Regent's Park Tube found consonants

Great spot by @clairemims who noticed that "Regents Park Tube appears to have had an attack of the consonants" on Google Maps.


That's certainly the best spelling of "underground station" I've seen. Unless Google Maps have for some reason decided to employ Norwegians to compose titles for London Underground stations. Flickr seem to have inherited the labelling, leading to some unusual pictures Regent's Park Undergrunnsstasjon too.

WiFi Test on London Underground starts Monday

A six month trial of WiFi at Charing Cross station covering platforms and the ticket halls of the Northern and Bakerloo line begins this Monday 1st November. BT’s service will piggy-back onto an existing wireless network, currently used by TfL staff, which apparently makes it much cheaper to deploy.


In the trial, designed to gauge customer interest, commuters with a WiFi-enabled smartphone, laptop or other device will be able to read travel information for free. Other services require a subscription to BT’s Openzone network of WiFi hotspots, which is bundled with BT Broadband and mobile contracts with Tesco Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and Orange. More on this from Seek Broadband and TfL's site.

BT Openzone’s WiFi is already available at nine London overground stations, including Liverpool Street, Victoria and Charing Cross. The Cloud, a competitive hotspot network, also provides wireless access at several stations.

Finally we seem to be catching up with other subway networks. Mobile phone coverage works on many other underground systems including Glasgow, Beijing, Stockholm, Washington DC and Moscow. Kulveer Ranger, the mayor’s transport adviser acknowledges the demand in London and said "An ever growing commuter populous has been clamouring to be able to check their e-mails and browse the net whilst on the go".

Boris has pledged to enable wireless service across the whole Tube network in time for the Olympic Games in 2012. A TfL spokesperson said: "Given the current pressures on TfL’s budgets any solution would need to be funded through mobile operators with no cost to fare or taxpayers. Discussions are ongoing."

Hopefully the service will be put through a rigorous test at Charing Cross. It's one of London's busiest stations with passengers making 68,000 journeys every day.

For coverage elsewhere on the network, you might also be interested in our quest to find mobile phone hotspots on the Tube.

Related post: Best London Underground iPhone Apps

Police appeal for information on Tube Death

Many of you have probably heard about the horrible incident on Monday when a man fell to his death beneath a London Underground train. I was on the Westbound Piccadilly Line train just before this happened and it felt awful to know that if I'd been a few minutes later, I might have seen the accident.


Strangely enough, and I don't think about this often, while I was on the platform that night waiting for the train to come in, I decided to stand "side on" rather then face the train as normal. A friend of mine had told me a nasty story, where a friend of his had been pushed face on into a moving train as it was pulling into the station. I've no idea what made me think about that story then, it wasn't some "Mystic Meg" premonition, just something that strangely popped into my head.

Our driver made an announcement a few stations down that this was the last Piccadilly Line as someone was under a train behind us. He advised people to get on the train if they could as there wouldn't be more trains in either direction for quite some time. Most of us just thought we were lucky to be on it and I gave an idle Tweet when I emerged at Hammersmith, trying to give notice about the line closure.

The next morning news came through that a couple had been "playing around" on the crowded platform and pushing and pulling each other until one fell. I'm sure we've seen teenagers doing this, but the mind boggles as to why a woman in her mid thirties and a man in his fifties were doing this.

It was 6.30pm on a Monday evening, hardly the time for drunken high japes. It's a ridiculously stupid thing to do on an empty platform. But it's even worse doing this on a crowded rush hour platform, when simply by just walking near the yellow line, you feel like you could potentially fall or be bumped into at any minute.


Yesterday the police were in full force at King's Cross and I was handed the leaflet pictured in the first photo. If you saw the incident please call the British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40.

I seriously hope this acts as a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks it's funny to play "chicken" in front of a speeding Tube.

Chris Lee's Wife Kristen Lee Harassed By Yankee Fans

While the American League Championship Series was being played in Yankee Stadium, the wife of Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee was reportedly not happy with how the Yankees fans treated her.

The wife of Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee says she experienced some pretty abusive behavior from Yankee fans, including taunting, cursing, throwing cups of beer and even spitting from the section above.



According to a report by Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Kristen Lee sat in the visiting family section at Yankee Stadium and was allegedly harassed by New York fans.



"The fans did not do good things in my heart," Kristen Lee told USA Today. "When people are staring at you, and saying horrible things, it's hard not to take it personal."



Yankees fans also threw trash into the Texas bullpen in Game 2 and attempted to dump beer on former Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. during the TBS pregame show before Game 4.



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Pumpkin subway map

If you're looking for an unusual pumpkin carving idea for Halloween, why not follow in the footsteps of Elliot who cleverly worked Washington's metro map into his jack-o'-lantern. Zone one of the London Underground map would look pretty cool, shining out in the night.


Hat tip to @Jemimah_knight for letting me know about this. You just need a spare Tube map or download a large one from the net, lay it on your pumpkin and punch some holes into it of selected stations and Bob's your uncle!

If you're looking for spooky Tube Tales, Mags Halliday sent me a link to a round up of ghosts on the Northern Line from London Particulars. Plus don't forget the great guest blog post from CTrouper on Mysteries and Ghosts on the Tube, from a talk last month.

Now you just need a copy of Creep (reviewed here) or if you can stomach Raw Meat aka Deathline (so bad, it's bad) and you're set for ghoulish Tube themed Halloween.

Converse takeover Old Street Tube

It probably didn't take Converse too long to think of an appropriate London Underground station to "takeover". While I was on holiday, the footwear brand of any self respecting London hipster took over the escalator panels and much illuminated ad space around the station. In fact, I was surprised not to see "Old Street sponsored by Converse" roundels on the platform walls.


The ads running up (and down) the escalator are pretty striking and I could see a number of young Shoreditchians working out if they had the latest albumns of the musicians displayed. That's assuming they are all musicians and not other hipster icons (to my shame I only recognised Paloma Faith).


The ads also greet you at the barriers, perhaps with the subliminal message that if you're wearing Converses, the gates will magically open before you, or at least it'll make it easier to leap over the barriers.

Converse haven't just left their takeover to Old Street tube, as my friend Michal noticed part of the ad forming a giant mural on wall in Shoreditch:


Shoreditch by MichalD
Perhaps the branded London Underground Map shouldn't be just a collection of puns of station names that sound like brands. If we had cheaper fares as a result of stations being named after brands, would that really be such a terrible thing?


What do you think? There's certainly a number of railway stations that have "The home of rich estate agent" or "The home of large insurance company" on platform signs. Why shouldn't we have the same for the Tube?

You might also like: - Converses on the Tube.

100 Years of Iconic Tube Posters - 27th October

At Apple Store, Covent Garden London Transport Museum's Senior Curator Claire Dobbin will be giving a fascinating introduction to the London Underground's rich poster history.



The illustrated talk will show highlights from a century of outstanding design, which transformed the Tube into London's longest art gallery. Featured artists include Man Ray, Graham Sutherland, Howard Hodgkin and Sir Peter Blake.

Admission to the event is free. No booking required, so just turn up on Wednesday 27th October at 7pm - Apple Store Covent Garden, No. 1-7 The Piazza, London, WC2E 8HA

As a background, you might also like:

London Underground Art of the Poster Exhibition - celebrating 100 years of poster art.