• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Oddness On The London Underground

Many moons ago I was driving the works van luckily with my tools in the back through the town
centre, it was very busy and some poor sod was chained stark naked to one of the bus stops,
I took pity on him stopped cut him loose got him in the van and rang his girl friend to come
get him and to bring something to cover him, seem he had been on his stag and they had
chained him up and abandoned him, he seemed in a state of shock or maybe just pissed.
It gave the lads a bit of a laugh when I got back to base.
 
RaM said:
Many moons ago I was driving the works van luckily with my tools in the back through the town
centre, it was very busy and some poor sod was chained stark naked to one of the bus stops,
I took pity on him stopped cut him loose got him in the van and rang his girl friend to come
get him and to bring something to cover him, seem he had been on his stag and they had
chained him up and abandoned him, he seemed in a state of shock or maybe just pissed.
It gave the lads a bit of a laugh when I got back to base.
Click to expand...
You noted his name and address and took photos, right?
 
I wonder if he's still "friends" with the people who left him there. I wouldn't be!

CALGACUS03 said:
The most striking thing about him was that he was wearing just a dark blue shirt and a belt (pinched really tightly around his waist) no shoes and seemingly no underwear either. He was obviously shivering, but looked more excited than cold/scared.
Click to expand...
To me, this just sounds like San Francisco in pre-Techno takeover days.
 
IbisNibs said:
I wonder if he's still "friends" with the people who left him there. I wouldn't be!
Click to expand...

This happened on a stag night I was once on in London.

Unfortunately for me, I fell down a small flight of stairs (before getting drunk: it was just after eight!) in the World's End pub in Camden and had to go to A & E with an ankle so badly sprained that I couldn't walk. As a result, I wasn't there at 3 a.m., when the ill-fated decision was made.

I don't know whether I would have urged a change of mind had I been there (I would probably have been heavily intoxicated), but it went very badly: the groom-to-be was tied naked to a lamp-post and left, but then a gang of youths found him and beat him black and blue before the police found him.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
OK. True story, but from a long time ago - and I'm talking almost a quarter of a century (!) but, reading some of these, I just had a vivid flashback to it.


Maybe I should have felt flattered, but it felt decidedly weird at the time and I was quite relieved when she got off 1 or 2 stops later, with just a quick backward glance at me.
Click to expand...

Whatever gets yer frock up..:oops:
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
OK. True story, but from a long time ago - and I'm talking almost a quarter of a century (!) but, reading some of these, I just had a vivid flashback to it.

I was working in North London and had to commute up the Northern Line.
In the rush hours, heading North, this is horrendously crowded until you reach probably Euston.

One morning, I was lucky enough to grab a seat at Waterloo and went into the commuter trance, as you do, whilst the carriage fills up and the atmosphere gets increasingly hot and stuffy.
After a few stops - around Tottenham Court Road I reckon, I felt some contact. Or, to be more precise, I felt a youngish woman standing and holding the bar adjacent to me, pressing her, shall we say gusset, against my knee.
I retreated slightly, assuming this was accidental and slightly awkward involuntary contact. Only for her to press harder and rub herself slightly but noticeably against me. I glanced up and she made eye-contact and grinned at me.

Maybe I should have felt flattered, but it felt decidedly weird at the time and I was quite relieved when she got off 1 or 2 stops later, with just a quick backward glance at me.

If the sexes had been reversed, I suppose it would have been regarded as far more inappropriate.
Click to expand...

I wish that would happen to me!
 
Browsing news today I came across the following article. It's on MSN (via the Daily Mail) but has some wonderful images of the forgotten stations & tunnels of the London Underground.

underground.jpg


London's hidden world revealed: Mesmerizing photographs of the forgotten Underground, from abandoned stations to High Gate's bat sanctuary

https://www.msn.com/en-au/travel/ne...tions-to-high-gates-bat-sanctuary/ss-BB133EBG
 
When I first worked in That London (2006-2012) there was a chap I regularly saw on the Victoria Line trains. He must have been in his 70s, well turned out a jacket, slacks, shirt, tie and knitwear combo and would move methodically down the train blessing everyone - mouthing the blessing and doing the arm movements to everyone in the compartment. Totally harmless and it was always interesting to see peoples reactions to being blessed without asking ;) I always wondered if he was suffering from dementia.

Now on my second stint in That London (starting last year) and I've not seen him.
 
Bad Bungle said:
There is also another gurgling 'ventilation shaft' at the end of a platform of an Underground station I rarely visit - need to confirm which river that contains.
Click to expand...

did you manage to run it to earth? so to speak :)
 
i was on the up escalator at Tottenham Court Road once when a man tapped me on the shoulder. He said "sorry, i think you're in the wrong queue. This is the queue for heaven, i think you want the queue for hell."
 
A train story, if not an underground one. But it still makes me smile...

In the late 1990s I used to work down in London, and once every month or so I would take the West Coast mainline back home for the weekend. The train was always packed with many folk doing the same thing, usually far more people than seats. One particular day, midsummer, it was extremely warm, so the train was especially stifling and airless. This had the effect of putting the carriage of travellers into a listless quiet, with many people dozing off.
I think the train was about an hour or so out of Euston, when all of a sudden the silence was broken by a deafeningly loud bloodcurdling scream from a few seats away, a deep man’s voice booming,
“OH NOOOO!!!”
Turned out some poor bugger had been having a nightmare, the climax of which had woken him up in a fit of mortal terror. Needless to say there were lots of chuckles and the unfortunate fellow looked dreadfully embarrassed for the rest of the journey.
 
