London Underground's Strangest Tales

by Iain Spragg

  THE TUBE’S PHANTOM POLICEMAN

  2003

  The long arm of the law is often a reassuring sight but seasoned Underground travellers will grimly warn that you never want to come across an ‘Inspector Sands’ while journeying on the Tube.

  And that’s because ‘Inspector Sands’ isn’t a member of the Met or the British Transport Police but a coded Tannoy message used by Underground staff when there is a fire alert or suspicious package on the network.

  The secretive nature of the announcement is intended to avoid alarming commuters, but there is a suspicion that regular Tube travellers have rumbled Transport for London’s less-than-subtle ruse.

  ‘Today there can hardly be a single regular traveller on public transport in London who doesn’t realise that when the man on the Tannoy demands the urgent presence of Inspector Sands, what he means is that the nearest officer from Special Branch or the Bomb Squad should go immediately to the place specified,’ Tom Utley wrote in the Daily Telegraph in 2003. ‘We seasoned commuters look at each other and smile. And when we smile, we are telling each other this: “Aw, bless them! They are trying not to frighten us. But we know exactly what they mean. And still we are not scared.”’

  The exact wording of the announcement varies from station to station but it is always preferable to hear that ‘Inspector Sands’ has in fact left the building rather than that he’s heading in your direction with three fire engines in tow.

  PERILS OF THE OYSTER CARD

  2003

  Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone looked like the cat who’d got the cream in 2003 when he proudly launched the Oyster card, promising a new era of hassle-free travel around the city and no doubt hoping that his shiny new electronic swipe card would help earn him a second term as the capital’s head honcho.

  He was half-right. London’s commuters were sufficiently impressed with Ken’s fancy new ‘ticketless’ ticket to vote him back as mayor in 2004, but the new-fangled Oyster cards were not exactly without hassle as it gradually became apparent that the electronic fingerprint from the cards could be put to unintended uses.

  What people began to realise was that anyone could key in a card’s serial number on a website to reveal the details of every journey made using that card on London’s public transport in the last 10 weeks, and suddenly suspicious spouses from Barnet to Balham were going online to check exactly where their loved ones had been.

  ‘Oyster cards won’t tell you that the bloke’s been cheating on his wife but it will show if he’s been in one part of town when he’s supposed to be somewhere else,’ said one private investigator interviewed by the Independent in 2006. ‘It is an easy thing to confront your partner with. It doesn’t look like you’ve been snooping around too much.’

  Things got more serious when the boys in blue began examining people’s Oyster card records as part of criminal investigations, and the familiar Big Brother debate was reignited before you could say CCTV.

  In 2004 the Met made a modest seven requests to TfL for journey information but in January 2006 the police came calling 61 times for the Oyster information stored on the Underground’s computers, sparking a rabid response from our brave freedom fighters.

  ‘I think it’s outrageous,’ raged Heather Brooke from Privacy International. ‘Londoners are already the most watched people on earth. If the police can’t conduct effective investigations with a CCTV camera on every corner, then that’s really indicative of a more serious problem with police investigations.’

  TfL blushed awkwardly and then issued a response that the police absolutely, definitely had not written for them. ‘Big Brother is not watching you,’ it read. ‘We collect journey data so we can provide customer service and answer customer queries. A by-product of that is that the data is on record if the police seek records in individual cases but we only provide that data in response to a written request from the police that is then reviewed on a case-by-case basis.’

  Still, anyone of a paranoid disposition travelling on the Tube might be advised to pay cash.

  WHO’D TRAVEL IN A LIFT LIKE THIS?

  2004

  A TV presenter turned purveyor of tasty but eye-wateringly expensive cooking sauces, Loyd Grossman made his name in the 1980s by invading the homes and privacy of desperate celebrities in ITV’s Through the Keyhole, annoying a nation with his mid-Atlantic drawl, smugness and maddening catchphrase.

