The best way to travel in London (Underground in general)

Member Name: Beanie8844

Product:	Underground in general
Date:	24/03/09 (178 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: relitavely cheap compared to other methods of transport

Disadvantages: delays, cancellations

When you hear people mention the tube, it is normally because they are moaning about a bad experience that they have had, the train was delayed, late or just too busy. Well to be honest i think on the whole the london underground system does a good job, I know i'll probably take some flack for this but let me explain.

Firstly, London's Underground is the oldest underground system in the world, again some will say this is a bad thing, I personally see it as a remarkable feat of engineering (work first started in 1863)! There are eleven different tube lines in total (but I won't bore you by listing them as other people have done in the past) and over 250 miles of track with 268 working stations, this kind of brings home the scale of the structure we have created; it's very impressive really.

Secondly, most of the people who will be moaning are the commuters, those travelling into London for work who live slightly further afield. Most say that the tubes are overcrowded (they can be), their aren't enough seats (there's not much we can do about this because a tube train has to be of a certain size to fit into a station, the double decker tubes like they have on the contnient are therefore out of the question), they aren't very hygienic (more down to the public that use the underground rather than the underground itself i think you'll agree!) Fair enough, people are entilted to moan, but the tube network handles over 3,000,000 passengers every day, so there are bound to be a few late trains, the odd cancellation, but the great thing about the tube network is that there is always another way to go; if one line is down or a train is blocking a tunnel you can usually get to your destination using another connection, ok you may arrive later thanh you first anticipated, but you'll still get there.

Now, I'm going to continue by talking a little bit about my personal experiences of the tube. I don't work in central London and so don't commute as a genral rule, but this doesn't mean that i haven't experienced a tube train at rush hour, I admit it's not the nicest place to be, but you're not on it all day and it's probably the quickest way to travel around London! I tend to use the Northern Line the most and then probably the District and Circle Lines, although I have ridden all eleven lines at one time or another. My overall impression of the tube is one of a sytem that works and given what it has to put up with, that's quite a feat. The tube will take you anywhere in London and speedily too, plus it's open late enough of an eveing so it can take you back home after a few bevvies in a pub up town. One thing that I will say is that unlike buses you don't have much of a view on the tube, because of this there should be more free paper stands and they should be topped up during the day so that the commuters don't steal them all!

If your experience of the tube, hasn't been great then don't hesitate to post a comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: a good service on the whole