London Underground Industrial Action - latest

Just a quick clarification on the potential London Underground Strike

As so many people have been emailing me and searching for information on this possible Tube strike and London Underground industrial action - basically unless the staff's demands are met by December 9th, it looks as though the unions will be staging three days of industrial action from December 19th.

That's about as much as I know right now but I will update you as and when I hear or keep checking out Google News for the latest.

For further details check out my original post on this from Friday and the comments including some from LU staff.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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OHMIGOD Another Award Nomination - Best UK Blog

Weblog Awards 2005 - I'm up for Best UK Blog

Just as I was getting ready to see if I'd made it through to the finals of the Urbs - Urban Blogging Awards - it appears that I'm in the finals already for another award - Best UK Blog as part of the Weblog Awards 2005.

Again, thanks to whoever it was who nominated me, as I had no idea about these awards either.

Many other fine UK blogs on the finalist list including regular reads of mine - Londonist and Bloggerheads. Voting has started from today 5th December and runs till the 15th December, you can vote every 24 hours!!!

UPDATE - Also in finals for two categories for the Urban Blogging Awards 2005

Made the cut so to speak for World's Best Urban Blog - $500 worth of iTunes if I win that and bizarrely the World's Hottest Urban Blogger - I think you can guess which one I would rather win, but please feel free to vote for me in one or either. Polls for this open till 26th December.

There's very few UK blogs in the running for these awards, so you might want to vote for Girl With a One Track Mind for World's Best Urban Sex Blog.

Thank you very much for getting me nominated and thanks for any votes you care to give! Much appreciated.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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DLR Extension open two weeks early

London Underground early - what's the world coming to?

Many thanks to Diamond Geezer, Stephen Knight and Chris Green for all seperately telling me that the DLR extension to City Airport opened two weeks earlier than scheduled. It opened very quietly and unannounced (I think because the shock of it being early will have killed some people). DiamondGeezer said that meant that the stations were virtually empty when he travelled on them on Saturday.



Check out his photos on his Flickr photostream, and now we have the very wonderful pub like named "King George V" station at the end of the line until it is further extended in 2009.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Jubilee Line New Trains

Pictures of seventh car on Jubilee Line

More pictures from the London Underground that you may not have seen, as Mecca somehow managed to get hold of some pictures of the new extra carriages which are being added to Jubilee Line trains from the end of this year. Well she probably just asked Tubelines and they sent them to her:



For another picture of engineers working on the new carriage check out her blog entry for this.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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On the Fifth Day of Christmas.....

My Tube Love gave to me

A Limited Edition designer Oystercard/travelcard wallet

Right, we've had enough pictures of trains for today, so back to the London Underground related gifts that you might want to buy for your friends or family or add to your own Christmas gift list.



I love this travelcard wallet with little bits of doorways which match the colours of the Tube lines. Only available at the London Transport Museum's shop or online, and for £4.95 that makes it much more a bargain than the pre-pay Oystercard itself.

Oystercard discussion at Ealing - December 6th

Speaking of the Oystercard, if you fancy having a moan about it, sorry, taking part in a lively question and answer session, pop along to Ealing this Tuesday morning. London TravelWatch will be discussing the Oystercard issue with senior representatives of Transport for London (TfL) and the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) at a public meeting, on December 6, at Ealing Town Hall at 10am. Thanks to Londonist for this news of this.

(See the Fourth day of Christmas gift here)

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Friday's competition answers

You were floored by Laurence

I can't believe how few people entered the Friday competition where I asked what the connection was between Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and the London Underground. I'd said the connection was published in a paper that week. Well the paper was Monday's Metro - so you didn't even have to buy it!



The two connections were that the frilly foppy former Changing Rooms presenter and designer used to work for a company that produced industrial flooring and he was responsible for picking the colours for terrazzo, that mottled flooring you see in the London Underground carriages. He also designed a series of murals for McDonalds at Victoria station. Easy.

Only three people guessed correctly (and they only got the flooring option). Well four, if you include Fimb - who then disqualified herself for guessing twice - so Neil will do the paperclip selection of the three finalists who are Pete, IanD and Dennis the cheek. Watch this space for the winner's name who will win a fab set of "Wake me Up at" stickers.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, December 05, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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On the Fourth Day of Christmas.....

My Tube Love gave to me

London's Secret Tubes and London's Lost Tube Schemes

These books are great if you or anyone you know is into the hidden parts of the Tube, London Underground's secret tunnels and just secret bunkers and tunnels in general.



London's Secret Tubes doesn't just look at the London Underground although it features quite heavily, but also focusses the fact that for strategic purposes between the 1930s and the 1960s, a substantial number of tunnels exist under London's streets and buildings that few people know about. It tells the story of these subterranean hideaways, separating fact from fiction with the help of new research.

