What's wrong with the new Tube Map?

TfL put a new London Underground map on their site today to take account of the new Dalston/Highbury & Islington extension on the London Overground. In their excitement they made a mistake which Peter spotted.



See if you can discover what it is before they correct it (Clue - it's in the section I've linked to above) hopefully it's not made it to the new printed versions out tomorrow!

No prizes, just the satisfaction of knowing you're right!

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River returning to Tube Map

Update - Just had an email from the press desk of LU who said "Thanks for tip re map mistake, now resolved. Fortunately supplier error didn't make its way on to hard copy poster and pocket maps ..."

Baby on Board Badges - How big should they be?

If my commute this morning was anything to go by, Baby on Board badges should be day-glo, about a six inches wide and also have flashing lights on them. I was pretty shocked to see a whole section of people on my train this morning ignoring a woman wearing a badge quite prominently.


When she and I both got on at Hammersmith, the train wasn't completely packed but there were no seats & in my section of the carriage there was only me & her standing. Ah, I thought, here's a perfect example of how the badge will work. She wasn't really one of those border line cases where you think "Fat or Pregnant?". She didn't really look pregnant.  I guessed she as at the early stages of her term. Great, the badge will come into its own.


After one stop nothing. Despite both me and the woman giving hard Paddington stares at everyone seated. Everyone was either engrossed in a paper or their mobile phone or talking to each other or staring into space.

OK onto the next stop, surely by now someone will look up and see her badge, specially as she had now moved into the centre of the aisle between the seats to look more noticeable.


Nothing. By now I was beginning to feel awkward & slightly annoyed.  I could see her badge from the other end of the carriage.  Surely someone should have noticed by now.  If I was her I probably would have asked for a seat. But then I thought, why should she? She was wearing a badge that said "Look I'm pregnant, I've gone to the trouble of getting a badge from London Underground and I'd like a seat". Isn't just the fact of wearing the badge enough to save people the embarrassment of asking for a seat and the embarrassment of offering a seat to someone who isn't pregnant? Not in this case.

Another stop went by and still no one got up. Finally a lady standing next to me had also had enough. She loudly and politely said "Could one of you give up your seat for this woman, she's pregnant?" Immediately a man who was with a female friend stood up and offered their seat. The pregnant woman said thanks and informed the carriage that she was actually six months pregnant. Shame it took three stops for this to happen.

I know that we can all be so involved in our papers, books, kindles or whatever, but it takes close to no time to occasionally look around to see if someone might be in more need of a seat than yourself (pregnant or otherwise).

Otherwise TfL can you spend some of your revenue making badges that maybe a bit more in your face? Perhaps we have to get to the level of "Pregnant please let me sit" if "Baby on Board" is too subtle for some!

Update - seems a lot of people had never heard of Baby on Board badges until this post - here's information from TfL's site on and how to get hold of one if you're pregnant.  The link also includes information on Priority Seating in general.

Related posts (that's not all of them and yes it's a pet hate of mine!)
Pregnant Pause
Baby on Board Badge Spotted
Tube Seat Etiquette
Upgrades for pregnant rail travellers

Winners of Tube T Shirt Competition

The votes are in and the winners of the latest competition from Weadmire are in. The three T shirt designs inspired by your suggestions will be made into real T shirts which be on sale in their Shoreditch shop and online soon.





Congratulations to Eric, Mark and Breige and thanks to everyone who voted.

A special thanks for  Weadmire for once again getting so involved with the competition. We'll have another one coming up in the future, as one of their designers would like your thoughts on how London Underground trains could be featured on T-Shirts.

Also look out for Weadmire on Twitter to keep up to date with their work.

Tube as 'Life Belt' on new map cover

Is the London Underground a life saver? That's certainly the impression TfL are hoping we get  from the new Tube Map cover.  In circulation from March 2011 it's based on a recent sculpture by Eva Rothschild created in 2009 called - Good Times.


The ring is made up of Tube line colours with a black background which apparently references "the dominance of darkness as we travel through the tunnels underground."

Eva Rothschild explains her thinking behind the artwork: "The spectrum and colours also hold specific meaning of their own, echoing a life belt, for me this reference seemed appropriate because so many of us, including myself, depend on the Tube, its iconic map and London's huge transport system in order to go about our day-to-day lives."

TfL said "The ring or belt form implies linkage, which can be interpreted into what the Tube essentially does for London.

Rothschild is particularly interested in the way objects have a power over us, especially in relation to religious thought and superstition."

I can understand this. Many of us thank God whenever we don't have to use the Tube or harbour superstitious thoughts about the Jubilee Line only having weekend engineering works when there's a vowel in the month.

Regardless of whether you see the Tube as a life saver or a collection of  bright lights in a dark tunnel or a place for "Good Times", you'll be able to pick up the new map in stations from next month.

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Wartime Tube Posters - London Transport Museum Talk

On Tuesday 1st March London Transport Museum will be hosting a talk on London Underground's poster campaign during the Second World War. As well as conveying essential information to staff & passengers, the posters tried to encourage thoughtful behaviour. Much of this was done through the humorous cartoons of Fougasse and David Langdon.

You might have seen the Billy Brown "the London Underground's most exemplary passenger" campaign, whose rather po-faced, 'do-gooder' advice was often spoofed.





