London Underground curbing announcements

Only announce what is neccessary

Looks like the few bits of personality on the Tube and railway may be curtailed. The Sunday Times reported that "rail staff are being told to cut back on intercom announcements. They have been issued guidelines warning: 'If you don’t need to say it, then don't.'

It's a shame that this might be spilling over to the Tube. Many of you know that my stock in trade on my sister site www.goingunderground.net has been collecting the funnier announcements that Tube drivers make and The Times' reporter got in touch to see if he could quote some for the article. Over the years hundreds of these have been sent to me and I think most people like them.

But apparently "Passengers on many overground lines object to the proliferation in information bulletins. They complain that electronic announcement systems, station staff, guards, drivers and buffet stewards compete for Tannoy time."

I must admit that I object to the voice of doom announcements which begin; "Ladies & Gentleman this is a service announcement..." and then when you're getting ready to hear about something of major importance, it's a message about holding onto your bags because there are pickpockets, or that there are no delays. Perhaps it's such a rarity that there are no delays we need to be told about it.

What do you think? Should the ad-libs such as "What part of stand clear of the doors don't you understand?" be cut. Or the driver who told the "minging" woman to move away from the doors as the hairs on her legs were getting stuck in them. What about a driver who tried to lighten the delay by getting the passengers to pass the time by singing 'Ten Green Bottles'? Have you heard any good announcements lately, and which do you think should be banned?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, April 23, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

Once again Friday's look at Tube Fashion Victims, TFV's or travellers spotted on the Underground with a style that they've made their own.

Multi glasses

Only one victim this week. As regular readers know, I really can't udnerstand why people wear sunglasses inside. Particularly people who wear sunglasses on the Tube when they're in a tunnel. Particularly when they're trying to read. Particularly when they need real glasses as well.


Simply too many glasses.

That's it for now. The previous victim can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, April 20, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Time Out Tube Special

This week's Time Out has a gloriously psychedelic and slightly Ann Summers-like front cover heralding its 11 page celebration of the London Underground.

From the lead editorial "As you struggle grim-faced up yet another broken escalator, indulge not the old gripes about the grime and crime. Succumb instead to Underground love....Think too of the men in stovepipe hats who died so that you could make it to work without mounting a Penny Farthing bike". They kindly acknowledge this blog, Geoff's mashed-up Tube maps and Hywel Williams' classic ghost station site amongst Tube websites to bookmark.

Highlights for me, from this "celebration" are an interview with Tim O'Toole LU's managing director who claims to have "the best job in London by far", despite his stomach clenching "every time we have a signal failure or a train is down". He must take a lot of Rennies then.

Diamond Geezer tackling the Tube's shortest journey - Leicester Square to Covent Garden - 50 per cent longer by Tube than at ground level. "But it had been the down and up which had devoured my time and not the 45 second Tube ride".

I was disappointed to learn that Bumper Harris the one legged escalator tester at Earl's Court was a myth ("The London Transport Museuem has no evidence to back this up") - although I'm still not convinced by this.

There's a look at how the Tube measures up to subways in Tokyo, Paris, New York, Moscow, Berlin and er Glasgow. Sadly of the five, Glasgow's has never featured in a film, although it is part of a pub crawl in Iain Banks' novel Espedair Street, where characters have a whisky and half of Heavy at every stop.

The "Old Tube trains never die" feature is fun. I knew old carriages put out to rest had made it over to the Isle of Wight and even as office space in Shoreditch. But didn't know that a Jubilee carriage would become Great Ormond Street Hospital's new radio studio.


There's a 150 old history of the Tube, a photographic flavour of the ends of Tube Lines and and of course a homage to Harry Beck creator of the iconic London Underground Map.

Not included in the "Tube Love" fest (but a good antidote) was Micheal Hodges' Slice of Life feature on drinking to get through a Tube journey. He believes that not only do we stop acting like British people "when we sink down below the city streets, we stop smelling like British people... We have to get drun, it's the only part of our humanity left to us, the one thing that cows and rats can't do and we can".

