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Sunday, March 9th, 2008
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3:44 am - Actin Depot
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jamesb
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The LOndon transports Museum's Acton depot is open this weekend, I went yesterday and was well impressed. It is open today from 11am and costs £8. I Q'd for about 15 minutes to get in, and this weekend there are a selection of model displays of London Transport as well as access to what essentially is the museums store room.
Access to a number of Tube trains is allowed, so one pretend to drive a variety of stock, but I found the model's used to show the public how something will look to be the most fascinating.
more details here, its a rare enough thing to be open, once or twice a year I think.
J
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/visiting/86.aspx
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(4 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Thursday, December 13th, 2007
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10:32 am - LOEG Undergound
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jamesb
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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil has a very nice parody of a London Underground map as the contributors page, shows how useful the map can be. Its quite wonderfully done, as is the whole graphic novel, truly an amazing piece of work, although not much tube action in the interior, but even so have a look at it.
I highly recommend it.
Now when you look...
( bad pics, sorry )
current mood: awake
current music: Vine on Beeb 2
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Thursday, December 6th, 2007
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2:57 pm - Fantasy Society Open Xmas Night
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jamesb
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Myself and some mates are going to this open night, I understand there are usually a few London based Horror/Fantasy/Weird authors along.
It might be of some interest to you.
The BFS Christmas Open Night will take place on December 7th at Ye Olde Cock Tavern, 22 Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 1AA in the upstairs bar from 6pm onwards.
Also, do ye know about this http://www.orbital2008.org/
Gaiman should be good and he has a tube connection, and I think Mievelles work is set in a city based on London.
J
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(2 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
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3:52 pm - Emma Clarke sacked
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arkady
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Emma Clarke, the "voice of the Underground", has been sacked over her spoof announcements on her website (as mentioned previously in this post).
I very much hope that mention of her site in this community did not contribute to her sacking, and I am highly disgusted that TfL have decided to take this action over what was clearly a satirical site and had no direct connection with TfL or London Underground.
If you too feel that TfL have been far too heavy-handed, then please join me in contacting TfL to complain.
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(1 ticket | Tickets, please!)
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| Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
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4:00 pm - Emergency warning: I've chipped a nail.
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| Monday, November 5th, 2007
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8:46 pm - horror night
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jamesb
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Last Wednesday waterstones gower street had a launch evening to coincide with the release of The mammoth Book of New Horror from 6:30PM - 8:00PM and it was Free.
This is the eighteenth volume (i think) and has a huge colection of fiction and articles on occurances of horror significance in 2006.
There were a real host of authors present and I was struck by the cross genre nature of Christopher Fowler, Michael Marshall Smith and Geoff Ryman who were joined by Mark Samuels and Don Tumasonis. MC for the evening was editor Stephen Jones.
Sanuels kicked off the evening with a wonderful Tube based horror story, I was impressed with the accuracy which added integrity to this piece. He read the beginning and immediately I thought of underground goth. He knows his underground.
Another story worthy of mention in the collection would be Kim Newmans The Man Who Got Off The Ghost Train, which is just an amazing piece of brilliant fiction, and despite my personal bias is a great addition.
There was considerable demand and the editor, Steve Jones ended the evening signing a last minute sale in the doorway of the shop as it closed, as the photo shows my mate getting his sig from Steve.
James
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(4 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Sunday, October 28th, 2007
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8:45 am - sunday morning slumber
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jamesb
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Found this map, its an old one showing how things would have been in 2016. I like it as already so much won't happen, like the uxbridge tram and crossrail having been curtailed.
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/transport/docs/transportmap2016.pdf
meanwhile, as I am from Ireland, country of no tube but much ingenuity and necessity mothering many a recycled invention, I took this picture, and its still odd looking. Sorry its not tube related, but can you imagine.
J
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(2 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Monday, October 15th, 2007
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8:55 pm - They're swarming!
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| Sunday, October 14th, 2007
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5:39 pm - intelligent synicism - where to eat on the tube.
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jamesb
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Well guys, a strange comment came into me via my own LJ, so as requested I popped it up here, but really no idea why this didn't go via Arkady - (who can remove it if she thinks its dodgy)
but there is some synchronisity to this as I was in Wimbledon and while enjoying a tasty hot sausage in roll with chilli sauce, I was contemplating a similar question. Food on the tube.
looking for a sit down cafe on the underground?
