The Tube has been in the news rather a lot of late, with train drivers refusing to work unless they get a 5% increase to their frankly rather nice salary. But this is not going to be about that. There are many more fascinating things to say about the Tube than ‘fucking drivers…fucking union…fucking £40k to press “start” and “stop” all day’ etc etc.So the Tube, right? It was invented in 1863 and is the world’s oldest underground transportation system. It covers 400km and has 270 stations, only one of which has a name that shares no letters with the word ‘mackerel’ (St John’s Wood), another of which has six – count ’em – consecutive consonants in its name (Knightsbridge), and only two of which contain all five vowels (South Ealing, Mansion House). The shortest escalator is at Stratford and the longest is at Angel. Only 45% of the Underground is underground.
The Circle Line opened in 1884, but is not the only ‘Circle Line’ that the Tube has had. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a ‘Middle Circle’ (essentially the Hammersmith & City Line), an ‘Outer Circle’ (essentially the Silverlink/Overground line) and a ‘Super Outer Circle’ (St Pancras to Earl’s Court via Cricklewood and Acton – doesn’t sound very super to me). None of these non-Circle-Line Circle Lines was actually a circle.
But nor is the Circle Line an actual circle, although it is at least a circuit. The first topological (geographically confusing) map of the Tube was created by a London Underground employee called Harry Beck in 1931. Looking at the squiggly mess that the integrated tube map was becoming, he realised that very few commuters actually gave a toss where the stations were, so long as they could work out how to get from A to B. Unfortunately, while the topological Tube map is quite top and logical (that’s what the word means, right?), it’s not very useful for nitwits like me who use it as their basis for London geography. I once took a train from Embankment to Charing Cross, for christ’s sake – which I think is the second-shortest distance you can travel. The actual shortest distance between two stations is from Leicester Square to Covent Garden (0.26km) and the longest is from Chesham to Chalfont & Latimer (6.26km).A number of stations have closed down over the years, including Down Street, between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner; City Road, between Angel and Old Street; British Museum, in the obvious location; and a rather brilliant-sounding place called Brill, unfortunately located ‘beyond Amersham’.
But enough of all that. Here’s a video of a bloke skiing down Europe’s longest escalator, at Angel.