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, April 19, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Dinner Party

Fine Dining on the Jubilee Line

Forget the stunt about ski-ing down the escalator at Angel, these diners on the Jubilee Line managed to have a full dinner party and gradually get the whole carriage involved:


Is there something about the Jubilee Line that encourages dinner parties? When the line was officially opened in 1979, London Underground themselves entertained surprised commuters with a meal and a string quartet


I imagine this was just a happy co-incidence.

What I particularly like about the the 21st century dinner party is how people can't help being sucked in. True, at the start there's the normal "Ah there's a herd of elephants running through the Tube, I'll pretend I haven't seen them" Tube reaction. But the tone lightens as more people arrive and just start behaving as if it's a real dinner party - except one where beggars come up to you with notes about their troubled families, tourists decide to take a picture for the folks back home and strangers come in to grab after dinner chocolates.

Brings a whole new meaning to the "please consider others when eating food" posters though. Probably not exactly what TfL had in mind.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Old coal mine to test new Tubes

As we get nearer and nearer to warmer weather it's good to hear further steps towards air conditioning on the Tube. Or rather further steps to testing air conditioning.


A former coal mine at the town famous for its pork pies, Melton Mowbray, in Leicester is going be the test-bed for new stock. Mark Loader of Metronet said of the former Ashfordby Mine: "The test site will enable us to really prove the reliability of these new trains. We'll be able to simulate six months to a year's service in only one month. That means a more reliable train for Tube travellers when they enter service."

If all goes welll, the air conditioned trains are due to begin service on the Metropolitan line from 2009.

But this begs the question, are they going to use Londoners or Midlanders as guinea pigs? Who's likely to be a better control group for withstanding heat?

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Wrapped Tubes

If you're travelling on the Piccadilly Line, look out for some "wrapped" Tube trains as part of the Platform for Art series. I saw my first one on Friday morning and being half asleep I just thought that someone had gone a bit mad with red paint, as the artwork was a bit too subtle for my eyes. Apart from graffiti and those eye boggling trains for Yellow Pages, it's apparently the "first ever work of art to cover an entire tube train".

The piece has been designed by artist Jim Isermann and wraps the full length of one Piccadilly line train in vibrant geometric pattern that resonates within London Underground's distinctive design heritage.

What resonated most with me was being slightly stumped when I left the train on the opposite side to see a blue wrap.


Wonder why the doors are left red?

The Platform Art website invites you to leave comments on the art and also rather strangely "a real or ficticious anecdote".

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, April 16, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Strike called off

11th hour talks. RMT happy. Metronet not commenting, but the Tube Strike's all off

Jubiliant RMT leader Bob Crow said "This is the sensible outcome we sought for from the start. Our Metronet members deserve congratulating for standing solidly together to defend their organisation, jobs and conditions and to prevent further dangerous fragmentation."

Check out the BBC for the full story and the post below for what the dispute was about.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, April 13, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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3 day Tube Strike from Sunday

A three day strike by more than 2,000 Metronet London Underground maintenance workers is set to begin at 6pm this Sunday (April 15th) after several days of talks failed to resolve the disagreement. The dispute revolves around plans by Metronet to transfer around 250 workers to train maker Bombardier Transportation as part of an effort to introduce new trains and improve reliability.

RMT union members had voted by a majority of 750-60 in favour of the strike. Negotiations continued but inevitably failed. Union leader Bob Crow said "It is a great pity that after we suspended the overtime ban scheduled for this week to enable those talks to take place, the company has not taken the extra step towards us that could have resolved the dispute."

Metronet's workers maintain the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, Waterloo & City, Circle, District, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City and East London lines.

Mark Cooper from Metronet remained optmistic and has asked RMT to continue the talks: "In recent weeks we have worked hard to reach an agreement with the unions. We remain available for talks at any time. The planned strike action will lead to disruption for the three million people who use the Tube every day. It is unnecessary and unwarranted.....

