London Underground > Reviews > MIND THE GAP...

Author's product rating:   

Frequency of trains	Good
Reliability of trains	Mostly on time
Comfort of trains	Slightly uncomfortable
On-board facilities	Don't know

Advantages:	quick, links major attractions, regular service
Disadvantages:	smelly, hot, crowded and unreliable

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

A few weeks ago I returned from a weekend in London and thought I should write this as I was fairly disappointed. I would imagine that for residents of London using the Underground on a regular basis this review will be off little help however for any tourists hoping to visit London in the near future this is a slight review warning you of my experience.

***LONDON UNDERGROUND***

As a teacher I have seen and taught a few lessons about transport and the underground has often cropped up in discussion. The London Underground is the oldest and longest underground system in the world. The first line was opened in 1863 and ran between Paddington and Farringdon. The Underground covers a length of 235 miles and has a total of 275 stations. The trains used to be powered by steam and 30 years later the first electric train was added.

*The War Years*
During my project on World War Two I was very interested to learn that the underground system was used as shelter from the bombs and attacks on London. Following the war however a lot of work was carried out on the underground system and the Victoria line was added.

The London Underground is also known as 'The Tube' as the tunnels look tubular shaped. I can kind of see how my hamster may feel running around small cramped tubes all day.

***UNDERGROUND LINES***

There are 12 underground lines in total. The London Underground map is easier to follow due to the colour coded lines. I found myself referring to the lines as the brown one or the blue one. I have given a bit of information on the lines we traveled on for your information, however I would advise getting a London Underground map for further info on the other lines.

CENTRAL 'RED' LINE

• The Central line (red) runs from West Ruislip to Epping this one seemed to have a very long line probably the longest. This one was most useful to us as we were staying in Ruislip and it connected us to the centre of London. The Red Line has 49 stations along the track.

THE METROPOLITAN 'PURPLE' LINE

• The Metropolitan line (purple) is shaped a bit like a tree with lots of tracks branching off. The track starts/finishes (depending on where your standing) at Aldgate, it runs through the centre of London reaching the Western towns of Chesham, Amersham, Watford and Uxbridge. We traveled on this line from Ruislip Manor on our way home to London Victoria. We seemed to be above ground for most of the duration on this line and had a stunning view of the new Wembley stadium.

THE VICTORIA 'LIGHT BLUE' LINE

• Unfortunately the Victoria Line (light blue) was undergoing maintenance works and our journey was seriously affected. When we bought our ticket from Ruislip to London Victoria we were told to go on the Metropolitan 'purple' line, change at Kings Cross for the Victoria 'light blue' line and get off at London Victoria. We were told the journey would take us about 45 minutes. This however was not the case. Anyway the Victoria line (when it's working) runs North to South (vice versa) between Walthamstow and Brixton. This one was built after World War 2.

THE CIRCLE 'YELLOW' LINE

• The Circle Line (yellow) funnily enough it's shaped in a circle and doesn't really have a start and an end. Although it goes around many of the main stations such as London Victoria, Paddington, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Farringdon and Moorgate. We got on this train and found out that we should have been on the Piccadilly line instead. The train was quite cramped and the platform leading to it was 'manic'.

So we had to travel on the Piccadilly Line (blue) and the District Line (Green) to get to our destination of London Victoria before our coach left. Some may say a fun challenge but we were rather stressed. Still I managed to have a laugh about putting Piccadilly sauce on my dinner to find that it is in fact piccalilli.

THE PICADILLY 'DARK BLUE' LINE

• The Piccadilly 'dark blue' line is shaped as I would describe it as a 'washing machine logo' or a 'whirlwind' it has three branches from Heathrow, Uxbridge and Cockfosters (I had a slight immature laugh at this name). This line basically links the North East (Cockfosters) with the West (Heathrow and Uxbridge) and really had I known the Victoria Line was closed before getting on the Metropolitan line I would have used this one. This line was affected by the 2005 terrorist attack. The bomb went off between Kings Cross and Russell Square, I must admit that this does scare me about the tubes. I feel quite claustrophobic and 'stuck' this aside however it is still probably one of the safest ways to travel. Having been on a few 'First Devon and Cornwall' buses tube seems like the safest option. We had to get on this train and travel Westbound from Kings Cross and Kensington South where we got on the District line (Eastbound). This whole East and West bound malarkey really confused me as we had to back and forwards to get on the right line.

THE 'DISTRICT' LINE

• The District line (green) we had to get on the district line from South Kensington to London Victoria.
The District line is similar to the Metropolitan line in shape. The district Line branches out from/to Upminster from Ealing, Wimbledon, Richmond and Edgeware Road. This train seemed quite busy and admittedly I felt a bit uncomfortable in a very crowded space.

Below I have listed the other lines that I have not mentioned above for your information. I have traveled by tube before on a 'Brownie visit' and used a lot of these lines however my memory of them would be a bit 'outdated'.

