Three Ages of Reading on the Tube

Regular readers will know I'm always keen to see what people are reading on the London Underground, as it's usually a good indicator of trends in popular fiction, non fiction and now reading devices. Last week the trio opposite me looked very much like an advertisement for how people read on the Tube.


On the far right, we have the older man reading the Daily Telegraph. Although you can't see it from the photo, he was wearing a three piece suit, just to complete the picture of the old & traditional City commuter.

In the middle was a woman reading Shortlist, representing the rise of the "free sheet". Well perhaps the rise and fall of the free sheet. In 2009 both London Lite and the London Paper evening free sheets closed, but the Evening Standard turned from a paid for paper into a free sheet. But the fall of the evening freebies, Shortlist and Stylist have stepped in to provide a good weekly read with production values, editorial and photography to rival some quality paid for glossy monthlies.  I'm sure there's still a place for the "urban traveller" magazines like TNT, but I bet they've eaten into their market somewhat.  I remember when magazines like Ms London  & Midweek (remember them?), were the only freebies outside Tube stations and they were generally full of recruitment ads for secretarial roles.

On the left is a lady with an e-Reader - probably a Kindle. As blogged in the past, I'm seeing a huge number of people reading Kindles on the Tube now. There's almost one person in every carriage now (or more from my friend @Izabel_blue's tweet).

It'll be interesting to see how this picture will change in five years time.  How long will it be before  we see more people reading from iPads, Kindles or other e-readers than people reading printed books and papers on the Tube?

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Tube stations not on the London Underground - Part 2

Following on from the post on Denton Tube station in Gravesend, James Cridland spotted part of a Tube station on Bournemouth!


He said "An completely incongruous bit of underground station in the Bournemouth Oceanarium. I have little idea what it's doing here, other than perhaps to convey that we are "underground" - except why would there be an Underground roundel like this?

Also of note: the Underground roundel and the sign both use Arial and not Johnston. Not that I'm a font geek or anything."

If anyone has any theories on why a bit of the London Underground has been transported to the Oceanarium, please let us know.

Also if you have photographs of any other parts of Tube stations which aren't in London, please send them my way. It makes an interesting addition to the Roundels not on the Tube set.

Dogs Must be Carried Video

Yes, yes, I know what date it was filmed on, but I love this video from BeardedKitten which shows the surprise / obedience when "officials" try to enforce the "Dogs Must Be Carried" signs seen at the bottom of escalators.



The powers of the clip board and an authorative voice on the London Underground appear to work wonders.  Several people "hired" a dog for a few pence so they could travel on the escalators at Bethnal Green Tube.

Speaking of transport related April Fools you might have missed LoveHateTravel's 2015 Tube Map.   I love the loop on the District Line leading out to Bushy Park & getting a Tube to Brighton from Brixton, would be fab.

Related Posts
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Dogs must be Carried

Win a Commuter Survival Kit from LoveHateTravel

You've probably seen ads around the London Underground from Love/Hate Travel which are getting commuters to share reasons on Twitter or Facebook why they Love or Hate travel that day.


I was very kindly sent a "Commuter Survival Kit" which was packed with useful things for my journey. It included an air freshner, hand wipes, umbrella, comfy roll up slippers, mints, a stress ball, shoe shine and an Oyster card holder. The lovely guys and gals there had a few kits spare and offered to give away three kits to readers of this blog.


All you need to do to enter, is tell us "what you'd like to see in a Commuter Survival Kit". It could be something practical (perhaps something you already carry in your bag or pocket), something fun to get you through being stuck in a tunnel, something to essential for the summer to deal with the heat, or something for your winter journey. Whatever you like.

Love/Hate Travel will choose their favourite and we'll also select two winners at random. Please make sure you leave a name in the comments so we know who you are. Anyone who shows up as Guest or Anon won't count.  Please enter once only, so if you've got a lot of ideas, it's best to keep them to one comment!  This competition is open to UK readers only.

You have until 11.59pm UK time Sunday 17th April 2011 to enter and we'll announce the winners shortly after that, so don't forget to come back to see if you've won! Have fun & good luck.

London Underground Feature on Radio 2

If you follow my tweets, you may have heard I was on Radio 2 last Friday as part of Friday Night is Music Night. No, I haven't got any musical skills whatsoever, but was in the interval break feature on the Tube, following the BBC Concert orchestra's London Transport Suite. These are three movements "a percussiontastic explotion" describe modes of transport no longer with us, the hansom cab, the omnibus and steam trains - the 5.52 from Victorloo!

You'll hear me quoting some random facts about the Tube and also in a section at the end. The main thrust of the piece is the Tube in music, films & literature, so you'll also hear an interview with John Hudson who wrote Orpheus in the Underground (better known as the Can Can scene in Peter's Friends) and with mystery author Christopher Fowler, who I was also lucky enough to interview last year about his fascination with the London Underground.


If you're in the UK you can listen to the Tube feature on iPlayer until this Friday 8th April. Many thanks to Neil Rosser for the interview - never thought I'd ever hear myself in a classical music piece.