Souleater said:
Its a cracking story, i wish it were true :)
Click to expand...
It's from a small obscure zine type thing called Follies of London published in 2004, one of four stories purporting to be the work of a recently deceased researcher, Edith Wigfall. It's puzzled me for years because it's well written and includes some elements of truth, but doesn't really qualify as a hoax because it has so many tells, most obviously that Yerkes had no involvement with the Central line at all -it opened in 1900 before his arrival in London. He did finance the Piccadilly, Bakerloo and half the Northern line, but wasn't involved with the building work and died in America before they were completed. Also, the Underground never had any premises in New Oxford Street. Still, it's kind of thing that some people might think has an element of truth...

I'm a museum curator, and another time I had dealings with a serious but deluded film researcher who was convinced that the backstory of the 1972 film Deathline was true, and that it was shot entitrely on location in a secret closed-off bit of Russell Square station. Nothing I could say would convince her that this wasn't the case.
 
smnmy said:
It's from a small obscure zine type thing called Follies of London published in 2004, one of four stories purporting to be the work of a recently deceased researcher, Edith Wigfall. It's puzzled me for years because it's well written and includes some elements of truth, but doesn't really qualify as a hoax because it has so many tells, most obviously that Yerkes had no involvement with the Central line at all -it opened in 1900 before his arrival in London. He did finance the Piccadilly, Bakerloo and half the Northern line, but wasn't involved with the building work and died in America before they were completed. Also, the Underground never had any premises in New Oxford Street. Still, it's kind of thing that some people might think has an element of truth...

I'm a museum curator, and another time I had dealings with a serious but deluded film researcher who was convinced that the backstory of the 1972 film Deathline was true, and that it was shot entitrely on location in a secret closed-off bit of Russell Square station. Nothing I could say would convince her that this wasn't the case.
Click to expand...
Mysterious underground spaces are my absolute favourite topic :)
 
There is some stuff online (related to the sub brit people iirc) about huge underground civil defence shelters under London built in the 1950s - someone getting down into one of them years ago and finding miles of tunnels and a huge modern console of red flashing lights- i had always thought these reports were fantasy/false memory, but was surprised when someone I trust suggested to me that they do exist in some form. Not sure I believed them, but still: people love secret stuff!

I went down into the tunnels at King William Street tube station a long time ago -it was on the first deep tube line, that became part of the Northern line but closed in 1900. It's not connected to the Underground anymore like some of the disused stations and the only access point was through a trap door in the basement of an office building connecting to a spiral staircase. The whole thing has been obliterated by a big underground expansion of Bank station.
 
Last edited:
smnmy said:
it's pretty comprehensive, but by using the term 'abandoned' they include stations that never got built in the first place, whch is cheating I think!
Click to expand...
I saw a programme about the old mail tube service that ran on the underground, there are old offices still full of old office furniture, telephones all just abandoned when the line became obsolite.
 
Souleater said:
I think i preferred it when it was abandoned, more mysterious
Click to expand...
definitely - they used to do informal tours for Post Office and museum people before they opened it to the public where you'd have to lie down more or less in the foetal position to get in the 'carriages' - alas, I never had a chance to go on one.
 

I'd have been itching to get off and explore--and if I'd managed it, they'd have to come and find me!​

=============================================================​

London Underground: Tube mishap sees train pull into abandoned station​

Adriana Elgueta
BBC News
Published: 2 August 2023

London Underground passengers were left bewildered when their train accidentally pulled into an old abandoned station during a regular journey.

The eastbound Jubilee line service had been travelling from Green Park to Westminster on Sunday when it stopped at the Jubilee branch of Charing Cross Tube station, which has been out of use since 1999.

One passenger told the BBC when the train came into the station "I noticed that Westminster station looked unusual and as the train slowed, I noticed the roundels said Charing Cross and not Westminster".

Transport for London (TfL) said the mishap was the result of a "miscommunication".

The passenger, who asked not to be named, said once the Tube had come to a halt "the train driver spoke over the intercom and verbatim said 'sorry I have no idea what happened' as the entire train stood flabbergasted.

"One guy even tried to operate the open door button!"

The passenger added the driver was then "chuckling" when they explained that the control room at Green Park had sent the train down the wrong track.

The station was used by Jubilee line trains from 1979 but has been closed to passengers for nearly 25 years.

Nevertheless, the tracks are still live with empty trains on the Jubilee line occasionally having to pull into the sidings towards Charing Cross to regulate the service.

The station is also occasionally used for filming.

A TfL spokesperson explained that the lost train had been directed to reroute into the sidings to regulate a late service, with an instruction for passengers to disembark at Green Park.

However, a "miscommunication" had meant that not all passengers had been able to leave the train before it continued into the old Charing Cross station.

They said it then went "straight back to Green Park to allow those customers to leave the train".

A Bit More Detail:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c10z76m1mg0o
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top