Long Evening: Trapped on the London Underground
I’d originally started writing this post at Green Park station last night (Thursday 3rd April), but the rest was written today
It’s 9:15pm and I’m currently standing at the entrance to Green Park Station, which as I stand is about a 100m walk from the front door of my office. Tonight, like any normal night, I left at 6:00pm, as such I’m no closer to home than I was the better part of four hours ago. But there’s no usual story of drunken antics or other similar fun, I’ve been stuck on a packed Jubilee Line Tube train with no air, fans and only emergency lighting the whole time.
I have to say, a fully clothed Roman Bath packed with pissy London commuters is not my idea of a fun way to spend a few hours, but there wasn’t much I could do but laugh. And like human evolution, accelerated at a thousand times the normal speed my nose has evolved in the way I can now say, without doubt, that I can identify the sweaty smell of almost any human being, young or old, male or female, white collar or blue collar, black or white and of course the most pungent of aroma…. me.
People got really funny, really quickly in that situation and started to panic, like repeatedly pulling the Emergency alarm was going to do anyone any good, as the driver had to explain several times:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I realise everyone is upset, and quite frankly I am too, but there’s not a lot of things I can do at present so I’ll just ask you to stay calm. Please note, pulling the emergency handle on the train repeatedly will not help the situation, and no, there are no toilets on this train, and no, I’m not allowed to let you off the train to walk down the tracks”.
I think the worst thing was, because of the power cut, the driver couldn’t communicate with anyone at the stations or other tube staff. It wasn’t all bad though, finally, just before 9:00pm the London Underground cavalry and Police arrived and we walked off back down the tunnel to Green park. That was the coolest part about it all.
The best photo I could get of the tunnel, wish I’d got more
Things I learnt:
- It’s never not an option to go to the toilet before leaving the office
- If the power goes out completely, there is no communication at all with the upper world (apparently due to using an inferior/cheap communication system)
- Old style wireless/CB (I’m assuming) still works with other drivers along the tunnel
- London tube tunnels are nothing like the New York tunnels you see in Law and Order or dodgy 80’s cop movies. At least on the Jubillee line, noone could live down there, and so my thoughts of a subterranean London civilisation have been all but dashed.
- Once again, its never not an option to go to the toilet before leaving the office
Update: BBC News Article - Hundreds trapped on Underground
Tags: UK, underground
April 7th, 2008 at 12:56 am
I took those shots in Edinburgh..I’m trying to find which hilltop we were on…. We went to a few, but all those pictures were taken on just one. Do you know it?
Kelly Wegel
April 14th, 2008 at 3:59 am
Man, that looks crap!
I don’t think I could imagine much worse than that. It would be bad enough just being on the platform while the people piled up and it just got more and more crowded.
But at least you got to see the inside of a tube line! If you want to dig the fantasy a bit more about the underground civilizations, consider all the decomissioned lines and old closed tube stations that exist around. The time before last that I was in London, someone pointed out where there was an old station between two that are currently used, and you could just see it as the train flew past. It was an eerie feeling!
April 14th, 2008 at 4:36 am
http://www.google.com.au/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enAU213AU213&q=abandoned+tube+stations
I spent half my lunch hour looking at pictures of old tube stations, there’s totally enough down there for some strange sub-terranian life. Or at least some hobo’s.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Oh yea, it was a fun experience in the end. I’ve read about some of those creepy old tube stations, there’s one on the Picadilly Line between Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge (I think) where you can see the old station platform for about a second as the train zooms past.
I wonder how often they do tours down there, that’d be awesome. I doubt it though. Though it did say on the site that some of the closed stations are kept pretty much exactly like they were when they closed, rubbish wrappers and all.