk about those changes. Hopefully, this blog is able to make people think a little more about the Tube journeys they share with 3 million other people every day - the good things & the bad.

Today, many people will remember the 52 people who were killed. The permanent memorial in Hyde Park will probably be the focus. Floral tributes will be placed by relatives and friends of the dead at the five sites of the bombings.

Let's hope that today will mainly be a day without blame, or finger pointing. A day to remember those who lost their lives and also a day to support all those who were seriously injured, both physically & mentally. Ordinary commuters whose everyday Tube or bus journey turned into a nightmare. Please take some time out to think about them and their families.

I would love to hear your memories of Tube travel at the time, or if you have any personal thoughts on July 7th that you'd like to share.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, July 07, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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"New South London Line"

What do people actually call the new East London Line? Officially it's all still London Overground. However, in a very jovial speech last night at City Hall, Boris Johnson addressed community groups in Lambeth, Southwark, Merton and Wandsworth and said that East London Line Phase 2 – will now to be referred to as the ‘New South London line'.

From the mood he was in, it was difficult to tell whether he was just playing to the South London audience or if the new part of the line would be called this.

SE1 recorded his speech and he starts talking about transport & the London Underground about six minutes in.


Plans for extension to Northern Line at Battersea Power Station Tour by Tiki Chris
He acknowledged the lack of Tube services South of the river and said: "We have a vision to remedy the gap in provision on the Underground in South London, so we want to extend the Northern Line to Battersea, in fact, we want two new stations for Battersea". He claims this will be paid for by tax increment financing: "We go to the treasury and you allow us to finance this, against the future increment in the business taxes, in taxes that will come into the government as a result in the boom in the business that will be produced in Battersea."

He also mentioned extending the Bakerloo Line to South East London. He's been promising this for quite some time now and the idea was originally mooted in the 1940s. Many Londoners are sceptical as to whether it will ever happen and in his enthusiasm, Boris made no mention as to how this would be financed.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Tuesday, July 06, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Written in Tube Moquette

London Underground launched some new posters by kind of playing Magic Eye with words in Tube seats! There's a series of questions relating to "amazing and unusual things that have happened on the network over the last 150 years".




Tube nerds like me will know the answers to the questions, but it's nice to see some of the more weirder things about the system being promoted.




If you want to know the answers and also see which lines the upholstery came from (I certainly didn't recognise all of the moquettes) visit http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tubeorfalse.

Speaking of moquette, Londonstuff went along to the Transforming the Tube exhibition at Aldgate on Monday, took some pictures & videos and saw some eye poppingly bright seats.


Moquette by londonstuff
He said "A sign on the top said this is going to be fitted out on the Central Line and then across the entire fleet :("

Seriously?! These would be bad enough on the Central Line alone, but across the whole of the system? I love how each of the lines are distinguished by features like moquette and handrail colours. Is it a cost saving exercise? Wonder if we'll see more design uniformity now that the LU has ownership of all the London Underground Lines?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, July 01, 2010 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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