Brill New York Subway Photoblog

Why can't I take proper pictures?

Came across a fantastic photoblog about the New York Subway today (thanks to a person called - Timelapse telling the photoblogger - Travis - about this site) and since watching Subway Stories last week, this blog shows that even though the film was made about eight years ago the New York subway still has just as many diverse characters and people commuting as we do. The thing I love about all the pictures here is the amazing quality and that they almost look as though they've been set up or staged.



Big note to self - get some stronger batteries for your camera and get snapping on the Tube again.

Down at the Depot

I finally got off my arse yesterday, and went down to one of the few weekends of the year that the LT Museum open up their Acton Depot, a treasure trove of all things from yester-year kept, recovered and restored from disused bits of the Underground.

Some of it is a bit anoraky, but a lot of it is quite interesting - nothing impressed me more than the rows and rows of old signs from stations that don't exist anymore, old tube maps, and nameplates of places (such as Ongar and Aldwych here!) that you can no longer travel to.

It's only open three weekends of the year at the moment - the next being June 4th/5th 2005, although my contact tells me that the LU museum in Covent Garden is going to be closed for up to 18 months at somepoint soon whilst it's refurbished, and during this time the Acton depot (Nearest tube: Acton Town) is probably going to be open on a more permament basis.

Tube Challenge 8

Travelling around ALL tube stations in the SNOW

Our very own Neil and Geoff did another tubechallenge on Thursday last week and braved the freezing weather, snow and attendant delays caused by the rubbish weather and general Tube rubbishness - read all about it on Geoff's blog


And if anyone fancies the mini tube challenge - just on Zone 1 it's on the 20th May.

A New Tube Vending Machine

Umbrella Dispensers

From NickC on the main site's message board:

"Recently on BBC2's "Dragons Den" (reality business pitch programme) a man went in and tried to sell the idea of umbrella dispensers and asked for investment, anyways he got over �50,000 to set up a company (Technography) which already has the rights to place umbrella dispensing machines in underground stations..

The machines have TV screens in which can give advertising and I think that the umbrellas cost around �2.. What is your opinion on these?

It's great in case you come off a fairly long journey to realise that it has started to rain.."

Initially, I thought this was a really shite idea. If you're travelling mostly underground how are you going to know if it's raining? Oh yeah, I know, I know - see wet people getting on the Tube or people with wet umbrellas. Then as with most ideas that I think are initially mad, it grew on me, specially when I did a bit more investigation and found out the following from Umbrolly's website:

"The company will sell its umbrellas for �2 (bargain), compared with the �8-�15 that commuters are used to paying when suddenly confronted with a downpour.

In trials at Fulham and Hammersmith tube stations this year, Technography sold an average of 200 umbrellas a month.

The UK umbrella market is worth more than �87m a year and is benefiting from an increasing number of rainy days.

There were 194 wet days in the UK in 2003, up from 176 in 2000."

Add to this that umbrellas are still in the Top 10 items most commonly lost on London Transport and I think Charles Ejogo is onto a winner.

Any other ideas for dispensing machines on the Tube? Apparently books were trialled at some stage but never really took off. Praph's if we get some good ideas we could form a co-operative and go up for the next stage of Dragon's Den.

Sounds of the Underground

Another university project

A request for some help on another Tube art installation. I remember last year a student from another university got in touch about some help for a "sounds of the Underground" project and we have a similar request. I've snipped quite a lot Andrew's email but if you're interested in helping out I'm sure he'll be happy to provide you with more of the examples he's looking for:

"I was wondering if you and the readers of your �blog� might be able to help me.

The project is concerned with constructing a sound �map� of the London Underground. This will involve capturing sounds that help to mediate the experience of travelling by tube both for visitors to London and regular commuters. It is proposed that these will eventually be used to capture the atmosphere of tube travel beyond the traditional visual representations.

Given that I do not live in London at present (I�m from Northern Ireland) and the sheer scale of the Underground network I feel that the visitors and users of your site are best placed to help me research this project. I am particularly keen to learn of their experiences of Underground travel, particularly in the context of the sounds that proliferate those experiences.

What I am keen to establish are the type of sounds people notice whilst travelling on the London Underground. For example, are there any station announcers at a particular station whose voice sounds somewhat unusual, perhaps pleasant or irritating? Are there particular lines where the famous �Mind the Gap� announcements on board trains are worded differently or presented with a different voice? What of the buskers in stations and on board trains, both legal and illegal? .......

I would be delighted if as many visitors to your site could contact me through the comments with as much information as they are able to provide. I would encourage you to provide whatever detail you can, however irrelevant you feel it to be. This project is about unlocking our ears to the sounds of our everyday environment and that is about identifying those sounds that are both individual and often unheard."

It would be great if Andrew (as promised) could keep us informed of this project's fruition and let us know when the final installation takes place. I'd suggest you make a lot of visits to London yourself really though Andrew as it's a very ambitious thing you're trying to do particularly as you don't even live in London. But, anyway, best of luck.