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Here we go..... the following is an extract from LU company Mag - On The Move, March 2005....

"........ Duty Station Manager has been filmed for a TV documentary about Ghosts on The Underground.
Steve saw a plea for spooky stories in December OTM and got in touch with the production team to recount two tales of terror from his days as a station Supervisor at Liverpool Street........On the first occassion I was working at around 03.00 at liverpool street and there were no contractors working.
I got a call from the Online Controller who said he could see a man on his CCTV in white overalls standing in the mouth of the tunnel.
I went down there, couldn't see anything, shouted, but there was still no sign, so I called the Line controller back from a phone nearby. When I said I hadn't seen anyone he was shocked and told me I had been standing right next to him.
When I went back, I found a pair of white paper Overalls lying on a bench, which certainly wasn't there the first time I had checked!
..... On the second occassion, he was in the Central Line Ticket hall when the shutters on the retail outlets started shaking for no reason.
I had a feeling I was being watched and felt very cold, so I turned around but there was no one there.
The next thing I knew, I felt something brush by my arm and my shirt moved so I just ran all the way back to my office!
Steve added: " I later found out that when that side of the station was being built back in the 1980's, they found loads of skeletons from plague victims who were buried on the site of the old St Mary's Hospital". ....................................................................."
 
Maybe an UL, but I heard that the bend in the Bakerloo line was to avoid a mass plague burial pit?

Anyone heard that before?
 
Ringo said:
Maybe an UL, but I heard that the bend in the Bakerloo line was to avoid a mass plague burial pit?

Anyone heard that before?

probably is a UL - surely the tube is too deep to intercept a mass grave?
 
surely the tube is too deep to intercept a mass grave?

It's a while since I was in London. But I remember some of the underground being above ground. So some lines at least must have gone through the shallow bits to get down and up again.

That doesn't make sense now I've said it :)

M
 
Morrigan said:
surely the tube is too deep to intercept a mass grave?

It's a while since I was in London. But I remember some of the underground being above ground. So some lines at least must have gone through the shallow bits to get down and up again.

you're right that some of it is above ground or almost above ground, but i don't recall the bakerloo line being such (can someone who uses it more often than i do set us straight here?). anyway, where exactly is the bend in the bakerloo line?
 
Ringo, I don't think the schematic has much to do with the geography. It's a picture of relationships, but not spatial ones.

I don't know where to find an actual map of the london underground.

M
 
the Tube map is made up of 90 and 45 degree angles, it is purely schematic and IIRC based on Electrical wiring diagrams
 
Ringo said:
Sorry, I should have said which bend before. The one between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.

ok, well i'm fairly sure that's too deep then. i mean, some bits you go down and you can see daylight from the platform, but that area always struck me as being fairly well underground.
 
The Bakerloo was dug by miners who later went on to dig the tunnels on the western front used to blow up German trenches. Part of the Bakerloo (the Baker Street end anyway) is the original underground railway system, and just below the surface... the Oxford Street bit seems very deep... it takes a good ten minutes to get from the platforms up to street level.

The Central Line journey from Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green on the central line always seems to take much longer than it should.

.... On the second occassion, he was in the Central Line Ticket hall when the shutters on the retail outlets started shaking for no reason.

(though strictly speaking, it's not just the Central Line ticket hall.. the Met, Circle and Hammersith and City lines). Great story though. :shock:
 
Down in the tube station at midnight...

well more like mid-day but it was too good a title not to use.

So has anyone had any strangeness happen on the underground? (other than random groping from strangers)


A few weeks ago my fella and I were running to get a train to go to Charing Cross tube station. I made it and he didn't (very Sliding Doors) anyhoo he mouthed to me to get him at that station. So off the train trundles and I arrive at Charing Cross and get off. The platform was quite busy as it was a Saturday afternoon, however it cleared quite quickly once people left the station or got on the train and I was the only person left on the platform. I plonked myself down on the benches to wait for the slowcoach. At that I heard the noise of a woman crying very close to me. I though someone had sat on the bench and I hadn't noticed so I turned round to ask if she was alright, but no one was there, I was the only one on the platform. Very odd.

At that the train arrived with my boyfriend on it.

Anyone heard any similar stories?