"Other revelations include never-before published details of express Tube railway lines to relieve congestion on existing tracks, the plans to relocate the complete mechanism of government and parliament to north-west London, and the standby studios constructed underground by the BBC in case Broadcasting House was destroyed."

The next book London's Lost Tube Tube Schemes is only available in shops, most likely being, (The London Transport Museum's Shop and Ian Allen's Transport shop) in time for Christmas. It's so new it's being ordered from the publishers and amazon.co.uk can't guarantee delivery in time for Xmas.



This book is great if you or your friends like Hywel Williams' fantastic website about London Underground Stations which are hidden and no longer in use.

(See the Third Day of Christmas gift here)

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Sunday, December 04, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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On the Third Day of Christmas.....

My Tube Love gave to me

A DVD of Train Man from Ebay

I lost my eBay virginity a week ago (I know, I know, I've never bought anything on eBay until now) and I bought a copy of the TV series of the excellent Train Man or Densha Otoko story (look at UK and international listings). I saw the Japanese Train Man film on a flight over to San Francisco a few weeks ago, It's a brill story involving a geeky young man's romance with a woman he met on the subway. The book/film/TV series is based on actual messages posted on a huge internet discussion board in Japan. A million internet users followed the Train Man's romance, giving the poor hapless geek advice on how to impress the girl and take her out on dates.







I go into the plot in more detail on my original post about it, but it's a fab story and if you like this blog, trains, subways and the internet, you'll definitely like this film (make sure you get a copy with English subtitles though!).

(See the Second Day of Christmas gift here)

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Saturday, December 03, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Metro's Midweek Moment & Great Customer Service

Top examples of customer service

Not a tube related story but I was on the London Underground when I read it in Metro so it counts. A woman got a letter back from Tesco's after she had been complaining that her favourite brand of chocolate was no longer stocked.

Part of the letter said: "We have come to the conclusion that you and a select few have an astonishingly bad taste in chocolate and Tesco is not prepared to accommodate the less sophisticated market. We suggest you try Sainsbury's as their food is especially bland and may satisfy your plain palette (sic)"

Obviously the letter was someone larking about in customer service and it mistakenly got sent.

The woman Margaret Cooper was up in arms about this and said "I couldn't believe it when I got this letter, it came as a real shock. If it was signed 'Mrs S Upyours' I would have thought it was a joke but there is a Mrs S Upton at the store." More on this in The Mirror.

I love this and I bet there are countless times that people who work in customer service would like to send such an honest answer back to their customers.

London Underground Refund Letter

Which reminds me, one my new colleagues at work knows that I blog about the London Underground and he showed me a letter that London Underground had sent to him with a refund for something or other. The letter said here is your refund and apologised and was sent first class. The cheque inside was for the grand total of 30p. Fantastic, how much must it have cost them to adminster a cheque for 30p? Why not round it up to something worthwhile?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Saturday, December 03, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Happy Christmas from London Underground

Tube Strike possibly announced later today

Yes, with the regularity that we've come to expect from the Tube (shame their trains couldn't run with the same predictability), it's time again for the annual threat of Christmas industrial action. Later today members from various railway unions will vote on whether to go on strike for a number of reasons.

The Daily Telegraph say: "London Underground Workers are expected to back a series of one-day strikes in a row over pensions and working conditions.

The Rail Maritime and Transport Union will announce the result of a ballot (today), but officials are confident of a 'yes' vote by hundreds of engineers and other workers."

Perhaps someone who works for London Underground and looks at this site may outline some of the strike reasons for us and stop me from moaning about LU and their constant threat of strikes?

UPDATE - 5th December - as so many people have been asking and searching for information on this possible strike and industrial action - basically unless the staff's demands are met by December 9th, it looks as though the unions will be staging industrial action from December 19th. That's about as much as I know right now but I will update you as and when I hear or keep checking out Google News for the latest.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, December 02, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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On the Second Day of Christmas.....

My Tube Love Gave to me........

Some "Wake Me Up At" stickers



Absolutely excellent idea that was emailed to me by fgt. It's two sheets of stickers printed with the most popular London Underground stations on them in the colour of the lines the station is on, asking people to wake you up at X station if you should fall asleep. As the site says "Whether it's a heavy night out, too much mulled wine at the Christmas bash or just a long day at the office, these handy stickers will help you get home safe and sound".

There's even some blank ones in the pack "for you to write your own stop on (Handy if you live in Osterley, whereever that is".