For example, the common response to his "I trust you'll pardon my correction, that stuff is there for your protection" was "We thank you for your information, We're trying to see the bloody station".  London Transport thought if you can't beat them, join them and set up competitions for travellers to design their own rhyming couplets for Brown.

More direct appeals for co-operation, or advice on sheltering and the 'blackout' were expressed in easy to read layouts, perhaps wisely, without the use of humour. Other posters celebrated London Transport's contribution to the war effort and London's resilience.



Seeing it Through was a series of posters (see above) commissioned from Eric Henri Kennington by London Transport in 1944; they commemorated the everyday acts of heroism by civilian workers during the Second World War.

London Transport Museum's Head Curator David Bownes and art historian Jonathan Black, will cover the orgins of the posters from morale boosting propaganda to visions of post war society.

The talk starts at 6.30pm at London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Tickets are £8 for Adults; £6 for senior citizens and £4 for students. Telephone 020 7565 7298 to book your tickets.

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London Underground Apologies

Last night's Northern Line delays were caused by "water ingress in the tunnel". Luckily it doesn't sound like some sort of dramatic flooding, but I wonder how many people were told that the delays and part suspension were due to "water on the line"?


There was much grumbling on Twitter as the ubiquitous "signal failure" was the blame for the delays. Tube drivers themselves (as is usually the case) didn't know what was causing the problem.

One frustrated female driver said "Can't get any information out of anyone, it's like talking to my husband ...".  (heard by @chrisgolds)

I know it doesn't help speed up our journey, but I certainly prefer to know what's causing the problem. It helps people appreciate the frustrations of staff more and also helps me guestimate whether I should  make an alternative route (if I'm not already stuck on the line).

Thanks to the major grumblings on Twitter & a TfL email alert I decided to avoid the Northern Line. So I went home using the Waterloo & City Line & South West Trains from Waterloo (the District Line also had problems).  It was interesting to see screens at Waterloo station advising the weekend's engineering works,  accompanied by pictures of guys working on the tracks.  Real photographs and not those standard cartoons.

Transforming your Tube by Richard Parmiter

Which reminded me of Tube boss Peter Hendy's promise that we would see more of this on the London Underground.  So where is it now though?  It's great to have an apology & an explanation of problems after the event, but why does it take so long for the reason behind line failures to get to staff & us poor travellers who use the service?

What do you think of London Underground apologies?  Do you think more could be done to keep us informed?  How & where would you like to see LU explain themselves?

Tube vs Foot - who will win?

This morning sees another of the experiments to "race against the London Underground". Over the years running, cycling even walking have all been pitted against travelling on the Tube. The latest is a challenge by Stephen Wright who's going to see if he can run 17 routes faster than Sophie from Quonospotter can travel the same routes by Tube (see Stephen's blog for the route).

Stephen's doing this as part of a 400 mile challenge to run between every point on the Tube network within 9 months. It's to help to raise money and awareness for stillbirth and neonatal death charity SANDS after his wife suffered a late miscarriage and lost twins.



He's summed up some of the comments to Friday's challenge

"There's been mixed reaction as to who has the natural advantage:


Pro-Tube


- The Tube won't get lost
- The Tube won't get progressively more exhausted over the course of the 15 or so miles of journey
- The Tube has done the journey thousands of times before
- For the smaller stations, the distance from ticket hall to platform is inconsequential.
- The route is serviced by at least two lines: Hammersmith & City and the Circle.
- The tube-runner might be impeded by bad map planning or decoys (e.g. offering of free chocolates)
- Weather won't make the tube-goer's journey much less pleasant


Pro-Tube Runner


- Some of the distances between stations are very small <0.5 miles
- At 10 minute mile pace, the Tube runner immediately is underway without any 'dead' time to travel down escalators etc
- There is no guarantee that a Tube will be on platform when the Tube-goer gets there
- The Tube-Runner shouldn't break down and or stop inexplicably between stations
- The shortest distance between stations in the central area is often shorter than the track distance
- Er, actually there aren't many advantages for the Tube Runner!


Many comments have been along the lines of the runner being a dead certainty to beat the Tube every time.... If that's the case, then why do people use this Tube line at all? With an aging infrastructure and many extended delays, you have to ask why people volunteer to descend underground to travel in such cramped conditions when equivalent passage by foot might be more pleasant?"

Why indeed? Obviously not everyone is able to run or even walk their whole Tube journey to and from work. But challenges like this certainly make you think of the benefits of getting off a stop earlier than usual or at least not making Tube journeys for "short hop" trips where it is often "quicker to walk".



You can follow Stephen and Sophie's progress on Twitter where they'll be using the hashtag #rttl to give updates of their journey. They are setting off at 9.30am. May the best foot or rail win!

Alphabetical Tube Challenge - Also a longer Tube challenge will be taking place today - Ian Jones is going visit in order, a London Underground station for each letter of the alphabet! He said "The challenge should be manageable in one day. I did consider attempting a stricter mission, involving visiting, in order, the first A of all the As, the first B of all the Bs and so on. This, however, would have required me to cross the entire Underground network from one end to the other several times in a row (Dagenham East to Ealing Broadway to Fairlop, for example) and taken at least 16 hours."

You can also follow Ian's progress on Twitter! Hat tip to IanVisits