48 Fun Facts About London Underground

Which insect got its Underground name by biting Londoners sheltering in Tube stations in the Blitz?

The London Underground mosquito, a form of Culex pipiens, bit shelterers during the Blitz and became a textbook example of rapid evolution. Its Tube origin is now thought to be a myth, since the same form turns up worldwide.

At which station did an old 'Mind the gap' recording return in 2013 so the announcer's widow could hear his voice?

Embankment was the last station still playing actor Oswald Laurence's warning, and his widow, Margaret McCollum, would sit on the platform to hear it; when it vanished she asked TfL for a copy, and staff brought the announcement back.

What was cut from the Tube map in 2009, then put back three months later after a public outcry?

The River Thames vanished from the September 2009 map, its first absence since a 1926 pocket map, and Mayor Boris Johnson joined the chorus of disapproval. The December 2009 edition quietly put the river back.

Which Chelsea station has the River Westbourne flowing over its platforms in a large iron pipe?

Sloane Square was built where the Westbourne, one of London's lost rivers, crossed the line, so engineers slung the river above the tracks in an iron conduit that is still in place today. Passengers can spot it from the platforms.

Which station beside Lord's cricket ground is the only one sharing no letters with the word 'mackerel'?

St John's Wood contains none of the letters A, C, E, K, L, M or R. The puzzle nearly never existed: Tube maps printed just before it opened in 1939 show the station was to be called Acacia Road.

Where did 1938-built Tube trains keep running as Britain's oldest passenger stock until January 2021?

The Isle of Wight's Island Line needs small trains because the roof of Ryde Tunnel is too low for full-size ones, so it ran 1938 Tube cars from 1989 to January 2021, replacing even older ex-Tube trains.

Which computing pioneer lent her name to a Crossrail tunnel borer, twinned with one called Phyllis?

Ada Lovelace shared the honour with Phyllis Pearsall, creator of the London A-Z, after a public vote on names for the tunnel borers; another pair honoured athletes Jessica Ennis and Ellie Simmonds.

Which station, Gillespie Road until 1932, is the only Tube stop named directly after a football club?

Arsenal got its name on 31 October 1932 after the club moved from Woolwich to Highbury and campaigned for the change; it was first styled Arsenal (Highbury Hill). West Ham and Wimbledon merely share a name with their local clubs.

Which smartcard have Londoners tapped on Tube ticket gates since its launch in 2003?

Oyster was picked by brand consultant Andrew McCrum for 'the metaphorical implications of security and value in the hard bivalve shell and the concealed pearl'. The card was first issued to the public on 30 June 2003.

Which Mayfair station, shut in 1932, became a wartime bunker that Churchill nicknamed 'The Barn'?

Down Street housed the Railway Executive Committee during the Second World War, and Winston Churchill and his war cabinet sheltered there until the Cabinet War Rooms were ready. It had closed to passengers on 21 May 1932.

Which Tube line, opened in 1906, had its catchy nickname adopted as its official name within months?

Bakerloo squeezes together the two stations in the old company's name, and when the railway made the newspaper nickname official in July 1906, The Railway Magazine complained that it had stooped to adopting its 'gutter title'.

Which north London hilltop station has the network's deepest platforms, 58.5 metres below ground?

Hampstead's platforms lie 58.5 metres (192 ft) down because the station sits high on a hill, and the tiles on the platform walls still spell out Heath Street, the name planned for it before it opened.

Which Islington station has the Underground's longest escalators, a 61-metre climb rising 27 metres?

Angel's escalators, 200 ft long with a 90 ft vertical rise, are the longest on the Underground. They arrived with a rebuild that replaced the station's lifts and its notoriously narrow island platform.

Which station is only 260 metres from Leicester Square, the shortest gap between Tube neighbours?

Covent Garden is so close to Leicester Square that the ride is only 260 metres, yet its platforms are reached only by lift or a 193-step spiral staircase, with posters warning passengers off the climb.

Which station has more Underground platforms than any other on the network, ten in all?

Baker Street's ten platforms are the most of any station on the network, and its 1980s refurbishment replaced the old tiling with silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes, who lived at 221B. Five lines call there.

Which disused station hid the Elgin Marbles in wartime and later doubled as a film set for Atonement?

Aldwych closed on 30 September 1994 when new lifts could not be justified for so few passengers, and it has since appeared in V for Vendetta, Atonement and Fast & Furious 6. Its tunnels sheltered British Museum treasures during the war.

