Navigation by Station (Underground in general)

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	Underground in general
Date:	03/05/01 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Eccentric, quirky and helps you find your way around London

Disadvantages: Can abandon you at obscure stations for ages

I thank the London Underground for two brilliant experiences. The first was when I worked on Regent Street and the area was evacuated due to a suspected bomb at Oxford Circus station. By some weird chance, a few of us were able to remain in the building, as my 'office' was deep underground, and used to be a bomb shelter. To let us know it was safe to come out, a policeman stamped up and down on the pavement above the office ( yes, we did feel like moles in holes). Picture this - the height of the tourist season, a bright sunny day, and you are the only person on Regent street. I kept expecting Cybermen to appear. Anyway, I walked up and down the middle of the road for a while, until the barriers at Piccadilly were lifted, and then beat a hasty retreat to my mole-hole.

The second experience I won't forget is during a long summer of tube strikes. I was working in Neal Street, and every day walked from there to Liverpool Street Station, in order to eventually get home. I'll never get over seeing what seemed like the whole of commuter London, on its feet, flooding past St Pauls. I kept thinking that this is how London must have been when the Cathedral was built. No buses, no tubes, just dozens and dozens of pale-faced people - walking.

Yes, I'm not a Londoner - I don't think I could romanticise the place so much if I had been born there. I moved to London from rural Gloucestershire, and immediatly became entranced with things like all-night garages (You mean I can buy crisps at 3 in the morning?), and the Tube. If, like me, you are map-illiterate, when you first move to London you completely rely on the tube. It is your only form of navigation. You do really silly things like change lines at Euston Square in order to get to Euston Station (I know its only round the corner now, but I didn't then).

I worked on Neal Street; taking the Central line to Tottenham Court Road, changing to the Piccadilly line, and getting
out at Covent Garden. After about 6 months of waiting for tourist-packed lifts, I finally figured it was quicker to get out at TCR and walk to Neal St.

That's what happens. You slowly realise that in central London, tube stations are actually quite close to each other. Gradually you get to know little bits of the city...and then....oh joy of joys....they start to join up and become bigger bits ( all navigated from tube station to tube station, of course). I found out how to get from Piccadilly Circus to Covent Garden and from Green Park to Piccadilly. From South Kensington to Paddington took a little longer ( and I still get lost), but Holborn was a doddle to join up 'overground' with Covent Garden.

I never mastered buses. I was always taking the right bus, but going in the wrong direction. How did I know this? By looking at the tube stations I passed, of course! I then hopped off the bus, and ran for the safety of the 'tube'.

As for the individual lines; they each have a character of their own. I always think of the Central Line as the 'Delia Smith' of the Underground. Calm and reassuring, you know it will get you home, if not always on time. And it tells you that you are heading in the right direction.

I've a fondness for the Bakerloo line, too. It's a bit elderly, but it does take you through Mornington Crescent, and is reasonably regular and swift. Just one thing I hated. Its penchant of dumping me at Queens Park station, regardless of where the train originally said it was going ( this is particularly irritating if you want to get off at Kensal Green).

Baker Street station. What a marvelous wealth of choice here. I'm sure that its many buskers are really commuters who couldn't decide between the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines, and are still there, debating on which one to take. It took me about two years before I could properly navigate Baker Street; and that's only the lo
wer bit of it.

Metropolitan line. Travelling on this is like going back 30 years in time. It even has luggage racks, and spacious seating. It's a real shame that it never seemed to stop at any stations I wanted to go to; so I only travelled on it about four times. I would happily have spent a day on it, reading, possibly with a picnic; but I didn't want to end up in Watford.

Hammersmith and City. Lovely overground bits over Shepherd's Bush market, but difficult to get to, as you have to fight your way down an obscure platform at Paddington in order to reach this little side platform that always seemed crammed with people.

Worst line? I've always thought the Circle line should have qualified as one of Dante's circles of hell. I like the bits at the end of the District line, though; even if it's just because you have a good look at people's gardens, and I once saw a pigeon 'hitch a ride' from Chiswick Park to Turnham Green.

I know this isn't a comprehensive list of lines, just the ones I travelled on reasonably frequently. Plus, I just can't think of anything interesting to say about the Victoria and Picadilly lines, except that they got you from A-B and well, were fine. I rarely travelled on the Northern line, never travelled on the East London line, hated Docklands Light Railway, and never needed to go from Waterloo to the City.

As soon as I'd got to know London a bit, I left. I wish I'd lived on the Northern line at some point. It seems a shame, as I always liked travelling on it. But at least I got to experience tube trains in general. When I go back to visit, I try to fall straight back into tube train protocol ( always stand on the right of the escalator, walk down on the left....or is it the other way around?) as if I'd never been away. But I just don't recognise the advertisements any more.

I was lucky. Because I was self-employed, with a peculiar
variety of part-time jobs to supplement my income, I never had to travel at rush hour. I think that is why I liked the tube. Oh...and it let me stand in the middle of Regent Street without getting run down.

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