Some interesting facts about the London Underground
MIND THE GAP!
The phrase originated on the Northern line in 1968 and during the years has begun the mantra of everyone in London, no matter if they’re tourists or residents. Even though you can see those 3 words pretty much everywhere (try to get into a souvenir shop!) the place where the sentence belongs is, of course, the tube, that thing that made us go crazy in the last two days because of the strike.
However, besides the strikes, there are a lot of interesting facts about the London Underground that many people might not know. We have put together a few of them and we want to share them with you all, to make your tube rides a little bit more fascinating.
So, did you know that…
- There is a ghost station between Tottenham Court Road and Holborn: it’s called British Museum and it hasn’t been used since 1932 (if they decide to re-open it, we suggest a name change: Astor Museum!)
- London Underground has been known as the Tube since 1890 due to the shape of the tunnels. The Underground name first appeared on stations in 1908 and with it the “roundel” logo.
- The inaugural journey of the first Central line train in 1900 had the Prince of Wales and Mark Twain on board (rumour has it that they were going to Astor Queensway!).
- Approximately 50 passengers a year kill themselves on the Underground and the most popular suicide time is around 11 am.
- Queen Elizabeth II was the first monarch to take the tube: she rode on the Victoria Line for its opening in 1969 (she was going to Astor Victoria much before it was even opened!)
- Every week, Underground escalators travel the equivalent distance of going twice around the world.
- The Victoria Line was built to link King’s Cross, Victoria and Euston and the proposed name was Viking line (how would you like Astor Viking better than Astor Victoria?)
- The least-used station anywhere on the underground is Roding Valley. The busiest is Waterloo, with around 82 million passengers a year.
- A fragrance known as Madeleine was trialled at St. James Park, Euston, and Piccadilly stations in 2001, intended to make the Tube more pleasant. It was stopped within days after complaints from people saying they felt ill
And we’re pretty sure that those people who felt ill because of the fragrance are the same ones who make us feel ill during peak-time because of their smell.