This is rather brilliant .. we’ve always wanted to compare the difference accurately between the two metro systems, and someone’s finally gone and done it!
London Underground versus the New York Subway
So good, they named it
Tube
The Underground train now arriving in the north of England
As the D-Stock trains disappear from the District Line and get replaced with the S7 units, they’re not going to the railway rusting ground to die, or be cut up – no, they’re being refurbished and turned into the ‘D Trains’ on VivaRail instead.
D-Stock now Vivarail
The full story is on their blog here, although when you read that:
“This is a train that has been stripped back to the bones: the bogies have been overhauled; new engine modules, a fuel tank and electronic power controller have been fitted; all the wiring removed; and an entirely new cab fitted. Seats, floors and doors still need plenty of work – but perhaps we can be forgiven for concentrating on the other bits first! Certainly our guests seem to have appreciated what has been achieved and we are extremely grateful for their open minds and perceptive questions”
Then you almost start to question with that much work being done, why didn’t they just build a new train from scratch?
Anyway – District Line trains, now in the north of England.
Now you have fifteen minutes …
If you think only having five minutes on the previous quiz was a little hard, and not enough time – then about about this, a fifteen minute variant over at iknowthetube.com
It’s NOT got the latest 2015 map update with the new Overground stations, but you do have more time to get as many stations as you possibly can. What’s nice about this too is that you get bonuses for getting (say) all the stations in outer-extremity zones, or a whole complete line. You get a total score at the end – separate from the number of stations you might have actually got.
This station master scored 2230 points, with 251 out of 368 stations found. Can you do better?
I know the tube
How well do you actually know the Tube map?
It feels like there have been a lot of Tube map quizzes doing the rounds on the Internet recently. Disappointingly, no one has been sending around the link to what is possibly our most favourite ever Tube map quiz, so we thought we’d feature a few that we’ve stumbled upon recently, and finish with what we think is the most fiendish Tube map quiz ever.
First up, is Buzzfeed’s ‘How well do you know the Tube map‘, which incorrectly states that there are 401 stations on the network (there are 408) but it least it does cover the new Overground extension – which makes it tricky because do you honestly know where ‘Clapton’ is for example, when looking at a blank Tube map?
That’s what you have to do – you get presented with a blank Tube map, and a station name will pop up, can you correctly click on the blank map where that station is?
Buzzfeed Quiz
How Westminster used to be
We’ve long been subscribers of the excellent CityTransportInfo on YouTube, where there’s more video of trains and stations than you can shake a stick at. But the videos that we really like that get put up are the ‘contrasts’ ones that show you how a station used to look many years ago, cut with footage of how it looks now.
One that recently got put up, is that of Westminster. Think of the sub-surface lines now at that station – they got rebuilt when the Jubilee Line Extension came through in 1999, so can you remember how it used to look?
An old Victorian ticket hall, original tiling, wooden banisters – it’s very similar to St. James’s Park and Temple – with one big distinction – it’s in the open! Daylight streams in from above, unlike now. Give it a play for a fascinating look of how it used to be.
Victoria Line Blockage
A reminder … that there’s going to be no Victoria Line past Seven Sisters up to Walthamstow for three weeks, starting from Saturday August 8th.
This is so that work can be done on the line that will let the Underground run up to 36 trains in the peaks hours, so that trains will be more frequent than ever. Unfortunately, it will also mean that there will be a slightly reduced number of trains running on the line between Brixton and Seven Sisters, so that it could be even more congested than normal, to the point where TfL have produced this map (below).
More over on their official website here.
Victoria Line Blockade
British Movietone Archive Footage
Some great new British Movietone shorts have been uploaded to YouTube, many featuring the Underground, like the ones we found below.
Check out the “Tube” and “Underground” related videos here and here.
Piccadilly at Harrow
You’re not supposed to see Piccadilly Line trains at Harrow-on-the-Hill, but here’s a rare occurrence of it happening. Due to a points failure at Rayners Lane, train number 314 was sent there to reverse until the problem was resolved. Photo by squarewheels_
Piccadilly Trains at HotH
Tube Divide
Tube Divider
We got sent this picture by a nice chap called Peter from Holland that we met last week, who loves the Tube so much that when he was having some re-modelling done in his house, he constructed a custom made room divider.
“I found the official colour codes on TfL’s website and asked a local paint shop to produce 12 cans of paint using only the codes. It had to be perfect! And is nice to wake up to in the morning.” Thanks Peter!
The TfL ‘Colour Standard’ document detailing all the correct RGB values for the colours that they use, can indeed be found online here.
3D Tube Depth Map
This got tweeted by Will Harvey back on May 22nd this year – but strangely it’s picked up more RT’s in the last few days than at did at the time of posting, and thus is ‘doing the rounds’.
It’s a 3D model of the Tube Map – with Depth showing how the lines run to what depth and appeared at the 3D Printshow.
3D Depth Map