  Little did the hapless commuters and innocent tourists who found themselves using Covent Garden Station in 2004 realise, however, that even on the London Underground there was to be absolutely no escape from Grossman’s voice.

  Covent Garden is the busiest station on the network that is only accessible by lifts (apart from emergency stairs) and when Tube bosses agreed to pipe in a recorded message from Grossman urging the trapped and helpless to visit a nearby museum, they really were shooting fish in a barrel.

  ‘Turn right into the Piazza,’ Grossman urged before the irate travellers lost the will to live, ‘for one of my favourite museums – the London Transport Museum.’

  Exactly how many people followed the recorded advice is unrecorded but sales of earplugs around Covent Garden spiked shortly after the message was rolled out.

  ‘Covent Garden is one of London’s most exciting destinations,’ Loyd explained in lieu of a proper defence for his actions. ‘It’s a feast of culture, shopping, food and performance and one of my favourite museums, London’s Transport Museum, is at its heart.’

  Which was all technically true but totally irrelevant as yet another passenger was hauled from the lifts and strapped into a straitjacket for their own safety.

  THE HOLBORN FAUX PAS

  2005

  Holborn Station has many claims to fame. It is the only station on the network that serves both the Central and Piccadilly Lines, its frontage is made from Portland stone rather than the standard red terracotta common in the area and it was responsible for the demise of the famed British Museum Station, which closed in 1933 when nearby Holborn was expanded.

  It featured in the video for Suede’s 1997 hit ‘Saturday Night’ and also appeared in a scene in Mike Leigh’s critically acclaimed film Secrets & Lies.

  That’s rather a lot of notoriety for one station but Holborn was back in the news in 2005 with a bizarre claim to fame – it is the most commonly mispronounced word in the English language.

  The startling news emerged following a survey of 2,500 people to identify the words we struggle to get out correctly; Holborn emerged the winner, fending off stiff competition from such tongue-twisters as ‘pharmaceutical’, ‘prescription’ and, ironically, ‘pronunciation’.

  You are now of course wondering exactly how you do pronounce Holborn. The trick is to remember the ‘l’ is silent, which should spare you social embarrassment and impress your friends.

  TUBE CARRIAGES IN THE SKY

  2006

  The shelf life of a London Underground carriage is limited. They cover hundreds of thousands of miles in their working lives, rumbling up and down the network, and when the relentless workload finally takes its toll, the faithful carriages are taken out of service.

  For many, all the thanks they get is a final trip to the breaker’s yard. Some escape that fate and are stored away out of public sight at one of Transport for London’s cavernous depots but for the majority of the Tube’s rolling stock, it’s not a happy retirement.

  But there are lucky ones. Some have found their way across the Solent to become part of the Isle of Wight’s ‘Island Line’, while one carriage became an unlikely home to Radio Lollipop, the in-house radio station at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

  And in 2006 four more unwanted carriages escaped the clutches of the crusher when they were snapped up by Village Underground, a charity supporting small companies, and turned into offices.

  Nothing out of the ordinary there, you may think, but the location of the carriages-cum-offices has to be seen to be believed, perched precariously as they are on top
of a viaduct in Shoreditch in East London with spectacular views of Canary Wharf and the Gherkin.

  The idea was the brainchild of Village Underground’s Tom Foxcroft, who was travelling on a train in Switzerland and idly realised that – without all the seats – his carriage would make a perfect office space. Back in London he pursued the project and persuaded TfL to sell him four old Jubilee Line carriages for the princely sum of £100.

  It took him three years to get planning permission for their lofty location and cost £25,000 to winch the carriages into place. But once the seats had been removed and desks and lighting installed, the designers, independent record labels, script writers and photographers moved in.

  ‘The idea came from my own experience as a designer trying to start a small practice with friends,’ Foxcroft explained. ‘We just couldn’t get a foot on the ladder because of the price of studio and workspace, so I designed my own.

