London Undergorund

London Underground (or London Tube) is certainly one of the British capital's landmarks. The first underground electric railway, the City and South London, which ran from near the Bank of England under the Thames to the South Bank, opened in 1890.It was the first line to be called 'the Tube'. Tube carriages originally had buttoned upholstery and no windows and were nicknamed 'padded cells'.

When the first escalator was installed on the London Underground, to reassure people that it was safe, a man with a wooden leg called 'Bumper' Harris was hired to travel up and down it continuously for a week.

This first escalator was installed at Earl's Court in 1911, and the one-legged 'Bumper' Harris was employed to demonstrate its safety. The London Transport Museum's Depot in Acton boasts a tiny model 'Bumper' Harris in celebration of the man's important role in the history of the escalator.

©Lee Pelling Photography 

Harry Beck, designer of the Tube map, was paid only five guineas (£5.25) for the copyright to his work by London Underground (ten guineas for the artwork and design of the card edition). Harry Beck produced the well-known Tube map diagram in 1931, having been made redundant from his job as an engineering draughtsman at the London Underground Signals Office. The map was rejected at first, but after a successful small print run of 500 copies, it was accepted in 1932. In 1933, 700,000 copies were printed, and a further print run was required within a month.

Beck continue to revise his original design as new stations were added until 1960, when a dispute over his map's remodelling by other designers led to a rift with his former employers. Beck died in 1974 - still bitter about how the map had been taken from his control. In 1997, Beck's importance was posthumously recognised, and as of 2013 the statement is printed on every Tube map: "This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck". Today Beck's map has generated considerably more money for London Underground than its trains ever have.

'Mind The Gap' is an audible or visual warning phrase issued to rail passengers to take caution while crossing the horizontal, and in some cases vertical, spatial gap between the train door and the station platform. The phrase was first introduced in 1969.

For many years the recording of 'Mind The Gap' on the Picadilly Line was spoken by David Archer from Radio 4's The Archers. David Archer is played by the actor Tim Bentinck, or to give him a full title, Timothy Charles Robert Noel Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland, Viscount Woodstock and Baron Cirencester.

According to research by University College, London, such is the concentration of dust particles, that travelling on the Underground for 40 minutes is the equivalent to smoking two cigarettes.

Useful links:

Interactive London Map - Find your way around the city
London Transport Museum Depot - Learn more about London transport history
Tube - Transport for London - All you need to know about London transport