( no you fool it could be spam )
I think anywhere in the station is OK.
so my first wholehearted recommendation is snoogys at Wimbledon, its on the train side of the barriers on the lower concourse of the district line tube platforms. They had sausage and steak sambos and rolls. Its a South African shop, but their wurs was amazingly good. This wasn't just the best tube food ever, it was superb in its won right. Other places there too.
There is a place on the metropolitan platform in baker street that does excellent samosas and chicken kebab things. well as nice as one could expect.
There is a bookshop in Old Street underground station, well in part of the subway system, but this is food for the brain, their address is old st Tube and I have to approve.
Its camden lock books.
J
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(3 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
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12:04 pm - a map to download.
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| Saturday, October 6th, 2007
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1:03 am - Bit late.... but if you wanted something to do this weekend
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jamesb
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you might fancy going to Swindon.
There you will find a big Museum, dedicated to The Great Western Railway.
http://www.steam-museum.org.uk/
(as you all know, GWR had a hand in the Metro Line development, and it did all start at Paddington.)
But this weekend, the sadness gets better, as there is a huge lego train exhibition on, here
are some pics of last years event:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=209425
and what has that got to do with Tubes...
well lookee here...
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2065849
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2065862
and if that's got yopu er, excited, well there are some more tube brick fans here:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=171863
The weekend exhibit is run by the Brickish association:
http://www.brickish.org/events/article.asp?ItemID=35562
dunno if there will be tubes there, but will take picccy things
james
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(3 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Friday, October 5th, 2007
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12:25 pm - Crossrail Annoucement
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duoinchains
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Just received this bulletin:
Date: 05 October 2007
Crossrail announcement
The Prime Minister gave the formal go-ahead for Crossrail this morning. This was announced at a meeting involving the Mayor, the Secretary of State for Transport, myself and senior colleagues from TfL, the Crossrail team and representatives of London business.
This is excellent news for London and the UK as a whole. Crossrail will play a vital role in ensuring that London continues to grow and prosper as a world City. Our Transport 2025 report published last year highlighted Crossrail as the single most important project London needs to increase capacity and help meet the future demand for transport.
Crossrail will be Europe’s largest civil engineering project, providing a state-of-the art modern, quick and reliable railway passing through central London. Scheduled to open in 2017, Crossrail will provide a massive increase of ten per cent in London’s public transport capacity.
Crossrail will build on our record of delivery over the past seven years, including significant improvements to bus and Tube services, extension of the DLR and more rail capacity through our new London Overground services.
Today's excellent outcome is the direct result of the reputation we have built up for delivery. We need to continue that and also bring Crossrail to a successful conclusion - on time and on budget. For more details on Crossrail, see www.crossrail.co.uk
Peter Hendy Commissioner, Transport for London
On a purely selfish level, this guarantees that the Astoria will definitely go as part of the Tottenham Court Road station rebuild *sighs*
I also have issues with the proposed service levels, especially west of London. Over half the trains are planned to terminate at Paddington, half of the remainder then onward to Heathrow, the other half through to Maidenhead... Maidenhead?? Why not the logical western terminus of Reading?? Which itself is due a major rebuild before 2017, so why can't the planners join up their thinking and allow capacity (platforms and track layout) for Crossrail to run through to Reading where there is plenty of space to expand and improve the station, rather than the much more restrictive station at Maidenhead. Grrr..
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(4 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Thursday, October 4th, 2007
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10:52 am - London tops city transport poll
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duoinchains
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7027322.stm
"World travellers have voted London the best city for public transport, for the second year running.
London also topped the poll, by holiday review site TripAdvisor, for having the safest public transport, best subway or Metro system, and the best taxis.
Travellers also considered London to have the most costly transport system."
current music: nowt - I'm at work!
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(1 ticket | Tickets, please!)
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| Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
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9:24 pm - it grows. or does it.
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jamesb
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a customer decided that their 1988 London transport Map and Guide for visitors was outdated, and accepted a TFL 2007 Visitors Guide, that there were to hand. Not the first time this has happened I expect.
Thought the tube/rail maps might be worth showing, just for geek comparative reasons.
james
( Only click if you want to see pictures )
current music: smasjing pumpkins
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(10 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
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12:13 pm - BBC Article on 'The Thames Tunnel'
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failing_angel
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I thought people on here might find this of interest*.
