The London Underground

Last time we were in London we didn't use the Underground much - we found that much of the stuff we wanted to see was within walking distance of where we were staying. The first day we were there we walked down Charing Cross Road and saw Leicester Square, St. Martin in the Fields, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and Trafalgar Square. And that was just the morning! This time, though, we went to some places that were further afield and so we relied on the Tube.

The London Underground is a lot different from the Toronto Subway. First of all, it really is a Tube!


This is Picadilly Circus. It opened originally in 1906 but it was so busy (it's on the junction of the Picadilly Line and the Bakerloo Line) it had to be renovated in the 1920s.


Here's the iconic Underground symbol: the red circle with the name of the station across the middle. This design was first used in 1919 (partly inspired by the old YMCA symbol).*


Some of the stations are really beautiful. Our first trip was to Warwick Avenue Station (opened 1915) in Little Venice. We got off the train and started taking pictures.




Then we went upstairs and continued taking pictures until one of the guards told us we weren't allowed to. He was very nice about it but he said we needed permission - and we couldn't take pictures in the tunnels because the flash could blind the train driver. After that, we were more surreptitious about taking photos.

What would a Tube blog be without a mention of King's Cross Platform 9 3/4, which we encountered later that day? There was quite a line-up for pictures on this platform, and no guard to stop us.


The stations below were all opened 1906/1907. Each station had its own distinctive colour scheme so that you didn't necessarily have to see the sign (or be able to read it) to know where you were - just like the Bloor-Danforth line in Toronto.




On the outside, they look like this:


Below is our Underground station: Russell Square. It's different from most stations in that it doesn't have an escalator; there wasn't enough room. I had never really thought about it before, but you can move a lot more people more efficiently on an escalator than in an elevator, with the added benefit that if an escalator breaks down you can just walk the rest of the way. Don't worry if the lift stalls at Russell Square, though. The elevators are right next to each other with a secret door in between, so if one stalls the other is lowered to the same level so that the passengers can transfer into the working one.


London's Underground is pretty impressive (at least compared to Toronto's subway system). One thing that sticks out is that there are always Underground staff there ready to help you, which is not at all the case in Toronto (to be fair to Toronto, considering the level of funding that the TTC gets, it's surprising that there are any staff at all). We were very impressed by how helpful the Underground staff were. Later on when I thought about it, I reflected that they have to be helpful because frankly the system is a little confusing and it's easy to miss tapping your Oyster card or sticking the wrong train ticket into the wrong slot or whatever.

They were also just plain friendly. After our warning from the guard at Warwick Avenue, we asked at another station if we could take a picture of the beautiful tiles. This guard said to go ahead, and even took our picture:


One of our best Tube experiences was at Hampstead (opened 1907); it has the distinction of having the deepest platforms (192 feet below ground level), the longest spiral staircase (310 steps, 181 feet), and a lift shaft only four feet shorter than Nelson's Column. When we got to ground level we asked the guard (Jenny) if we could take pictures - more nice tile work.



She not only allowed us to take the pictures; she let us back in (we had already gone through the turnstiles) and showed us a poster with all the facts about the station, along with pictures of a little garden out back where the staff had their breaks. She then told us how to get to Hampstead Heath and several other tourist attractions in Hampstead. When we commented on how friendly and helpful she and her colleagues were, she said, "Why would you do this job if you didn't like people?"


*Most of the interesting (or boring, if you prefer) facts in this post are thanks to The London Underground by Andrew Emmerson, published by Shire in 2010. If you are interested in really specific British stuff (from perambulators to canal arts and crafts to the Victorian country home) go to www.shirebooks.co.uk - they publish slim volumes with lots of pictures and facts that are interesting to you and probably nobody else.