A 1987 fire that killed 31 people and doomed the Tube's wooden escalators broke out at which station?

King's Cross St Pancras's fire began under a wooden escalator on 18 November 1987 and erupted into the ticket hall in a flashover, killing 31. Wooden escalators were phased out afterwards, the last going at Greenford in 2014.

Which service opened from Paddington to Abbey Wood in 2022, yet is not officially part of the Underground?

The Elizabeth line was opened by the Queen it honours on 17 May 2022, a week before passengers boarded, in her Platinum Jubilee year. TfL runs it as a separate service with its own purple roundel.

Which Berkshire town marks the western end of the Crossrail route that tunnelled through central London?

Reading was confirmed as the western terminus only in March 2014; earlier plans had the route stopping short at Maidenhead. At the eastern end the line splits for Shenfield and Abbey Wood.

Which of the Underground's 11 lines is printed in yellow on the Tube map?

The Circle line is the yellow one, and since 2009 it has not been a circle at all: the loop was broken at Edgware Road and the route extended west to Hammersmith as a spiral.

Which woven pile fabric with a wool face and cotton backing has upholstered Tube seats for a century?

Moquette, a French-named weave of cut or looped pile, has covered the seats of Tube trains for a century, its busy patterns disguising wear. Modern versions use a wool-nylon face on a cotton backing.

Which band's 1978 single 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight' describes a late-night mugging by a gang?

The Jam's single reached No. 15 in October 1978, though Paul Weller had wanted to leave the song off the album All Mod Cons until producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven talked him round.

Which Camden station lends its name to a Radio 4 panel-show game whose rules are never explained?

Mornington Crescent, the game on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, first aired on 22 August 1978 and consists of panellists naming stations while solemnly inventing rules and strategies, every one of them fictional.

What opened in 1900 with a flat 2d fare that earned it the nickname 'Twopenny Tube'?

The Central line's uniform 2d fare earned it the 'Twopenny Tube' nickname when it opened in 1900, but the flat fare lasted only until 1907, when longer rides went up to 3d. It is now the network's longest line.

Which of the Tube's lines, opened in stages from 1968, was the world's first full-scale automatic railway?

The Victoria line's trains have driven themselves since it opened, yet each still carries an operator, who shuts the doors and presses the start buttons. It is one of only two lines that run entirely underground.

Which line, nicknamed 'the Drain', was sold to London Underground for a nominal £1 in 1994?

The Waterloo & City line, opened on 8 August 1898, runs between Waterloo and Bank with no stops in between and belonged to the main-line railway until British Rail handed it over for a nominal £1 on 1 April 1994. It is printed turquoise.

Which company opened the world's first underground railway, from Paddington to Farringdon, in 1863?

The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, and carried 38,000 passengers on its first day by borrowing extra trains from another company.

Which calligrapher designed the Underground's sans-serif typeface from 1913 and then redrew its roundel?

Edward Johnston's typeface, first used in 1916, gave the Underground a single lettering style across every sign and poster, and it is still in use more than a century later. His redrawn roundel is the one still seen today.

Which architect designed 55 Broadway, the 1929 headquarters straddling St James's Park station?

Charles Holden's 55 Broadway was London's tallest office block when finished, and Jacob Epstein's nude sculptures on its walls caused such outrage that he agreed to trim one figure's anatomy.

Who ran the Underground's design programme so well that Pevsner called him 'the ideal patron of our age'?

Frank Pick, who ran the London Passenger Transport Board from 1933 to 1940, commissioned the Tube's typeface, roundel, posters and modernist stations; Pevsner in 1968 judged him England's greatest patron of the arts that century.

At which station did the Tube's first escalators open in 1911, alongside the existing lifts?

Earl's Court's escalators opened on 4 October 1911, and 'Bumper' Harris, a one-legged engineer, rode them on the first day to show nervous passengers they were safe.

Which deep-level shelter beneath a Tube station housed newly arrived Empire Windrush passengers in 1948?

Clapham South's shelter, one of eight dug beneath Tube stations between 1940 and 1942, put up Windrush passengers from the West Indies until they found lodgings. The shelters were finished only after the Blitz had ended.

Which poet laureate narrated 'Metro-land', the 1973 BBC film about suburbs built along a Tube railway?