Brunel's tunnel vision lives on
"The Thames Tunnel built by Sir Marc Brunel between 1825 and 1843 is to form part of the new £1bn East London Railway Line. More than 160 years after it was completed, it will connect up the transport network the capital is building to prepare for the 2012 Olympics. Running between Rotherhithe and Wapping, its quality fills modern engineers with admiration.
Brunel employed his son Isambard - aged just 19 - as resident engineer. It was their first job together, the first tunnel anywhere through soft ground under water, and the oldest tunnel on the present London Underground.
"Victorian brickwork - particularly the early brickwork - was of a tremendous standard," explains Barrie Noble, construction manager for Transport for London, who is working on the building of the new railway.
The tunnel was relined in the mid-1990s as part of a compromise after a fierce disagreement between London Underground and English Heritage. Some campaigners opposed the relining. But Mr Noble says it gave the tunnel a new lease of life."
Article continues here
This bit caught my eye - "He takes parties of visitors through the tunnel by courtesy of the East London line managers - who turn on the lights - and drivers, who slow down the trains."
* - although I suspect that this may just be old news to many of you
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(4 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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| Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
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2:49 pm - Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal...
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12:12 pm - Appropriate t-shirts
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12:04 am - Tube strike called off
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| Monday, September 3rd, 2007
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11:39 pm - Thoughts from a former LUL employee
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arkady
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There seems to be some weird and wonderful misapprehensions out there as to the reasons for the strike actions on the Underground this week and proposed for next week, including some utter bollocks conspiracy theories.
I worked for London Underground for a number of years, reaching the rank of Line Controller on the District Line. I have been a member first of the RMT and then the TSSA after I grew disillusioned with the RMT in general and Bob Crow in particular; so I have extensive working knowledge of how LUL works and of the background to the strike action; I was working for LUL whilst "shadow running" of the PPP companies was in place and during the changeover period when PPP became operational.
The RMT union started a 72-hour strike at 18:00 hours today, in a row over pensions and job security following the collapse of Metronet.This strike isn't about Bob Crow vs The Establishment, though Crow (as per bloody usual) is trying to turn it into that. On Monday, Unite and the TSSA both said they would not go on strike after being given assurances; however the TSSA said its 360 members would take part in the second planned 72-hour strike, if a matter concerning pensions was not resolved. The unions have been seeking guarantees there will be no job losses, forced transfers or cuts in pensions as a result of Metronet's collapse in July, when it went into administration; however it transpires that the assurances given to the TSSA only cover the administration period.
Who are the TSSA? They're the only union that LUL allows employees to pay union fees to directly from their salaries; that's because it's the union that has more members of LUL management in than the RMT, ASLEF and Unison combined. That's why LUL pays attention if the TSSA decides something warrants strike action - because in effect, it's their own management telling them there is something very badly wrong. It was the TSSA who successfully campaigned for all of LUL's equality policies; the RMT were very much riding on the TSSA's coattails for that one, though they've tried to claim the credit for it ever since.
The unions never wanted PPP in the first place. All the Metronet and Tubelines employees working on the Underground were originally LUL employees; they had no say in the matter but instead were transferred over en masse to the PPP companies, whilst retaining such perks as staff passes and the right to apply for internal vacancies both within LUL and within TfL as a whole.
What the unions ideally want is for all Metronet employees to revert back to full employment within LUL and for all maintenance to be brought back in-house - in other words, to do away with PPP altogether. In this I support them fully; the LUL engineers were shamefully treated and had no say over being transferred to Metronet and Tubelines, and now Metronet has gone under they face a very uncertain future that they never asked for when first they joined LUL - some of these people started their careers as apprentices at the age of 15 and had been with LUL for over 30 years in some cases. All they want is an assurance that they will still have jobs when the administration period is over, and that their pensions will not be affected.
PPP was brought in by Gordon Brown however; and it is highly unlikely he will ever agree to its being abandoned; however the Metronet employeeshave already been quite shamefully treated once by having a transfer forcibly imposed upon them; is it really so wrong for them to be seeking assurances that this will not happen again and that their pensions will be protected?