At the request of the unions we have reduced the numbers of staff that will transfer to a minimum – but we owe it to the travelling public to push ahead with plans that will improve services.

"Should the RMT go ahead with this action we will do all we can to minimise the disruption to the travelling public."

We'll wait and see if he's right.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, April 12, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Tube Picture of the Week

Why are they never there when you need them?


I have no idea what West Kensington did to deserve this, but I love this image by Coderkind. His caption is also brill "London Underground begin a massive anti fare-dodging campaign, but deploys all the agents to the one station" (and yes, yes, we know they're not revenue collectors, before some bright spark comments otherwise).

The picture was added to the Flickr London Tube group, of which I happen to be an admin of. So I'm going to try to highlight a picture from the group each week that catches my eye. Feel free to join the group if you've got any shots of the Tube you'd like to add.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, April 12, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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No Tube Skiing

It's err..official

I've seen a number of video responses to the Angel tube escalator ski stunt, but this is one of my favourites. Designer Lee Washington thought that he would give the impression that Transport for London had created no skiing stickers for the escalators.


He set about designing a red circle with a line through the silhouette of a skiier and
printed them onto stickers. Last week he and a couple of mates went to Angel tube station put the stickers in conspicuous places and recorded the whole event for YouTube.

I think it's quite a sound idea, remember the woman falling drunk through a glass roof, suing her landlord for not telling her to dance on it. You could almost see people trying to repeat the skiing stunt, and then suing TfL if they broke their neck in the process and complained that there were no signs saying it wasn't allowed. Lee's saving some uneccessary litigation.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Blogs of Note

I should go on holiday more often or blog less more often. Came home from a long weekend in the Lake District to find that the Blogger team have deemed this blog blogworthy


Without meaning to sound churlish, this is personally a bigger deal than getting into the Metro Blog Awards Travel shortlist (which is also very nice and thanks to everyone who nominated me). When you've used a blogging platform for over four years, it's great for the people who create the platform to recognise what you do with it. So many thanks Blogger team.

Now I just need to bribe Ed Hall the travel judge at Metro, although, how it can compete with a blog by a Scottish night bus driver, is beyond me. Best of luck to my fellow shortlistees - Disgruntled Commuter - who's just been moaning about Metro readers, Phileas Blog (top name), and Mindhorn.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Commuter Clubbing at Victoria Station

Really, really pleased I wasn't trying to get a train from Victoria last night. Looks like hundreds of people turned up for the "rave", flash-mob. Here's a few pictures from Flickr folk:


Loving the look of disgust from the woman behind in April Angell's picture.

Majoracana's gives you an indication of the amount of people there


Micheeky has a great set of the event including what looks like the countdown to 18.53 below


She said "the mobile clubbing went on about an hour and half until the POLICE got involved!"

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, April 05, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Mobile clubbing at Victoria Station

Station Flash Mob

I'm always usually the last person to hear about these things, but for some reason I've found out that there's going to be a mass gathering of people with iPods, walkmans, personal stereos at Victoria Station tonight at 18.53. Don't ask me why it's 18.53 precisely.


Here's the instructions if you want to join or alternatively avoid:

Arrive at the station around 18.40

Walk around and get in your groove

Spread out throughout the entire station (wonder if it will spread to the Tube station)

No dancing before 18.53

At the instant the clock strikes 18.53

Dance like you've never danced before

Try not to dance in one place

And dance for as long as you can

More details at www.mobile-clubbing.com/

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, April 04, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Underground Urnie Found

Anyone who watched BBC4's Tube Night and the Arena programme will probably remember the section about the Tube's lost property office and the weird items that people have left behind on the London Underground. The manager Ted Batchelor had been on a mission to find the person who left behind the contents of an urn complete with ashes, that was found on the Tube nine years ago.

