We delightfully found today that ITV/Thames News has uploaded a whole load of archive footage to YouTube of old news reports, including a few from the the Underground. There’s one on overcrowding at Angel, even one about the Clapham train disaster, but we like this short piece on the cancelling of Victoria Line trains due to wheel issues!
Ye Olde Tube Mappe
8th December 2014
Matt Brown from the Londonist website has released this today – a fun Medieval Tube map, from a time ‘Utterly untroubled by signal failures; and a time when you might be imprisoned for swiping an Oyster‘
Medieval Tube Map
Way Out
5th December 2014
With the Northern Line escalators currently out of action at King’s Cross and passengers being diverted the long way round, there are lots of posters up on the platforms to say ‘This way..’ and take you to where you want to go.
Except that here, the arrow pointing to the right is odd, because visible to the left is the staircase that takes you up to the Piccadilly Line. If you follow the sign, it will take you at least five minutes to get to the Piccadilly platforms, however, if you take the stairs that you can see in the background of this photo, it will take you 30 seconds!
Not this way
New December 2014 Tube Map
3rd December 2014
December 2014 Tube Map
So have you got your hands on the new Tube map yet? Art on the Underground commissioned French artist Daniel Buren to create the artwork for the twenty-first edition of the Tube map cover series, called ‘From a Single One to Millions‘.
It’s a blend of many roundels all mixed together, and we were surprised when we thought about it that the roundel symbol hasn’t actually appeared in any of the previous AotU series of map covers.
Map-design-wise itself, Embankment is now open again on the Northern and Bakerloo lines, the Central Line is NOT stopping at Tottenham Court Road (as it won’t be from January 3rd 2015), and the Covent Garden dagger gives a warning as to the fact that it’s going to be exit only again for most of 2015 as they replace the other pair of lifts.
The new station building and ticket office at Tottenham Court Road for the Northern Line opens on January 12th, and they’ve built lifts at the new station too – so how long before a ‘step free’ wheelchair blob appears for TCR on the map?
Diamond Geezer has some further thoughts here,
TfL Recall
1st December 2014
Spoiler Alert: This post is about the 2012 version of the film Total Recall, and may contain spoilers if you’ve not already seen it and wish to do so in the future!
We’re always looking for the Tube in films and TV programmes (remember Sherlock from earlier this year?) and this weekend we were watching the 2012 remake of the classic 1990 film “Total Recall”, when we spotted something rather familiar and we’re going to remember it for you, wholesale.
Set at the end of the 21st century in a “United Federation of Britain”, there is a lot of implied London imagery and even shots of The Elizabeth Tower and The BT Tower to fully sell this to you. However, at one point well into the film, our ‘hero’, Douglas Quaid (played in the remake by Colin Farrell), ends up in a very American looking subway station.
Get ready for a surprise! Open your mind and look really hard at the signage above the platform and you can see the yellow on black London Underground “Way out” signs and direction signage with a Victoria Line coloured strip at the top! Now you’d be forgiven for missing this the first time, as it’s only briefly on screen but in the next shot your Tube alarms should be sounding very loudly!
Yes, it doesn’t take two weeks to spot that is a “London Underground” “Tell us what you think” poster on the ticket booth! Quaid boards (the door opened, he got in) the subway car – which we’ll come to in a moment – and to cement the London Underground for you again the poster appears in the carriage.
As the “futuristic” subway car (with added lighting – New Tube for London anyone?) arrives at its destination, there’s an LU roundel on the wall…
…and if you missed it earlier, one on the train. We hope they enjoyed the ride!
So apart from the actual train itself (fair enough, the film was made in Canada), someone seems to have gone to a good effort to dress the set as the London Underground as was probably in their brief!
Spotted any other Tube related imagery on film or television? Let us know… See you at the party!
Traction Current Training
28th November 2014
Because sometimes, what you really need to see is a London Underground 1989 training video about traction current!
Secrets DVD
26th November 2014
What do you mean you haven’t bought the Secrets of the Underground DVD yet? Here’s Geoff to tell you all about it …
Jubilee reopens at Bond Street
24th November 2014
Flagged as being back open by ‘mid-December’, it was a pleasant surprise to find Jubilee line trains stopping again today at Bond Street station as the works finished early. However, due to the nature of the works you’re not able to enter or exit at the station, you’re only able to change between the two lines at the station if that’s what you want to do!
The station entrance/exit should re-open by mid-December, as planned though.
Bond Street open again
Secrets of the Underground DVD
22nd November 2014
Geoff’s popular series of videos for Londonist featuring all the lines of the Tube is being released on DVD just in time for Christmas! It features re-edited versions of all the videos, 20 minutes of out-takes and extras and an all new ‘Abandoned Stations‘ video.
You can order your copy here from the Londonist website.
Secrets of the Underground
Abandoned Update
20th November 2014
We’ve updated our Abandoned Stations map again, tweaking a couple of things and adding in some new surface buildings at Knightsbridge and Chancery Lane.
As always, click on the image here to get a larger version!
Abandoned Stations (Version 6)