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| London underground (Photo credit: @Doug88888) |
Last month
marked the London Underground’s 150th year anniversary! That’s a lot of years
of impatient commuters shuttling from station to station trying to get on with
their daily lives. The Tube has saved Londoners countless hours of precious
time that would have been wasted stuck in traffic on a London bus. Newbies to
the Underground game are going to have a difficult time at first. It can seem
like a daunting experience at first, so I’ve written a little beginner’s guide
for the London Underground. Grab a cuppa to sip on and enjoy!
The Tube Map
I’m sure
you’ve seen it around everywhere—even outside the capital. The London Tube Map
was first designed in 1931 by engineer Harry Beck. Believe it or not, the Tube
Map we see today is a simplified version, despite looking like a tangled bunch
of messy wires. Unfortunately, the map isn’t to scale or very geographically
accurate. It does do the job, though, and clearly illustrates all the different
lines. There are eleven of them in total, each in a different color spread
through London.
You can get
your hands on a Tube map literally anywhere in the capital:
- posters up on the walls in Underground stations
- available in any major station
- any guidebook about London/England should have one folded at the back
- smartphone apps like TubeMap or London Tube
- just a simple Google Image search
Tickets
Oyster cards
cost £13.00 and come with £10.00 credit—essentially costing £3.00 each. You can
use your card indefinitely and the credit never expires. Oyster card journeys
always end up costing less than half compared to a cash-journey. For example, a
trip from Whitechapel to Brixton costs £2.10 with an Oyster card and £4.50 by
cash. It’s ridiculous!
If you’re
only in London for a day, go for the day travel card. If you’re here for
longer, then choose the Oyster card. It has a daily cap, too, meaning that it
stops deducting credit once you hit £6.50.
Tip 1 –
Avoiding peak times
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| Image by: Qsimple |
Tip 2 –
Walking
Walking is a
more cost-effective and healthier alternative. The most common mistake tourists
make is pay for a journey that’s walking distance. A famous one is the 260
meter trip from Leicester Sq. to Covent Garden, 45 seconds from one stop to the
other. This trip costs a whopping £4.00! Always check the map before you tap in
that Oyster card because you could end up saving enough for a nice meal.
Tip 3 – Tap
in and tap out
Smaller
stations often have discreet check in/out Oyster machines. During off-peak
hours, the barriers are left open and you can easily forget to tap in/out. If
you get caught, you’ll be fined £6.50 at minimum.
As a
beginner, you should be feeling pretty confident at this point. But who doesn’t
want to go that extra mile and impress their mates? Here are a few London
Underground facts…
- Despite being called the London Underground, it is only half underground
- In Cockney slang, Londoners call the Tube ‘Oxo’. Don’t try to pull this off if you don’t have the accent, though!
- Professor Dumbledore, the Hogwarts School’s Headmaster in the Harry Potter books and movies, has a scar on his knee which looks like the Tube Map
- A new breed of ruthless-biting mosquitoes have formed in the London Underground over the years
- Staff members have refused to work at Covent Garden station because they believe it’s haunted. There have been reports of a man who disappears into nothingness…
Author Bio
Sohaib is a
travel writer who takes every chance to explore the unknown. When he isn’t
travelling around Europe, you’ll find him in the capital writing for
HotelClub.com who provide discount London hotel deals.