Amazingly the family have been found, thanks to John Fisher, an amateur genealogist who took it upon himself to find the family. Quite how he did this I don't know, but the family had the urn amongst some luggage which was stolen from a British Rail train. Thieves had taken the bag with the urn onto the Tube and discarded it when they realised it was of no value to them.

Now Molly Maile has finally been reuinited with her father's ashes.

Thanks to the show's director, Zimena, for calling me at lunchtime with this happy story.

Check out BBC4's site for the original clip from the lost property secction

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 30, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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London Underground Fashion Victims

Fashion Victims on the Tube

Once again Friday's look at Tube Fashion Victims, TFV's or travellers spotted on the Underground with a style that they've made their own.

Doiley Denim Skirt

Only one victim this week who might also be a candidate for the "what not to crochet blog" - there's a brilliant crochet devillish gimp looking mask on the latest entry.


One of those occasions when you want to say "Erm, I think you've got something stuck on your skirt".

Maybe her skirt got mixed up with some super glue when it was in wash. She managed to rip most of the other items off - hence the frayed hem, but the pink doiley wouldn't budge - at least not without taking away the remainder of the skirt.

Loving the butterfly laundry bag though, an interesting take on the stripy hessian looking ones or the shapeless IKEA jobbies.

That's it for now. The previous set of victims can be found here and the complete picture gallery can be seen on the following Flickr set.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Friday, March 30, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Brompton Sighting

First time I've ever seen a Brompton fold up bike on the Tube and was really pleased to see how small it becomes. Loads smaller than most people's luggage that I have to contend with on Heathrow trains on the Piccadilly Line.

Not sure how easily they unfold though as he didn't get off at my stop. Looks very snazzy though and I pictured him, just shaking it and it bouncing into shape, ready for action.

Fold up bikes are the only bikes allowed on the whole London Underground network. With other bikes you can only travel with them on certain lines (although never on the DLR and Waterloo & City Line & Victoria Line) and at certain times (normally outside peak hours). I found this puzzling though - "Bicycles may also be taken during rush hour in the opposite direction to the majority of travellers" In the rush hour, it's hard to work out what the opposite direction of the majority of travellers is.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, March 29, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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A Billion people used the Tube

Congratulations you're our billionth customer

If only TfL had got together with Ken to give a special welcome to the billionth person travelling on the London Underground this year.

You can picture the scene. You're going through the barriers at Leicester Square, you're in a bit of a rush to get to work, you slam down your Oystercard and instead of the red "Seek Assistance" flash that you always ignore, the forecourt erupts with dancing girls wearing flourescent waistcoats and little else. A Big Brother tannoyed announcement booms "You are our billionth customer". Cliff Richard sashays over with his trademark sideways dance, singing "Congratulations". Followed by Sheriff Ken with a prize newt, who warmly shakes you by the hand and offers you free travel for the rest of your life. Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy, stops MySpacing and hands you a glass of champagne. Bob Crowe promises never to organise a strike on your line on days that haven't got a y in them (looks like another strike is brewing for Easter Monday).

In reality, I imagine that the billionth commuter (and it could have been you), probably experienced a delay on the Northern Line and had his or her face shoved in the armpit of a fellow commuter.

Well done (I think) to getting a billion passengers this year - the first time in the 144 year history of the London Underground.

In other news TfL are looking for the person who ski-ed down Europe's longest escalator at Angel to give them a good telling off.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Wednesday, March 28, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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Sardine Commuter on packed trains

What if it's too busy for Sardine Man to get on?

Yesterday Transport 2000 re-started their "Sardine Man" campaign to highlight some of the most overcrowded train journeys in England & Wales. They aim to encourage the Government to increase capacity and relieve congestion on the railways. I'd to see him pressed up against commuters on the Tube.