  ‘The carriages are part of a much larger project to create a series of spaces in cities around the world to allow an international exchange of creativity and ideas. The essence of the project is that Village Underground will be a catalyst for new creativity.’

  Foxcroft fought an early battle with local graffiti artists who would pay his carriages regular visits, but after tiring of the expense of jet-washing them clean he decided to embrace the offices’ colourful urban decoration, reasoning that any tagger brave enough to climb all the way up the viaduct was nothing if not determined.

  THE CADBURY CHOCOLATE CONTRADICTION

  2007

  Underground commuters with a sweet tooth used to be able to happily indulge themselves on chocolate whenever they pleased, thanks to the proliferation of Cadbury vending machines that littered the network’s platforms.

  Sadly for London’s chocoholics, Transport for London began to phase out the machines in 2007 and passengers must now locate what is known as a ‘shop’ in which to purchase their confectionery of choice.

  But back in the halcyon days when commuters could simply pop their coins into a slot, the machines produced a puzzling statistic that no one has ever been able to explain, namely that the travelling public’s most popular chocolate bar was Cadbury’s Whole Nut.

  The Whole Nut, of course, is a fine chocolate bar, an alluring combination of smooth, delicious chocolate contrasting with the piquant and crunchy nut. A really excellent treat indeed. The mystery is exactly how it managed to outsell its Cadbury’s Dairy Milk stablemate, the best-selling chocolate bar in the UK, the crown jewel of the Cadbury range and the undisputed daddy of the choccy-bar racket.

  Sales of Dairy Milk are estimated at a staggering £550 million per year worldwide but such figures apparently counted for little beneath the streets of London as commuters opted for the Whole Nut ahead of its more one-dimensional cousin.

  The reasons for the gradual disappearance of the Cadbury machines are also something of a puzzler. Some say that a defective machine began pouring out smoke onto a platform and TfL decided they were a fire hazard, while others insist they fell victim to a deliberate campaign of decluttering the platforms in the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

  Whatever the truth, the myriad of newsagents with unfeasibly small booths on the Underground were all absolutely delighted.

  DYNAMIC DON LETS HIS FEET DO THE TALKING

  2008

  The Tube is proud of its reputation as the best way to bypass London’s inevitable traffic jams and get tourists and commuters alike from A to B without a chap needing a fresh shave by the time he reaches his destination.

  But many years ago there was an attempt to embarrass the network in the speed stakes in the shape of the annual Beat The Tube race. Featuring a motley group dressed in pinstriped suits and braces, the race saw the competitors jump on a District Line train at Victoria heading for Wimbledon. At South Kensington they’d all jump off (minding the gap) and hotfoot it down 1.6 miles of the Fulham Road in an attempt to rejoin the same train at Fulham Broadway. They usually lost.

  The Tube’s pride, however, took something of a bashing back in 2008 when Olympic triathlete Tim Don was challenged to see whether he could outpace our beloved Underground on foot (above ground) in a couple of races.

  The bookies’ favourite was the Tube, with an average speed of 25mph compared to Don’s more leisurely 15mph at full tilt, but sadly for the world’s oldest underground rail network, it was David rather than Goliath’s day.

  The first challenge saw Don, the 2006 World Triathlon Champion no less, sprint the 965 metres between Baker Street and Edgware Road stations 4 minutes and 13 seconds faster than the train despatched on the Circle Line.

  The rematch saw man and machine go head-to-head over 4,988 metres between Tower Hill and St James’s Park and, although closer second time around, Don was again the winner by a single second.

  ‘The Tube is a great transport system but if you want to get fit, you should give running to work a crack,’ Don said, failing to conceal the smug grin on his face. ‘I am really pleased. Exercise is essential and this shows it can be faster than commuting.’

  The Underground immediately decided to give up drinking and takeaways and vowed to return fitter, stronger and faster the following year.