*By the way I'm not claiming it was a ghost, this post got moved from It Happened to me*
 
london underground ghosts

Ghost train?

During 1980's & 1990's I was a copier engineer in central London. We travelled from job to job by public transport as it was far better than using a car. Consequently I found myself on the underground a lot, at various times of day, mostly in the west end, and south to Kennington.

I heard about some strange goings on that I guess were mainly urban myths.

One particularly caught my imagination is the story of the (female?) figure sitting near you on the seat but only visible as a reflection in the window opposite. A variation of this I also heard is that there can appear to be a face looking in the window opposite as if stuck between the train and the tunnel. All this is supposed to happen on the Bakerloo line northbound between Regents park and Baker street stations. I have to say that I did this journey very often and never saw a thing. maybe I was looking too hard for it.

I used Kings cross station very often but never had any bad feelings there I am pleased to say.

The only odd thing that did happen was on the Northern line at the Camden interchange (Camden town). At the time (1994 or thereabouts) I used to travel in to central London on the Northern line from Brent cross.
One night after work I had been out for a meal and drinks - I had not been drinking alcohol as I had to then drive home from Brent cross station - 20 miles up the M1. So what I saw was NOT due to drink.
It was vey late and a very cold night. I got on a northbound Edgeware branch train at Tottenham court road, but it was terminating at Golders green - as is so often the case late at night.
The choice was to stay on till then and wait outside in the cold, for the next Edgeware train, or change at an inside station - Camden being the natural choice. I decided to change at Camden.

Anyone who knows the Camden interchange well will know that if you stand at the south end of the northbound Edgeware branch platform you can see the trains approaching the station and going over the points to your platform or the High barnet branch. I would normally wait here because at Brent cross the station exit is at the back of the train, so saving time when i got off the train - (there is a whole science to this for regular underground users!!! - sad I know)
Anyway, I got off the Golders green train and walked towards the south end of the platform as I would normally when changing trains here. There were perhaps a handful of people on the platform, but 'my' end was empty. When I peered down the tunnel I could see a train slowly approaching the points then stop. I was hopeful it would be an Edgeware train. It was the old type train with both headlights on the same side and the wooden floors - always somehow more pleasant to travel on. The new Northern line trains were still years in the future then.
Presently the train began to move forward then veer to it's right - it was a High barnet train.

Then it started to get odd. I could see the train crossing the points and the odd flash as the pick ups bridged the gaps but the train did not seem to be going into the other platform behind me. it was as if it was concertina'd in the tunnel ! I should have heard the train going in to the High barnet platform before the back of it went out of sight from the tunnel - but nothing. When the train was out of sight It was silent everywhere again and my next train was still some minutes away according to the big red display.

Usually when a train arrives at Camden north or southbound there is a movement of people from one platform to the other, who need the 'other' branch - especially late at night when not all trains go 'all the way' - no one emerged on to the platform I was on, from the other one this time.

The next train was a High barnet train and this one went 'normally'. The one after that was mine.

I thought about what had happened and the only rational thing I can come up with is the possibiliy that there is an underground siding there and they were putting the train to bed?
For a while on my journey home I used to look out of the window to see evidence of a siding tunnel where this train could have gone, but, not sure what I was looking for I gradually forgot about it.

When I found myself in similar circumstamces following that night I used to see if it would happen again but it never did.

I hope you find this of some interest, I would love to know if anyone else ever saw the phantom of the Camden interchange. :?
 
I used Kings Cross quite often when I worked in London and never felt a thing, even late at night. I agree with Spillage, the Tube is a lonely, depressing place, especially when you have been using it for a while, full of hostilty and anxiety. Some of that has to seep into the collective.
 
W.B. Herbert's book 'Railway Ghosts and Phantoms has a chapter by a Mr Nash of Aylesbury about an incident on the tube in 1983. Between Oxford Street and Victoria he became tranfixed by a sad faced woman sitting diagonally opposite him to the extent that his mood began to reflect hers. As he stood up to get off the person had meanwhile, completely disappeared. There were a few others in the carriage but no sign of her and her escape without being noticed seemed impossible.
 