The Top Ten (with percentages of over capacity) only included one route into London so all of you out of towners have my sympathy if any of these are part of your daily commute:

1. Durham to Newcastle (7:59 train): 88%
2. Cambridge to London Liverpool Street (8:02 train): 85%
3. Eccleston Park to Liverpool Lime Street (7:53 train): 85%
4. Cardiff to Maesteg (17:21 train): 78%
5. Humphrey Park to Manchester Oxford Road (8:14 train): 75%
6. Morpeth to Newcastle (8:00 train): 58%
7. Barnsley to Leeds (7:31 train): 57%
8. Sheffield to Leeds (7:14 train): 53%
9. Sutton to Luton (16:33 train): 50%
10. Northampton to Birmingham New Street (7:00 train): 45%

As a number of animals (or non humans) are blogging now (pigeons & dogs), it's no surprise to see that SardineMan has his own blog. His entry for the 26th March has a surprising start:

"It's Monday morning. It's 8:30am and like millions of Britons I've not long wiped the scales from my eyes, so I can be forgiven for being a bit bleary. But casting another fish-eyed look over the carriage confirms what I first suspected – there are empty seats on this train!

Wait a second... this train's EMPTY!

Does that mean my one-fish odyssey across Britain’s most crowded rail routes is over before it's begun?"

But we learn that he's headed out of London and is studying trains that are "off lease" and have been shunted into storage:

"If trains on commuter routes in the South East are packed, what's all this rolling stock doing in the sidings? Shouldn't it be out there getting used by the train operators so that there's more space available on trains? The idea of rows and rows of empty carriages lying idle just seemed ridiculous.......

As I survey the carriages glinting in the spring sunshine all I can think about is those poor, unfortunate commuters I saw this morning. I'm sure they’d have appreciated a few extra carriages on their train.

I head for a hostelry nearby and order up a pint of Coddingtons with a Skipjack Daniels to chase. Yes, yes it's only mid-morning but us fish have to keep well-oiled – and I need to sit down and figure this out!

I am Sardine Man – hear me bore!."

He then goes on to explain "no growth franchises" which train operators received in the nineties in the rest of his blog post. Watch out for his next post and if you're on any the overcrowded routes see if you get a picture.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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St John's Wood mock attack

Yesterday, the only Tube station that has nothing in common with a mackerel had a deadly gas attack simulation to see how quickly toxic substances would spread in a real terrorist situation. Scientists released harmless sulphur hexafluoiride (a gas used in tennis balls) into parts of the station and then meausured air flow and penetration levels. The station was open as normal during the exercise and apparently will be repeated this coming Sunday.

Just in case you were wondering "The St John's Wood trials were announced earlier this month by Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander who made clear the tests were not a reaction to any threat increase or a measure to enhance security at Tube stations." according to the report on 24 dash

A Department for Transport official said: "We want to be able to find out how quickly the substance moves around and where it goes to.

"St John's Wood was chosen as a typical Tube station with just one way in and out and with one up and one down escalator."

Were you around the station at all on Sunday and did you notice anything?

I wonder if the experiment will be repeated on the trains themselves though. I caught a really sulphuric whiff of something on my Piccadilly Line carriage this morning. But in true Tube form, no one else showed any signs of noticing the rotten egg smell - which fortunately disappeared after a minute or so.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Monday, March 26, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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July 7th London Bombings Arrests

Three men have been arrested in connection with the July 7 London bombings

The first significant arrests have just been made in connection with the July 7th bombings where 52 people were killed on the London Underground and a London bus.

"They were arrested by Scotland Yard officers from the force's Counter Terrorism Command. Two men, aged 23 and 30, were arrested shortly before 1pm at Manchester Airport when they were due to catch a flight to Pakistan. A third man, aged 26, was arrested at a house in Leeds shortly after 4pm." from Yahoo News

The suspects were taken to a central London police station to be questioned. Searches were underway at five houses in the Leeds area and two premises in east London, the police said.

No one has yet been charged in connection with the July 7th attacks, in which all four bombers died.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Unknown Thursday, March 22, 2007 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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