  LOVE ON THE NORTHERN LINE

  2008

  The Underground is not traditionally considered a hotbed for romance but according to a 2008 survey, the Tube is actually an aphrodisiac. The ‘Tube Hottie’ survey, carried out by social network website Qype, polled hundreds of commuters and some of the results were steamier than a Turkish bath.

  ‘Forget “Misery Line” – the Northern Line should be dubbed the tunnel of love,’ reported the Metro newspaper. ‘In a result that will no doubt add to its overcrowding, the Tube line has been found to have the sexiest passengers.

  ‘More than a third of people thought its combination of “spiky-haired indie kids” and “hot City types” gave it the edge over other lines. But there were major faults reported on the Hammersmith & City line – it had the least attractive passengers.

  ‘Tube users spotted an average of four fanciable people every day, the survey found. Half admitted to having some sort of “Tube tryst”, where they swapped numbers, dated or even had sex. But nine in ten admitted to a “missed moment” when they did not take things further with a fellow passenger.’

  Saucy stuff indeed, and proof that overcrowding, body odour and intrusive iPods are not necessarily a barrier to finding love (or a one-night stand) on the Underground.

  ‘The Tube has its own history, its own rules and its own etiquette,’ said a Qype spokesman. ‘Maybe that added romance of the whole Tube experience has something to do with the responses we got to our survey. You’re not out at bars every day but you’re always on the Tube so if you don’t have a book to read, someone might catch your eye.’

  Will Gull and Katie Crammer definitely caught each other’s eye on the Underground in 2006 when they boarded a Central Line train for a journey that unexpectedly ended in them tying the knot.

  The passionate pair got chatting after exchanging a couple of flirtatious notes and when the train pulled in at South Woodford Station and Will prepared to get off, they decided to go for a drink together. One thing led to another, Will subsequently got down on one knee and proposed on the platform at South Woodford in front of hundreds of passengers and they got hitched in 2011.

  Mr and Mrs Gull were so taken with the romantic quality of South Woodford they even visited the station in full wedding outfits, but Katie drew the line at spending her honeymoon travelling on the Central Line.

  ‘It is lovely to hear that we have brought this young couple together and that they have returned to South Woodford to let our staff know,’ gushed a TfL spokesman, reaching for a tissue. ‘We had more than 1.1 billion passengers on the Tube in 2010, so this can’t be the only couple who have found love on the Underground and their journey ended happily in marriage.’

  AN UNWELCOME HOLE IN THE TROUSERS

 
; 2008

  The average Tube carriage isn’t always the cleanest of environments. The daily influx of millions of passengers means trains are prone to picking up all sorts of unwanted and unwelcome debris and detritus and in 2006 the Evening Standard newspaper reported a survey that discovered the average seat on public transport in London was home to more than 3 million bacteria.

  An unsettling revelation indeed, but when one unfortunate commuter travelling on the Central Line in 2008 sat down to read his newspaper a few stray germs were the least of his worries.

  Nothing initially seemed amiss but after a few minutes he noticed a burning sensation around his derrière and, starting to panic, he jumped off the train at Holland Park Station and alerted staff to his predicament.

  An ambulance was called and police rushed to the scene to investigate the mysterious cause of the passenger’s discomfort.

  ‘We are not treating this as being malicious at this point,’ said a spokeswoman for British Transport Police, who was obviously determined to get to the bottom of it. ‘From our inquiries it seems that some sort of cleaning fluid has been spilled accidentally. The man was taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital suffering from skin irritation. There was some damage to his trousers.’

  Whether his pride remained intact is another matter, but the unusual incident forced Transport for London to pull two trains out of service to ensure no more innocent trousers, not to mention passenger’s bottoms, were harmed.

  A TERRIBLE TICK-TOCK

  2008

  Delays on the Underground can be a major headache for commuters with unsympathetic bosses or passengers on a deadline, but even the most impatient of travellers could understand TfL’s decision to suspend Hammersmith & City and District Line services through Bromley-by-Bow Station in the summer of 2008 when a bomb was uncovered nearby.