A commercial and funny idea of something I'd blogged some time ago with the same idea. "Another tip for not missing your stop and waking up at Heathrow (yes I've done this) is to set your mobile phone alarm to wake you up at roughly the time it takes you to get home, alternatively wear a big badge or a sign round your neck saying "Wake me up at XXXX station", although sadists would probably let you sleep on until the end of the line!"

Bargain at £5 plus p & p or you can buy them offline at Magma, American Retro, Aria and Best.

(See the First day of Christmas Gift here)

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, December 02, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Fashion Victims Week 7

Friday's London Underground Fashion victims

Part of our regular Friday look at commuters showing their fashion sense..... or not as the case may be.

Enter the Dragon

I thought I had somehow got to Old Street or Liverpool Street and was making my way to Hoxton, rather than the West End, when I saw this man with his Hoxton Fin haircut (BTW fantastic site about London haircuts by postcode!!!) and very strange suit jacket with a Dragon drawn on the back:



What is it about some men (offwhite and banksy) I've spotted quite regularly now who seem to think that graffti or stange imagery painted on suit jackets is a good look?

Bag Ladies - The Golden Bag

Just when I thought we were beginning to see the back of these hideous metallic bags, I see a prime specimen on the Northern Line.



Bag Ladies - The Black and White Bag

I really hate these bags that were extremely popular about a year ago, and again I thought I would be seeing the back of them. But it looks like the trouser suited woman loved having her black and white bag with a child's face and fake jewellery on it.



Well at least it wasn't a kitten wearing sunglasses one in a similar style. They unrock!

Pop Art Shoes

And finally for this week, something that's either quite cool or quite hideous. The jury's still out with me, but these little pointed numbers spotted at Embankment Tube station have a Pop Art design over them.



Pop Artist, Roy Lichtenstein would have been proud:



More London Underground Fashion Victims next week - BTW the full set of pictures is here on flickr.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, December 02, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Friday Quiz and Competition

A Friday Tube Teaser and chance to win

I seem to be having a fit of generosity at the moment and am actually handing out real prizes for some of the London Underground teasers, so make the most of it, as I'm sure I'll turn back into my normal Ebeneezer Scrooge mode after Christmas.

Anyway, I'd like you to tell me the connection between this man pictured below and the London Underground



There are probably a lot of connections, but a few were published in a paper earlier this week and those/that is the connection that I am thinking of as the answer. The more specific you can be the better!

So as with our usual competition rules - only one guess per person (any person who guesses more than once will be disqualified), place your guess in the comments below, leave your email address or website address if you want to be put through. In the event of more than one person guessing the correct answer/answers Neil will do his paperclips out of hat thing and that person will win the prize.

Oh yeah, the prize, it's a set of the fab "Wake me up at" stickers. You have until Sunday midnight (GMT) 4th December to make your guess. Good luck!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, December 02, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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On the First Day of Christmas.....

My Tube Love gave to me.....

A mirror with the London Underground Map etched on it.

Here's the first of my advent calendar blog with gift ideas from now until December the 24th of pressies you can buy people who have a hankering for all things tubic or for presents that you might like to add to your own Xmas list.



Me and Neil saw this mirror in the Ian Allen Transport bookshop near Waterloo station but it also looks like you can buy them from the net at £7.50 each - bargain.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, December 01, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Subway Maps by Scale

How the London Underground compares in size with other subways

Prompted by the ridiculous price comparisons in yesterday's post where London Underground claimed that the Tube had one of the cheapest fares in the world. It did this by looking at the amount of stations you could travel in on an single Oyster card prepay fare £3.50 - this was quite a lot, and using their logic the tube looked cheap.

I said that's because in the zone one central area we have lots and lots of London Underground stations packed into a comparatively small geographical area. See just four systems by scale below:



Check out fakeisthenewreal for quite a few subway systems compared by size.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, December 01, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Time Travel Tube Map

London Underground Map by distances to travel

Oskar Karlin sent me a link to his blog where explains how he designed the beautiful looking "Time Travel Map" below:



He says: "Map in photo above is a part of one of my final projects I did for my last school, London College of Printing (now London College of Communication). It was an attemt to redesign the London Underground map. In the beginning when I didn't know what to do with the project, I called it "impossible mission". How could I come up with some innovative ideas to this piece of design that is by many considered as one of the best in graphic design ever?

"Well, I knew couldn't just do a normal re-design; something had to be added. I started thinking what's different in the world now from when the map was designed and one thing that are different today is time. No one has any time left any more. Time is money. Time is everything and so on. Today you never tell anyone how far away in miles you live, but in minutes or perhaps hours if you're unlucky. So I decided to create a re-design based on time instead of distance (normal maps) or simplicity (tube maps). By combining geographically accuracy with simplicity and time I started out with measuring the time it takes to travel between each station in the whole system."