John Betjeman's film celebrated the suburbs north-west of London that grew up around the railway, marketed from about 1915 under the slogan 'Live in Metro-land'. He was poet laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984.

Which 1996 BBC serial by Neil Gaiman follows Door and the Marquis de Carabas through 'London Below'?

Neverwhere, devised by Gaiman and Lenny Henry, imagines a magical 'London Below' beneath the familiar city, where station names have become people and places. Gaiman turned the six-part BBC2 serial into a novel the same year.

Which artist's mid-1980s mosaics cover Tottenham Court Road station, a nod to its electronics shops?

Eduardo Paolozzi's mosaics were partly dismantled when the station was rebuilt for Crossrail, and the sections that could not be put back went to the University of Edinburgh, in his home city, for conservation.

Whose 2008 hit 'Warwick Avenue' takes its title from a Tube station in Little Venice?

Duffy's 'Warwick Avenue', from her debut album Rockferry, peaked at number three in the UK, and its video is almost one unbroken shot of her crying in a taxi as it pulls away from the station.

Which station's closed Jubilee line platforms, idle since 1999, doubled for the Tube chase in Skyfall?

Charing Cross lost its Jubilee line service when the 1999 extension bypassed it, but TfL keeps the platforms in working order, so film crews wanting a modern station use them for Skyfall, The Bourne Ultimatum, 28 Weeks Later and Paddington.

What river-based name did the Jubilee line carry in planning before the 1977 Silver Jubilee renamed it?

The Fleet line name, chosen partly because the route ran along Fleet Street, was dropped in favour of a pledge to mark the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee. Its original battleship grey was later lightened to silver.

Which firm made aircraft parts in unfinished tube tunnels between Leytonstone and Newbury Park from 1942?

Plessey's underground factory opened in March 1942 with 2,000 staff making aircraft components in tunnels that would not see passenger trains until after the war. The stretch finally opened to the public in 1947.

Which Ilford station, opened in 1947, has a grand underground concourse modelled on the Moscow Metro?

Gants Hill's design followed a 1935 report by Underground engineers who had advised on the Moscow Metro, and it was decided to build one London station in the same grand style. Delayed by the war, it opened on 14 December 1947.

Which Chicago transit tycoon, jailed for larceny in Philadelphia, bankrolled three Tube lines around 1900?

Charles Yerkes, who had served time in Eastern State Penitentiary, set up the Underground Electric Railways Company of London to control the District and three half-built tube railways. He died in 1905, before any of them opened.

Whose 1994 statue outside Bank station stands on a plinth that hides a ventilation shaft for the Tube?

James Greathead's tunnelling shield bored the deep tubes, and his 1994 statue beside the Royal Exchange doubles as a disguise for a vent shaft. Part of one of his shields, unearthed at Bank, now frames a passage passengers walk through.

Which 1933 Piccadilly line station is a circular drum, now Grade II* listed, with a Tesla-coil-style finial?

Southgate's circular station, opened on 13 March 1933, has a flat projecting concrete roof and an illuminated finial designed to look like it came from Frankenstein's laboratory. It was upgraded to Grade II* in 2009.

Which Chelsea power station fed the Tube's electricity from 1905 until it was switched off in 2002?

Lots Road became operational on 1 February 1905 to power the new electric tubes and ran for 97 years until Transport Minister John Spellar switched off the turbines on 21 October 2002, after which the Tube drew power from the National Grid.

Which Essex town's loss-making Tube branch from Epping closed in 1994 and now runs as a heritage railway?

Ongar's branch shut on 30 September 1994 and is now the heritage Epping Ongar Railway, yet the buffers at the old terminus are still the zero point from which every distance on the Underground is measured.

Whose 'Labyrinth' gave all 270 stations a unique enamel maze for the Tube's 150th anniversary?

Mark Wallinger's plaques are each numbered by their station's place in the route of the 2009 Guinness World Records Tube Challenge, a race round every stop, and no two of the single-path mazes are alike.

At which City of London station did a train hit a dead-end wall in 1975, killing 43 people?

Moorgate's crash on 28 February 1975 remains the Tube's worst peacetime accident, and it led to 'Moorgate protection', a system that automatically stops a train approaching a dead end too fast.

Which architect designed Canary Wharf station, the cavernous 1999 stop on the Jubilee line extension?

Norman Foster's station was built in a drained arm of a former dock, dug out by cut-and-cover, and its design drew on the stations he had created for the Bilbao Metro.