Geoff Marshall, a YouTuber who I think might be the best video creator in the transit fan space, has just released a video where he and some of his friends built a London Underground Map out of Lego, including with trains going back and forth along the tracks. Check out what they did in the video below!
Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.
1992 Tube Stock 91155
Location: White City Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 19, 2008
For reasons I’ll share in a separate post, my 4 year old has taken an interest in the London Underground lately. As a result, the photo of the month is coming to us from London. I find photography on the Tube to be a mixed experience. The most positive aspect of it is that the staff are well trained on what the photography rules are and often come up to photographers to remind them that flash is not to be used instead of declaring (falsely in most circumstances) that photography on a subway system is illegal. The more challenging part of photographing on the Tube is that many of the angles and perspectives I usually try capturing are “flipped” on account of the system’s left hand running. You might now be thinking how big of a difference does this truly make in taking pictures, but for some reason, I’ve always felt something is a bit “off” when photographing in London or other locations with left hand running. Have you experienced this?
Keen eyed readers might notice that the train in this photo isn’t running on the left side as one might expect. The Central Line has a brief section of “right hand running” due to a long disused loop track that served the former Wood Lane station and White City Depot in this area. This track arrangement allowed westbound trains to turn back for eastbound service without the train operator needing to change ends.
For more photos of London Underground 1992 Stock, please click here.
1973 Stock 126
Arnos Grove Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008
This month, the London Transport Museum is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Piccadilly Line extension to Cockfosters. In 1932, the line was extended from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove. Then on March 13, 1933 the line was extended to Oakfields and again on July 31, 1933 to Cockfosters, which remains the terminal today. To mark this occasion, the London Transport Museum is running a special fantrip using its 1938 rolling stock on Sunday, July 9. I haven’t been in London when any of these special types of events put on my the museum have occurred, but from what I see on social media, they look to be great. As it is, the museum itself is a must see attraction for any transit fan visiting London.
The photo featured here is of the 1973 Stock that currently operates on the Piccadilly Line at the Arnos Grove station. The 1973 Stock is among the oldest rolling stock in use on a transit system in Britain but TfL has plans for new deep tube stock that may begin operating as soon as 2025.
For more photos of the 1973 Stock, please click here.
1996 Tube Stock 96076
Location: West Hampstead Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London (TfL)
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008
Lots of attention has been given to the new Elizabeth Line in London. Known as Crossrail for most of its planning and construction phases, the Elizabeth Line is named after Queen Elizabeth II and opened just prior to her Platinum Jubilee, being celebrated this weekend. This isn’t the first rail line in London that has a name connected to Elizabeth’s reign. The Jubilee Line (pictured here) was named in honor of the queen’s Silver Jubilee; originally the line was to be called the Fleet Line. This also isn’t the first rail line that Queen Elizabeth will have opened, as she attended the opening of the Victoria Line in 1969, at which time she became the first reigning monarch to ride the London Underground.
In light of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations and the new rail line in London, there are a number of interesting articles about her ties to London and British transportation over the years that are worth checking out.
The opening of a new route in London has also resulted in the largest revamp of the famed London Underground map diagram in the past 20 years. However, not everyone is pleased and one map expert thinks that the map needs a total refresh instead.
For more photos of London Underground 1996 Stock, please click here.
R142 6415 at East Tremont Avenue, June 20, 2009
In keeping with the recent post about a podcast episode recommendation, here comes another one that may be worth your time. This time, we’re featuring the “Mind the Gap” episode from “Twenty Thousand Hertz“, which describes itself as “the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.” If the episode’s title immediately conjures an image of the London Underground in your head, I think it is fair to say this podcast is achieving its goal.
This episode features the stories of the voices behind the iconic subway announcements in London by Elinor Hamilton and in New York City by Charlie Pellett and even though I had some familiarity with some aspects of their stories, there were also some parts of their careers and stories I was not familiar with, especially Elinor Hamilton’s. If you’re really into the automated, prerecorded announcements that are commonplace on public transit today, you’ll want to give this a listen. (Even Mrs. Oren’s Transit Page, who is not the biggest podcast fan, enjoyed listening to this one with me.)
Listen to Twenty Thousand Hertz’s “Mind the Gap” episode (or read the transcript) by clicking here, or searching wherever you prefer to download your podcasts.
Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.
Planning a trip to London? Perhaps you are traveling to ride the special steam train excursion that is coming up in June? Consider staying at the Ibis Styles Gloucester Road, which reopened this month and has a London Underground theme throughout the hotel. Check out what it looks like in this article from Londonist, and then make a reservation to stay there! (For the record, I have not been a guest at this hotel pre or post renovation.)
Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.
You can read the article here.
What is your favorite Tube station (or Tube Line) name? Which station’s name origin do you wish you knew more about? Share your responses in the comments below!
If you’ve been to Washington or Chicago, you know that subway lines are named for colors. If you’ve been to New York City or Paris, you know that trains are referred to by a number of letter. Around the entire world, identifying subway lines by color, number, or letter is common. But in London, all the Tube lines have names. Did you ever wonder where those names come from? This article from Londonist reveals all. While some names are portmanteaus of the destinations they serve (i.e. Bakerloo), others have more complex histories.
Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.
Did you ever expect to see the London Underground or “The Tube” referred to as the U-Bahn? U-Bahn is the German term for subway and is used in just about each German city that has an underground rail network. Yesterday, I shared a 1973 London Underground map with you. Today, I’m sharing another London Underground map, except this one is from 1975 and printed in German for the benefit of German speaking tourists. I don’t speak or read German aside from knowing a few select words, but my guess is that the texts on this map are just straight translations from the standard English language that would be used to German. It is certainly an interesting addition to my collection as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a London Underground map in a language other than English.
Here are the scans of the map. You can click on each image to make it larger and see it at full size.
As I mentioned last week, I recently inherited a number of old maps from a variety of places around the world and they are now a part of my collection of maps and other transit memorabilia. I plan to share some of the more interesting additions from this inheritance here on The Travelogue in the coming weeks.
This is a 1973 London Underground Map. While the London Underground map design has remained fairly constant since Harry Beck’s initial diagram in 1931, there are some notable things on this map that are not the case today. These include:
What other differences do you see? You can click on the images to make them larger. I apologize for any issues with the quality as the maps were scanned, converted to JPEG, and then compressed to a size manageable for sharing here on Oren’s Transit Page.