Northern Line not stopping at Tottenham Court Road till November

A reminder that from today, Saturday 2nd April, until late November, no Northern Line London Underground trains will be stopping at TCR station. MD Mike Brown explains the reasons in the video below, gives a sneak peek at the construction process behind building the new ticket hall and reassures us that the famous Eduardo Paolozzi mosaics will still be preserved (even though some would probably rather the see the back of them!).


TfL said "Tottenham Court Road station is over 100 years old and was not designed to be used by the 147,000 people that currently pass through it every day. With the growth in passengers using the Tube and the arrival of Crossrail, that number is expected to grow to over 200,000."

The station upgrade improvements include:

• increasing the size of the ticket hall by nearly six times;
• introducing step free access from street to platform;
• providing four new or modernised entrances;
• delivering new escalators and improved interchanges between platforms;
• and finally connecting with a new Crossrail ticket hall at Dean Street.

If you're around Tottenham Court Road and want to use the Northern line you should use nearby Goodge Street or Leicester Square instead.  More details are on TfL's site.

Letting People off the Tube First - a pictorial evolution

There are still a number of people who don't understand Tube door etiquette. For years London Underground have been trying to tell people that it's a good idea to let people get off the train first before getting on. Many posters have been designed trying to get this (what I'd have thought) simple message across. It might be interesting to see how they've "developed" (or not).

Let's start in 1944 with a classic poster from Fougasse (also known as Cyril Kenneth Bird)

I love the sympathetic approach here. Put yourself in the shoes of people trying to get off.  How would you like it, if someone barged on before you.

1979, let's have a brief interlude with a trip across to Japan to see how they dealt with this.


Would a religious plea help?  Let nuns off first.  Don't mess with the hand of God! (more vintage Japanese subway manners posters here).

Back to London.  You might remember the kitsch "Love Is" posters that were all over the London Underground in 2003.  One of them tackled this problem and proclaimed that "love is.... letting people off first."  The "Love Is" couple are pictured trying to get off a train while and old lady with bags is trying to barge her way on (Excuse the image size, I can't find a larger version of this).  

Then in 2004 you'll have seen posters reminding you of the feeling that Tube travel is like a battle.


The rugby image works well. The copy's good too "Nobody likes a scrum when the doors open. It causes blockages and delays your journey. Please help us to keep the Tube moving".

Moving onto 2008, a different tactic was tried.  London Underground started to experiment with "directional floor markings". Here's the thought process "Let's put some fluorescent yellow arrows on the platform floor. We won't bother explaining what they mean. People will naturally understand what they mean. We'll trial it for six months and we'll test varieties to see which ones work best."





Have you seen these anywhere recently? My guess is very people knew what they meant and it was quietly shelved.

It's not just TfL that have been having problems explaining how to let people off first. Last year Toronto newspaper The National Post tired of the barging behaviour on their subway. They produced a poster which they encouraged people to follow and print.


It's deliberately funny, but there's clearly too much detail. It'd never work.

Back to London and I'm not sure exactly when it was introduced, but it's post 2004 and TfL seem to think it's done the job up until mid March this year.


No bylines or extra copy, no cute cartoons, no photography. It's the clear road sign approach. It assumes that people know that the sign means "Give way to oncoming traffic" or in the Tube's case, simply "Give way".

So now, we've had over a decade of the 21st century, with sophisticated advertising techniques. A brand new poster has been launched in the last couple of weeks.  TfL's creative agency must have sat  round a table with the powers-that-be, scratching their heads, trying to think of what would work.  Here's how I imagine the conversation might have gone:

TfL: We've been running poster campaigns since the forties and still loads of people don't get it. So we want something 'in your face'
Agency: You haven't used photography for a while, how about that?
TfL: Yes that could work
Agency:  How about a celebrity?
TfL: We haven't got the budget.
Agency: How about Boris? He could give it some sort of authority
TfL: Too busy with Bikes and the Olympics.
Agency: How about someone that looks like Boris?
TfL: Possible - but he'd need to be cheap.
Agency: What about some irony or a joke?
TfL: Nah - nothing clever or anything that could be mis-interpreted. It needs to be straightforward and in your face
Agency:  OK, no subtlety
TfL: We want something in big letters that jumps out and almost hits you in the face
Agency: Oooh! Can we test some cross platform animations or short films? It would be what people saw just as the train pulled into the platform.
TfL: No, we have to save those for paying clients or engineering works.
Agency: OK what about something with QR codes, so that people can scan them into their smart phones and get taken to an interactive site about how many delays are caused by people blocking doors and stuff.
TfL: QR what? Anyway nothing with smart phones, they don't work underground.
Agency: Erm, OK what about something that incorporates social networks. We've got a brand new social media guru. We can can put your Facebook page and Twitter account on the posters.  Encourage engagement, build a community, use hashtags, get people to upload videos, check in on Foursquare.  It is 2011
TfL (sighing): Community? It's the Tube, we're not a social network, you could just about call us  a network.  But we're not social.  However, you're right it is 2011 - let's keep it simple, but make it very modern, cutting edge and NOW
Agency: OK so we're left with big letters, a Boris lookalike and something that jumps out in your face.  Sounds .... er... great.  We'll put our best intern with PhotoShop skills onto it.

So they did. Here's the very latest ad:


Wonder if it will work?