See Oskar's blog for a whole lot more about this with photographs of each step it took to produce the map - it's a fascinating read.

Not sure how useful it would be as trains rarely run to time but I think it looks like a great idea and I wonder if the Transport for London or any professional mapping company would ever consider producing something like this?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, December 01, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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World's Hottest Urban Blogger!!!!

Another nominatation in the Urbs

Oooer - looks like I've also been nominated as one of the World's Hottest Urban Bloggers as well as being in the nominations for World's Best Urban Blog.

So if you haven't already done so you can nominate me again, as it's only those blogs/bloggers with the most nominations by the midnight EST 3rd December who will go through to the finals.

One of my fave bloggers Diamond Geezer is also in the running for World's Hottest Urban Blogger so feel free to nominate one or both of us, and thanks to everyone who has nominated the blog so far! Just send an email to tips@gridskipper.com with your favourites for nomination - there is a list here and at this stage you can also suggest more new sites.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, December 01, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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We hate Tube train squeeze

London Underground Irritations

Yesterday's Metro had a small piece with the headline "We hate Tube train squeeze" and it was nothing to do with overcrowding! Transport for London seemed to copy what my main site www.goingunderground.net started in 1999 by advertising a list of the underground's unofficial rules.

In the short feature the results of an online survey "designed to improve passenger etiquette and make using the Tube more enjoyable" - Metro revealed that five per cent of people surveyed, were irritated by others "simply appearing to own a squeeze box". These 5% must have been travelling on the District Line or westbound end of the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow into town as there are a number of gypsy looking kids who patrol those lines with an accordian and a battered McDonalds' cup begging for money.



I fully agree, these kids aren't really buskers but beggars, sent out by their parents to annoy the carriage with their miserable, half hearted snatches of song. As a gulliable tourist just coming in from Heathrow, you might be tempted to spare some cash - but as a hardened commuter who knows that busking on the tube carriages themselves is now clamped on (since busking was made official outside carriages at designated spots at Tube stations for years now).

"More obvious irritations topping the (TfL) survey included people getting on trains before everyone has got off (17 per cent), and people who fail to say 'excuse me' and 'sorry' (12 per cent).



"Just eight per cent were bothered by beggars asking for money, while six percent found loud personal stereos beyond the pale. But mobile ringtones upset a measly one per cent of passengers." Probably because most of the people who completed the online survey travelled mainly underground and couldn't hear them anyway!

So come on - give us your pet Tube hates, everyone. Quite a lot of them will probably be on my Unofficial Tube Rules page, but I'd like to hear them anyway and see what I've missed over the years.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Creative Accounting on the London Underground

Look we have one of the cheapest Tube fares in the World

Ralf The Cartoonist sent me this link from his blog

Ralf said "This Must be a Joke. From Ken Livingstone's new propaganda pamphlet 'London Loop, the new magazine for Tube and Bus users'".

As I said in his comments you can do anything you like with statistics really, so in some sort of way, we are among the cheapest fares if you use Oystercard pre-pay and if you base cheapness on potentially how many stations you can travel through for your £3.50 for a single.
(yup three pounds 50p for a single ticket - wot a bargain!)

We just happen to have a lot more stations packed into our miles than other countries.

London's Tube system covers a comparatively small area for the number of stations that it has.

Incidentally, has anyone come across this London Loop magazine (or rather London Loopy if it thinks we're buying their mad cheap London Underground fares argument)?

I'd be interested to know what else is in it.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Wapping Fun Every Saturday in December

Thames Tunnel Tours each Saturday in December

If you missed the simply BRILLIANT Wapping Thames Tunnel tours carried out by Robert Hulse, he's just emailed me to say that each Saturday in December they will be on again. "Every Saturday in December The Brunel Engine House is organising guided journeys of the Thames Tunnel, by tube train. By kind arrangement with London Underground, the Tunnel will be floodlit so visitors may see the columns, recesses and architectural features of the first underwater shopping arcade. At Wapping we descend a spiral staircase to the bottom of Brunel's original shaft. Travellers should meet in the ticket hall of Rotherhithe tube at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm or 4pm. Tickets cost £5 and include admission to the Museum, just behind the station." For more info check out the Brunel Engine Musuem site.

Me, Neil, Ann and Helene went back in the summertime and since then other readers of this blog popped along when they were repeated during the London Open House Weekend in September, and it seems they are sooooo popular they are now running this winter.

There's also something else on Xmas Shopping ideas, that I will launch from tomorrow in my own "advent calender" of Xmas Gifts for people who like this blog!

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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