4 years on from July 7th London Transport Bombings

Four years ago today, 52 people were killed in bomb attacks on the London Underground and a London bus. In memory of the people who died, a £1 million permanent memorial will be unveiled in Hyde Park later today.


It was a day most Londoners will never forget and fitting that there's now a permanent place to mark the names of random people who were going about their everyday commutes, never knowing it would be the last journey of their lives.

My thoughts are with the families of those who died and also with the many people who were injured in the attacks.

Person on a Tube Line

If you've ever wanted to find out what happens to people on a London Underground train when there's a person on the line, there's a interesting blog post from Andrew Jaffe. Yesterday lunchtime, trains weren't stopping at King's Cross station because of a "one under" - horrible phrase, but that's what Tube staff call it.

Andrew said, when the driver were informed of the incident "After a few more minutes he told us that we may have to 'de-train' but that he'd let us know when authorization came. He implied that if the unfortunate victim were still alive it could take up to a couple of hours.

Given those circumstances, we were not too unhappy that things took a while. Eventually, the staff from Caledonian Road station showed up, and started leading us off the train, giving us the unfortunate chance for a rare London experience:


After they walked through the tunnel to the next station. Andrew said: "We got loaded onto buses and made it into central London. On the way, I passed Kings X station itself, to find the (Virgin!) Air Ambulance ready to rescue the 'person under the train'"


"If nothing else, the British (and, I think, even we foreigners who happen to have found ourselves here) tend to be pretty relaxed in a crisis, and so we were. Given that this was on Sunday in July, we were lucky that the train wasn't much hotter and more crowded with people commuting to work, so we could manage to be more amused by the situation than anything else. Damped, to be sure, by the sad circumstances that had caused all of this. But still: blitz spirit, Keep Calm and Carry On, and all that."

There's more pictures from the evacuation on Andrew's Flickr set.

Funnily enough only last week Ianvisits sent me a link to a post about the length of time it takes to re-open roads and railway lines, if there has been a fatality or person on a line.

"Lord Faulkner said the British Transport Police, 'which is primarily responsible for dealing with the sort of incident on the railway to which he refers, has a remarkably good record in getting lines open again.

'It has a target of 90 minutes; last year it exceeded that and achieved a reopening time of 76 minutes, and I am told that it hopes to do better again this year."

It's an awful thing having to balance the speed of getting people on their travels again, with the sensitivity of telling people what's being going on. I'm pleased that Andrew said in this case, the evacuation went smoothly and people were quite relaxed and understandable. However, in the rush hour, I've heard loads of people tutting and getting really hot under the collar when a person on the line causes problems to their journey.

Isn't it easier as Andrew says to "Keep Calm & Carry On" and have a bit of sympathy for the people involved?

Hot Tube Cartoons

Amongst the stories in the London papers about how ridiculously hot the London Underground is that moment, a couple of cartoons really stood out. Thelondonpaper were spot on with their microwave Tube carriage:


Ianvisits spotted something similar in The Telegraph


Fortunately next year, some of us might have some relief with the air conditioned Tubes when they are rolled out on the Metropolitan Line. But with deep level lines there's still no hope for cooler Tubes as Boris Johnson says "The difficulty is of course that it will ramp up the public pressure on us to deliver air-conditioning on the deep lines as well."

Each year we hear that TfL are working on cooler Tubes (when Ken Livingstone was mayor he offered a six figure reward for someone who could come up with a solution) and each year we swelter on deep level lines. Maybe one day, we'll see it, but until then it's a case of sweating and bearing it.

Tube Photo of the Week

It could be a new advertising campaign. It could be a message from the London Underground. It could be message from Boris. But I loved this photo that Mister Rad took at Bond Street Tube station.


Mister Rad said "This person decided to ignore it ... but an evil plan like this was bound to attract some attention!"

If you happen to see a Dr Evil look-a-like on the Tube hastily putting up posters let us know.

The Outer Limits – Beyond Zone One

It's funny how even Transport for London and the London Transport Museum, see London beyond zone one as the "Outer Limits". But if you think there's more to London than Zone one and have a eye for design you could have the chance of changing this and bagging yourself a thousand pounds too.

"Continuing the tradition of commissioning cutting edge poster design, London Transport Museum and Transport for London (TfL), along with partners London Design Festival and Visit London, have launched an open competition to design a poster that celebrates the discoveries, pleasures and excitements that London has to offer beyond the city centre.


The winning design will become part of London Transport Museum's collection and will be reproduced as a poster for display on TfL's transport network.

Entrants are encouraged to use all variety of media and current technologies to create their take on contemporary poster design to reflect London's position as a leading design capital City. The poster must work within the contemporary display contexts of TfL's busy public environments and should conform to the rules and conventions of public display. It is important to remember any piece of advertising design will only have 3 seconds to attract the attention of a passer by."

Full details and a list of prizes are on TfL's site. I've heard that the competition organisers are particularly interested in receiving designs that feature modern life in the following London boroughs: Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harringay, Harrow, Islington, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Wandsworth. Maybe these areas are under-represented in the Tube's current posters!

You have until July 27th to enter. Good luck.