Drive a Cardboard Tube Train

Ever wanted to drive a cardboard Tube train through Kensington and Chelsea?  Sounds improbable. However, you're in luck this weekend as a cardboard train designed by William Alexander will be picking up passengers on a new "spur" linking the District Line to the Central Line. 

It's a free performance piece by Fitzrovia Noir running from Wednesday 24 July to Saturday 27 July, from 10am-11.30pm and 12.30pm-2pm, with 4pm matinees on Wednesday and Friday.

"By ‘picking up’ passengers on this people-powered train along the way, the artist-driver will establish imaginary overground routes through public spaces with an innovation that responds to 150 years of underground travel in the capital." says the blurb for the event.

No booking is required, so if the weather's dry (cardboard trains don't run well in downpours) it should be an interesting experience.

Full details are at Fitzrovia Noir's site or on the Facebook  page for the event.

270 Tube Stations in one A-Z of the Underground Song

The Tube's been referenced countless times in songs. Whether that's generic references such as in James Blunt's "You're Beautiful", The Jam's "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight" or specific stations such as Warwick Avenue. However, there hasn’t been a song to name every single station. Until now.

Image by Adham Fisher

Ben Langham is a London Underground engineer by day and a station music master by night. He collects recordings behind the scenes of the Tube – sometimes from  hidden tunnels and disused  – and transforms them into songs for his Tunnel Sounds project. I blogged about his unique concept some while back but it also caught the attention of BBC Breakfast and CBS News.


For the 150th anniversary of the London Underground Ben felt this called for something very special. A-Z Of The Underground is a hypnotic one-off piece interchanging hip-hop and electronica featuring Kate Mullins (Puppini Sisters), Jaggi and AFS.

Real sounds recorded on the Tube have been edited and layered together with guitars, bass and punctual production based around the Central Line of rhythmic vocals acknowledging all 270 stations. The song can be downloaded for free, or however much people want to pay for a limited time only

So next  time you take the Tube, listen to this audio tour of the tunnels and you might end up with plenty of extra spring in your Stepney.

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Heathrow Express Celebrates 15th Birthday with giant train shaped cake

While the London Underground is celebrating its 150th anniversary, the Heathrow Express celebrated its 15th birthday with the aid of some cake.  A large train sized cake.  Coming in at 4 metres long, 1.5 x 4m x 2m and taking over 30 hours to install it was on display at Paddington station today.

A team of 15 bakers used  industrial cake mixers, copper moulds, blowtorches and spirit levels to engineer the cake in-situ at the station. It's made of sponge, fondant icing and chocolate.

Keith Greenfield, Managing Director of Heathrow Express said: “Building an enormous carriage-shaped cake with its flavours inspired by the Heathrow Express journey felt like a fitting way to celebrate our 15 years of service. We hope that passengers are able to enjoy a slice as they pass through on their way to or from the airport.”

Come on TfL now it's your turn to make a replica Tube train cake for your anniversary celebrations.  

Photos by Gary Morrisroe 

We had a giant cake Tube map a few years ago for National Baking Week and perhaps the cake could be installed at Swiss Roll Cottage station, or maybe Victoria sponge Tube or even Charing Hot Cross Bun station.

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Lego Tube Maps - 150th London Underground Birthday Celebrations

Fans of Lego rejoice. To mark the London Underground's 150th anniversary, five the Tube maps through the years have been created entirely out of Lego.

Each map is made from 1,000 Lego bricks and they aim to show how the Tube map has evolved from 1927 through to a first look as to what it could look like by 2020.

The maps, can be seen at Kings Cross St. Pancras (for the 2020 map), South Kensington (1927 map), Piccadilly Circus (1933 - Harry Beck's original map), Green Park (1968 map)  and Stratford (2013 map) Tube stations this summer, before moving onto permanent homes at London Transport Museum.

Photo by Ben Sutherland

They've  certainly come on a long way from the interpretation of the Lego Tube Map at Legoland Windsor (pictured above) and the Lego maps made by Duncan Titchmarsh in 2007



Mike Ashworth, Design and Heritage Manager at London Underground, said: 'LEGO have done a wonderful job of recreating our internationally recognized Tube map. 

'I'm sure our customers of all ages and backgrounds will enjoy looking at the five different LEGO maps that show the history and development of the Underground. 