Whilst I fully understand, sympathise with and agree with their reasons for action however, I don't agree with the way Bob Crow and the RMT have gone about voicing their complaints. Much has been made of the RMT members voting "overwhelmingly" for strike action; what they aren't telling you is that less than a third of the RMT members ballotted actually voted - so the strike action is actually being imposed on the majority by a minority, for instance. Bob Crow is also far too militant; he's a dinosaur relic of an era when the unions held far greater sway than they do now, and he wants to drag everyone back to the bad old days of the 70s - kicking and screaming if need be; and it is the people of London who have to suffer.
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(10 tickets | Tickets, please!)
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5:44 pm - RMT strike action
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arkady
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Strike action by RMT members of Metronet, begun at 17:00 hours today, has already started to have an effect on the service.
All London Underground lines are now suspended, with no services running as of 17:40 hours. This included the Piccadilly and Northern Lines, which do not fall under Metronet's remit. The Northern Line resumed running as of 18:00 hours, whilst Picc remained badly affected; Jubilee, Picc and Northern lines are likely to be severely overcrowded during the remainder of the strike.
The service on all lines is unlikely to return to normal until Friday morning.
Valid Tube tickets will be accepted on DLR, buses and mainline rail services.
According to this BBC news report, a second 72-hour stoppage is planned for Monday.
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Thursday, August 16th, 2007
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9:01 pm - One does one's best.
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| Friday, July 20th, 2007
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6:56 pm - Travel Alert - London Underground
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arkady
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The Circle Line is suspended due to flooding.
The District Line is suspended between Turnham Green and Richmond and between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road, with severe delays on the rest of the line.
The Victoria line is suspended between Kings Cross and Seven Sisters due to a security alert at Highbury and Islington; Highbury and Islington station is currently closed.
Severe delays are occurring on the Metropolitan and Jubilee lines following an earlier signal failure at Neasden.
Delays are occurring on the Piccadilly line caused by earlier signal failures at Earl's Court and Barons Court.
The Hammersmith and City line is now running with minor delays, after being partly suspended earlier.
Several stations are still closed because of flooding. These include Shepherd's Bush (Central Line), Colliers Wood, Paddington (Circle Line services only), Tooting Broadway and Gants Hill.
The Bakerloo line is suspended between Queens Park and Harrow and Wealdstone due to industrial action. Minor delays are occurring on the rest of the line. Services will not return to normal until Saturday morning.
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Tuesday, July 17th, 2007
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10:37 am - The cackling glee coming from the GLA building is a mere courtesy detail.
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reddragdiva
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http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2127957,00.html
Metronet, the company charged with a £17bn upgrade of the London underground network, was heading for administration last night as the London mayor prepared to step in.
It is understood that Ken Livingstone has lined up accountancy firm Ernst & Young to take over the running of Metronet, which is facing a cash crunch following a regulatory decision yesterday.
The referee for the Public Private Partnership project to renovate the capital's tube network said Metronet, would not receive the emergency cash injection that it needs to continue with its work. Having asked for £551m, the rail regulator Chris Bolt said it would only get £121m.
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Thursday, July 5th, 2007
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2:07 pm - Central Line derailment
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arkady
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Mile End and Bethnal Green stations are closed, and Bow Road outside Mile End station is closed westbound following the earlier derailment of a Central Line train this morning. Three cars came off the rails on the westbound Central Line between Mile End and Bethnal Green stations. The derailment is believed to have been caused by a loose bale of building material dislodged from its licensed storage position in a tunnel cross-passage, according to Metronet.
Central Line services are suspended between Leytonstone and Liverpool Street, and there are severe delays on the rest of the line.
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
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9:00 pm - Photos at every tube station ... one by one.
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| Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
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9:06 pm - Subterranea Britannica one-day conference
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blue_condition
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Thought this might be of interest to this community as it's London and underground, if not London Underground:
Details here.
Sub Brit has a mix of people interested in all aspects of man's use of natural or artificial underground spaces - with a slight bias towards the Cold War and (mostly disused) railway infrastructure.
Nothing on LU at this year's conference but there is a talk on the Berlin U-Bahn.
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(Tickets, please!)
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| Friday, April 13th, 2007
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2:56 pm - Strike update: still going ahead.
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| Thursday, April 12th, 2007
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6:02 pm - Tube strike warning
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| Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
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12:46 pm - Nowegian prat
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| Sunday, March 18th, 2007
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9:52 am
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