• Bakerloo line (brown) runs from Harrow to Elephant and Castle
• East London Line (Orange) runs North to South from Whitechapel and branches off to New Cross and New Cross gate. It looks very small on the map and only has 8 stations, it is only about 4 miles long.
• Hammersmith and City Line (Pink - my favorite colour) runs between Hammersmith and Barking. It also connects to Kings Cross and we very nearly ended on our way to Barking!
• The Jubilee Line (silver/grey) runs between Stanmore and Stratford. The line looks fairly curved on the map and looks as if it would take you to many of the tourist attractions in London e.g. Wembley, Westminster, London Bridge and Canary Wharf.
• The Northern Line (black) is a large, confusing line with a few branches leading off to Morden, Edgeware, Mill Hill East and High Barnet. IN the middle it has a circular track serving a few tourist spots such as London Bridge and Leicester Square.
• The Waterloo and City line (light blue-grey) is tiny with 2 stations between waterloo and bank.

***STAFF***

OK so they have a lot to deal with, thousands pass through the London underground daily and the staff are probably faced with a lot of issues and problems. I however was very upset at the advice we were given. After finding out that the Victoria line was closed I asked a member of staff which line we would be better off getting he just said 'platform 15' thinking it would be fairly easy to find we ran off looking.

Unable to find the platform we asked someone else who pointed and said 'over there'. So we went 'over there' and nothing. With very little time to go I was starting to panic and felt an asthma attack coming on. Luckily my partner found 'platform 15' and we just got on the train that was there. Fortunately, using the map we worked out we were on the wrong train and managed to get off in time at the next stop.

We found the staff quite rude and unhelpful. I was most annoyed that when purchasing our tickets we were not told about any closures. In fact we were told to use the 'closed' Victoria line. I was quite upset that this had happened as on return to the South-West I was taken to the local hospital for asthma trouble. The doctor basically blamed my stress of the underground mixed with pollution as a main cause of this problem.

I felt that had the sales assistant selling the ticket had actually warned us and advised us of another route we would have reached the coach station with ample time to spare. A route that would probably take 45 minutes for a local resident and maybe 1 hour and 20 minutes for a tourist actually took us over 2 hours.

***TIMES***

The trains seemed fairly regular in fact we were very lucky to arrive at a station whilst a train was arriving. We had to wait no more than 3 minutes at Kensington and that was the only wait time we experienced.

The trains run between 5am - 1am so although not providing a 24 hour service they are open for most of the day and night. The only problem I can see with this is that 'partygoers' will have to get a taxi, bus or alternative form of transport home.

***PRICES AND TICKETS***

*tickets*
Tickets are very easy to buy we chose to buy ours from the ticket window for our return journey because we wanted to ask advice about the route. Unfortunately this advice was rather poor and it would have been a lot easier to buy a ticket from the ticket machine. All ticket machines are easy to use. I used it once and it was fairly straight forward, the machines however can get a little sticky with substances of some sort and we found that the buttons were awkward to press.

Here are many different types of tickets such as season tickets, day tickets, visitor tickets, single tickets and concessionary tickets for children and students. WE just went for the bog standard single ticket costing us £4 each.

*Oyster card*
I saw people using a card on the tubes and buses. There were signs saying about Oyster cards and how they can help save money. It does in fact work out a lot cheaper with these cards however they would only really benefit locals and those who travel on London transport on a regular basis.

The oyster card is basically a plastic card (a bit like a debit card) with an electronic chip. You can load money on the card and use it as you travel.

*prices*
The prices are determined by Zones. Zone 1 (Inner city London) is the cheapest with a travel card (unlimited travel) between stations in this area costing about £4. As you go outwards towards the outskirts of London you can expect to pay more. A travel card around all zones would cost about £6 (off peak a lot more during peak times). Children pay £1 off peak no matter what zone.

I would guess that as I traveled from zone 5 to zone 1 the highest single fare is £4. Although I got the impression that all single fares were £4 regardless of zone. Compared to a 'day ticket' in Cornwall this is expensive and when it took us over two hours to get to our destination it was hardly cheap.

If you are planning to travel on tubes all day to and from attractions then a travel card would be a great investment. I think you can also use these on buses.

***SUMMARY***

I do not want to offend any fans of the London underground but I found the whole experience quite frightening and stressful. If you live in London you are more than likely used to the tube system have probably grown up with it. As I said this review would be great for tourists planning on traveling just to be prepared.

Living in the countryside I am not used to queues and pollution. I felt quite uncomfortable being stuck in huge crowds. The smoky tunnels felt rather unpleasant. I have left a few tips for anyone planning on visiting the Capital for the first time and I hope that it helps.

TIPS

• Plan your journey prior to your visit, if possible download and print a map from Google (similar to this http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/lon_con.pdf). I found that unfortunately you cannot rely on people to help. The staff seem too busy and a lot of passengers themselves are tourists.

• Take a bottle of water to drink, it can get a little hot and the smoke can make you feel quite dehydrated and needing a drink. A bottle of water will help make the experience more pleasurable.

• The tubes can get busy at certain times of the day on certain routes, try and investigate this before you go just to avoid that mad rush etc. Try and investigate events such as concerts, street parades etc as this could make a slight difference to the amount of passengers.

• I did look on the website (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/home.aspx) for information about the tube services, unfortunately I did not notice the closures on the Victoria line and our experience was ruined by this. I am sure it was on the website I just didn't see it. It is always best checking this before your travels so that you can plan for this and make alternative arrangements.

Fortunately this experience has not put me off for life. I have learnt many lessons from my journey all of which I will keep in mind for future trips away. The above tips I have learned and I will be using them in the future. I hope this review has helped.