Wasn't there a photo taken of someone on the tude and the refection in the window behind them shows a man in an electric chair?
 
liveinabin said:
Wasn't there a photo taken of someone on the tude and the refection in the window behind them shows a man in an electric chair?


Have the British ever used the electric chair as a means of execution?

Of course, even i they haven't this doesn't discredit any photo depicting such a reflection, but it would make it considerably more incongrous.
 
The Yithian said:
liveinabin said:
Wasn't there a photo taken of someone on the tude and the refection in the window behind them shows a man in an electric chair?


Have the British ever used the electric chair as a means of execution?

Of course, even i they haven't this doesn't discredit any photo depicting such a reflection, but it would make it considerably more incongrous.

I don't think we have, hanging seemed to be the preferred method.

There are usually posters for exhibitions around London on the tube walls, some of which are macabre; pictures of the artist Giacometti can look like electricutions or torture, it was probably something like that reflected on the window.
 
I think it's somewhat curious that this thread has popped up just days before the DVD/video release of the British horror movie Creep, set on the Underground. Maybe that's the cynic in me...

The Underground has always fascinated me. It's such a bzarre, constantly evolving, construct, cutting through layer upon layer of history. The likelihood of there being spirits trapped down amongst the tubes - if you believe in such things - is pretty high, you'd have to admit. But even from a purely non-believing point of view, you have to admit echoes and breezes must shoot down the tubes from one station to another all the time.

This also reminds me of the Abandoned Underground Station thread on the Urban Legends board. I bet there's some 'activity' in those old stations too. Not that anybody will be seeing them again, anytime soon...
 
Some of them are used for corporate events and parties. In fact one was due t be opened fairly recently for a big club night which sadly never got off the ground as the big name acts were to be Coil and John Peel.

Jeff, I think that there is a siding at Camden at which some trains get put to bed. Good story though!
 
I have used the underground for years and even worked in it as a contractor for 20 months a few years back. There was hardly any stories going around the LUL staff about hauntings. The ones that were floating about were just brushed off as windups. There was the usual Rats as large as cats yarns. Sounds used to vibrate right down those tunnels, so if someone was bawling there eyes out at one station the sound would easily travel down the line a couple of stations. You used to get a lot of foxes down there two and they can be quite vocal. In fact a lot of fox mating cries are often mistaking for someone getting attacked.

I had a friend come and stay with me from the Midlands recently and he said that standing on Mile End platforms gave him the creeps because it reminded him of that American Werewolf in London movie. So people there's enough explanations for any strange goings on down there.
 
I hadn't been to London for years, and when I went last year, I found the Underground system really fun (and surprisingly clean/safe-feeling actually).

One thing that frightened me though, but which probably happens all the time, was when I was on the Tube at around 6am and the train stopped in a big empty station with no signs or people for about 10 minutes. This completely confused me but I just stayed on like everyone else, even though the doors opened. Anyone know why they do this?
 
Dessie said:
Sounds used to vibrate right down those tunnels, so if someone was bawling there eyes out at one station the sound would easily travel down the line a couple of stations. .

wouldn't that be a rather echoey noise though?
 
wouldn't that be a rather echoey noise though?

Yes but it could still scare some people that wernt used to it though.
 
Dessie said:
...he said that standing on Mile End platforms gave him the creeps because it reminded him of that American Werewolf in London movie.

I've seen scarier things than werewolves at Mile End station believe me!

Given the large number of new migrants working on the tube these days it would be interesting to know if their response to working in dirty, dark old tunnels under London has created new stories and legends in the making influenced by their own cultures or if they've simply taken on the ones that are already there.
 
The underground is a pretty creepy place when you think about it, all those underground tunnels, like a labyrinth. I'm going to be looking out for those reflection ghosts next time i'm there now.

Curious Ident said:
I think it's somewhat curious that this thread has popped up just days before the DVD/video release of the British horror movie Creep, set on the Underground. Maybe that's the cynic in me...

I saw that film. It was dire. Quite scary until the guy doing all the killing shows up, and then it's just revolting.

My dad took his sister on the underground once when she was visiting England. She's slightly claustrophobic. The train stopped in the tunnel for a few minutes, and she was getting agitated. He thought it would be funny to tell her of the fact that they were currently stopped underneath the Thames.
 
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