Recent posts in my London Underground Category
May 19, 2010
A thank you to London Underground staff...no thanks to abusive National Express East Anglia
My family had a dreadful 'customer' experience at the hands of abusive National Express East Anglia staff at Liverpool Street station on Sunday morning. However, a member of London Underground staff came to our rescue. In seeking to find out how to thank them, I discovered that TfL have a form to do that on their website.
October 27, 2009
How to make friends and influence people in The Guardian office this morning...
...use the nice new Oystercard wallet that The Times were giving away outside Kings Cross station last night....
August 26, 2009
Celtic fans take over Kings Cross Underground noticeboards
For a while today, Celtic fans managed to redecorate Kings Cross Underground Station with their own take on the important information they needed to know about getting to Arsenal's Emirates Stadium for their Champions League play-off tie. At first glance I thought it was an example of London Underground being extra helpful to visiting fans to London, but I soon realised that the poster had been put together by fans of the Queen's Celtic themselves (© Fivers passim) This was...
July 10, 2009
Nokia's near-real-time adverts on the Northern Line
Yesterday Kings Cross seemed to be the epicentre of a London Transport #fail that thwarted my every move, but it did mean that I got an enjoyable bit of serendipity. As I was forced to unexpectedly re-route my journey via the Northern Line platforms at Euston, I spotted this advert. And then the delays meant I had time to film it. In the last few days I've been in a debate about how news organisations have totally failed to sell...
June 14, 2009
The shoddy Victoria Line replacement bus service at Walthamstow Central
This is purely and simply an unmitigated moan about Arriva's woeful Railway Bus Replacement service that operates between Finsbury Park and Walthamstow Central. I understand that the Victoria Line has to be upgraded to take the improved rolling stock I first got a sneak peek at in August 2006, but why does the replacement have to be so shoddy - it seems that every time I am forced to use it there is an issue. The first problem, as demonstrated...
May 25, 2009
Kings Cross wayfinding #fail
It is probably longer ago than I think, but it doesn't seem that long in the grand scheme of things since the whole Kings Cross St Pancras Underground ticket office complex was revamped as part of the redevelopment of St Pancras into a Eurostar terminal. That also meant a whole new set of signage for the station. Judging by this handwritten annotation, it seems that at least one member of staff thinks the wayfinding to the Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City...
April 30, 2009
Coded terrorist signals on the Victoria Line
I spotted another electronic signage oddity on the Victoria Line the other day, to go with the recent 'No message' I saw at Walthamstow Central. This time it was at Finsbury Park. Now, I know that it is just a random scramble of pixels, but there looks to be something a bit Arabic about the writing. Given their propensity to publish anti-Islamic terrorism scaremongering at the drop of a hat, even if it is completely unfounded, I'm surprised this hasn't...
April 9, 2009
'No message' at Walthamstow Central
I'd love to know who was the person writing the functional spec for the London Underground matrix displays at Walthamstow Central who decided that there needed to be a special case for when there was: "NO MESSAGE" Even more, I'd like to meet the person who had to write the bit of code that must say something along the lines of: if ($message = undef) { print "NO MESSAGE"} Obviously, the code is there so that you can tell whether...
March 21, 2009
London's abandoned Underground Stations on Google Street View
Abandoned Tube Stations on Street View
Peek at the disused bits of London's Underground that you can see overground using Google Street View
May 21, 2007
Last Rounds project featuring some of my photographs of Tube stations
I'm always pleased to see my public Flickr photos being re-used to help new websites, and a little while ago I was approached about using some of my pictures on the "Last Rounds" site. It is a website that concerns itself with public transport and the pursuit of beer. Seeing as that wraps up three of my chief areas of interest, how could I refuse? The Last Rounds project began in response to the new later licensing laws in England....
August 10, 2006
New Victoria Line trains on display at Euston
Yesterday I visited the temporary exhibition outside Euston station of the new Victoria Line Underground rolling stock which is due to make a debut on the line in late 2009. The display was in a marquee at the front of Euston, and featured a prototype of half of one of the new style carriages. What is it about the marketing material for these kind of events that forces people to use puns all the time? We're on track to introduce...
October 20, 2005
Oxford Circus Underground Timewarp
There is currently some refurbishment work going on at Oxford Circus Underground station, and as you descend towards the Northbound Bakerloo and Victoria line platforms you suddenly drift back in time over 15 years. The work has exposed two panels of adverts that must date from back in 1989, since one of them is advertising a New Year's Day Andy Sheppard gig from 1990....