 'The 2020 map at King's Cross St. Pancras shows the new stations and rail links we want to deliver - we hope this fun LEGO map will inspire the young engineers of the future to help deliver our vision.'

You can pick up a leaflet at the stations where the Lego maps are displayed with  details on how to build your own London Underground logo or 'roundel' out of Lego bricks.

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Robb Stark from Game of Thrones on the Tube

SPOILER ALERT for Game of Thrones fans .... don't read this is you haven't watched the latest episode of the show .... or have somehow managed to survive several days on the internet without knowing what has happened.




What happens to kings who've just been murdered?  Apparently they end up on the Bakerloo Line.  Robb Stark or rather the actor who plays him, Richard Madden was spotted on the London Underground recently, looking rather pensive.  Stark very recently met a grisly end in a massacre on Game of Thrones much to the shock of many viewers. 

Photo by @DannyBlahBlah

As it looks as though @DannyBlahBlah took this when the weather was a tad more inclement than it is now, one can only assume it was before his very recent demise was broadcast. 

All Robb aka The King of the North needed was for some Tube "joker" to say "Cheer up mate it might never happen" and then he could have turned around and said, "It already has, I've just been brutally murdered".

Dr Who's Alex Kingston spotted by me on the Piccadilly Line

Let us know if you've spotted any other bored looking actors who play sci fi or fantasy characters on the Tube as there seems to be a growing "club" of them.

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Tube Map Poster for Chelsea Flower Show's 100th Year

100 years of the Chelsea Flower Show and 150 years of the London Underground.  To mark both occasions the Underground has issued a special poster showing the Tube map with its lines represented as common and unusual flowers.

The Jubilee line is represented by grey Hydrangeas, Bakerloo line by a Chocolate Cosmos, the District Line by green Chrysanthemums, Piccadilly line by blue tulips, black pansies for the Northern line, red roses for the Central line,  Himalayan Blue Poppies for the Waterloo &City line, maroon Lilies for the Metropolitan line,  blue geraniums for  the Victoria line and  brightly coloured ornamental Allamanda Cathartica for the Circle line. Gerberas are used for two lines - pink for the  – Hammersmith & City line and cheery orange ones for the Overground.

It's the first time the Tube map has been used in a poster for the Chelsea Flower Show and works really well as previous images from the 1930's were a bit unadventurous in  comparison.

It would be great if Sloane Square Tube had some floral arrangements in it to celebrate as well.  Although as it's pretty much underground, the flowers wouldn't get much in the way of natural light. 

Pinner London Underground Station Garden Winner 1966

Last year Finchley Central's station garden was entered into The Chelsea Flower show and there were over 140 entries for TfL's London Underground in Bloom competition in for the best station garden. Displays ranged from the Olympic rings and herb gardens to Japanese meditation-style spaces and beehives.  Back in 1966, 3000 flowers and plants were so resplendent in Pinner's station garden you could hardly see the station name.

The current poster for the Chelsea Flower Show will be available from London Transport Museum shop in Covent Garden Piazza or online at the following link.

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Oxford Circus Tube Great Gatsby Makeover

Look out for an amazing 360 degree advertising makeover at Oxford Circus London Underground for the new Baz Luhrmann version of The Great Gatsby.  The entrance to the escalators there have been transformed into a 1920's ballroom.

Photo via @LovelysVintage

In something that looks like the palatial subway system at Moscow,  digitally printed floor graphics and huge graphic wall panels give commuters the impression they're being transplanted into the roaring twenties.

They certainly show how "wrapping" of Tube stations has come on and actually seems really well suited to the London Underground's own long history.  TfL have been known to be quite picky about the makeovers of stations by advertisers.  So this one clearly had close collaboration between CBS Outdoor UK (who are responsible for selling all the ad space on the Tube) and Applied Media (who produced the graphics) to get approval from London Underground for such lavish designs.

Apparently the floor panels have been designed to be extremely durable under the millions of footsteps, pushchairs, suitcase and trolley marks they'll be subjected too. It was also important that they were slip resistant and are easily removable at the end of the campaign.  Applied Media also worked with TfL last year to deliver 120 kilometres of temporary games lanes for the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics.

I love this period and art deco too, so I'd be happy to see the flooring and ceiling panels left up after the campaign.  It's certainly set the bar for what can be achieved to temporarily immerse  us commuters into another time while we're travelling.

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