August 20, 2005
The Bike Shed at Walthamstow Central
So I think I've given up on my ambition to be cycling to work by the start of September - it is 22km each way, and apart from the physical issue of whether I can do it or not, I can't work out when I would either get to write currybetdotnet or drink beer. Plus there is the issue of whether I would actually have the energy left to do any work after a 22k cycle first thing in the...
August 11, 2005
Unusual Stuff On The Central Line
I'm glad someone else has noticed this. Going Underground has posted today about some odd graffiti appearing on the door of a Central Line train - "NOISY DOORS ARE UNACCEPTABLE" It is one of a series - back in early July I posted to Flickr another example - "DOORS CAUSE DEAFNESS" I haven't managed to capture it on camera yet, but I believe there is a third one out there. I did, however, manage to capture on camera - however...
July 11, 2005
Sarah Boxer Writes About The 7/7 Community On Flickr in The New York Times
There was a very odd article published by the New York Times in the Arts section over the weekend, where Sarah Boxer reviewed the London Bomb Blasts Flickr group - On the Web, Photos Strain to Connect 7/7 and 9/11*. It was bought to my attention as it name-checked my Flickr-self as one of the top posters. Her argument is that the group have collectively tried to put something together to echo the iconic images of New York on September...
May 18, 2005
George Galloway in the USA Senate and on the District Line
I've no great love of George Galloway, and from what I understand the election campaign that ousted Oona King was pretty unsavoury, but I have to say I thought he was very impressive yesterday in his appearance before a USA Senate sub-committee. Last night the red button on News 24 had an unedited video loop of the whole proceedings, which I turned on in the background out of vague interest, and ended up gripped. It isn't available on DSat anymore,...
May 12, 2005
A day on the District Line
Yesterday I took a day trip exploring the branches at the Western end of the District Line. Bits of the District Line form some of the oldest parts of the London Underground system, with steam-hauled services between South Kensington and Westminster starting as far back as December 1868. The first branch I headed down was the Wimbledon branch. This allowed me to have a look at the South London Tram system, which I've not seen before, and then gradually make...
April 27, 2005
A gallery, a monument, a museum and a spot of shopping - Day-tripping in London
With a month off on my hands I'm working through a lengthy list of things that I've always wanted to do around London, but have never found the time for. Today I ticked three things off the list. I started at the Estorick Collection at Canonbury Square in Islington, which until June 5th has a exhibition on Avant-Garde Graphics from 1918 to 1934. The gallery itself is quite small, consisting of six rooms, five of which are taken up with...
March 12, 2005
When Oyster Card fails think "Thanks for the uptime"
In Friday's Evening Standard there was a small article by Local Government Correspondent Ross Lydall about the Oyster card: "Oyster card users have been overcharged about £1 million because of delays in limiting fares, it was claimed today. The revelation came as pressure grew for an inquiry after a computer crash caused the £50 million smartcard system to collapse. Card readers across the 270 Tube stations and on 8,000 buses failed yesterday morning - taking five hours to repair and...
March 7, 2005
Could Arsenal station be retro-renamed?
A while ago Arsenal announced that thanks to the quick bung of £100m in their direction, their new stadium is to be known as Emirates Stadium. It made me wonder what might happen to the name of Arsenal station on the Piccadilly Line. It was renamed 'Arsenal' on the 31st October 1932 to reflect that it was just around the corner from the club's Highbury ground. The re-naming is very noticeable, since over 70 years later the tile-work on the...
September 21, 2004
Open House at Loughton Station
This weekend was Open House in London, and I booked to go on a tour of Loughton Station on Sunday morning. The present station at Loughton is the third to serve the area, and was built in the late 1930s at a time when the Underground was taking over what had been an overground suburban railway - so it is unique in mixing the architectural and functional styles of the two. The tour was well-run, and we were lucky...
July 11, 2004
Java powered interactive tube map for Orange phones
My copy of London Underground's Tube magazine dropped through my door this weekend. As usual it has some interesting articles about the tube itself - one on individual station designs at platform level, and one on Caribbean tube workers in the 1950s and 60s - but mostly comes across as a rather dull corporate brochure aching to be an in-flight magazine.However it did have one really neat promotional item - advertising that you can download a free java powered interactive...