The Way Out Tube Map

This is brilliant for old timers and tourists alike. For tourists it shows the tube map in relation to main streets in Central London. For old timers it shows you which carriage to sit in to be the nearest to the exit - therefore you can save that vital few seconds if you're running late. Top idea!

London Underground's Real Time News
You may need to treat this news with a pinch of salt, but supposedly it's London Transport's latest and up to the minute news about delays, signal failures, closures. May be worth a try before you leave your house or hotel room, but don't blame me if it's wrong!!!

Tube Rules
Slightly tongue in cheek but don't think of travelling on the tube until you visit this page on my site. It's a must if you'd like to know who you're supposed to behave on the tube. Along with essential things like standing on the right on escalators also includes lesser know rules such as "not talking" "not carrying large rucksacks" "not throwing up" and "not sitting with your legs wide apart"!!!

Multi Map
Want to find out where your hotel, accommodation or friend's house is in relation to the nearest tube station? Try this multi map tool below. Just type in the postcode/zip code of where you want to go and it will pop up on the map and you should be able to see any tube station nearby. Marked by a the little Underground logo.

In some instances, the London Pass even allows you to beat the queues as some attractions have a pre-paid ticket counter where you can swipe your card to gain access. Although the London Pass may be purchased in London, only passes purchased through the London Pass web site include free transport within London. Free transport covers the full six London Transport zones which includes both London City and Heathrow Airports as well as many of the more far-flung attractions. If you're planning on extensive sightseeing, the London Pass is a good investment - yes, you have to pay for it! Adult prices are: one-day £27, two-days £47, three-days £60 and six-days £94. Discounted rates apply to children under 15. click here for more details

Want a large selection of maps from London?

Essentials for your first time on the tube
Here's a little article I wrote for Independent Travel Guide BootsNAll.com. If it's your first time on the underground it's very useful and also contains information on how to get to central London from all of London's airports (including London Heathrow and Gatwick Airport) and the Eurostar. Click on the banner below to reach this article.

Since September 11th tourism in London has taken a bit of a beating. However, this means if you are travelling to London you can pick up some great bargains.

Up to 70% off London Hotels
Ok, so you've already booked your flight but haven't got anywhere to stay. Check out this site for some top class London hotels at very low prices.

Up to 50% off London Hotels - "Name your own price"
A great site where you can name your own price for top London Hotels, not all offers are accepted, but quite a lot of them are (as tourism is still not up to its peak in London yet) so try starting low and see how you get on.

Welcome Homes & Hotels
Stay in a private guest house in London from only £14 per person per night!

1st 4 London Hotels
Another excellent site which offers London hotel reservations with discount rates available.

Currency Converter - XE.com Personal Currency Assistant
Essential little tool for converting your dollars, pesos, francs, marks or whatever currency into British pounds. You can also easily bookmark this tool and come back to it whenever you need it.

Going Underground
by: Matthew Tanner Paperback
Just heard about this book which was published in July 2001. It's an innovative new guide, fully illustrated in colour, which lets you explore central London using "the quickest and most cost effective way" - the tube. The guide is divided into the six lines that cover Zone 1; Bakerloo, Central, Circle, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria. At every station the guide details places of interest as well as pubs, bars and restaurants.

For example catch the Bakerloo line to Waterloo and be guided to over ten places of interest including the British Airways London Eye and the South Bank Arts centre. Looking for somewhere to eat in the area then choose from six recommended bars and restaurants.

Highly recommended.

Michael Brein's Guide to London by the Underground - through amazon.com.
Similar to the above, but not quite as up to date, but has a very large map!!! Here's what a reviewer form amazon.com said:

"I just returned from London - using your "London by the Underground" transit map all the way. It is the most superb transit map in existence. Everyone was borrowing it from me - especially the Concierge at the hotel where I was staying. It is a little ragged now from all the use by me and others, so I am ordering another one - to lend to my niece and her husband who are soon going to London." Or buy it through amazon.co.uk

Tunnel Visions - amazon.co.uk
Christopher Ross, the author of this book, was previously a lawyer, oriental carpet smuggler and Japanese soap actor, and took a job as a station assistant for 16 months on the London Underground. The book is a collection of his thoughts and musings whilst working there. He observes the commuters, sings with a busking act, witnesses a man emerge from a train tunnel after being told at the previous station that it would be quicker to walk. He learns why green grapes, are more deadly than banana skins, though not as lethal as suicidal "one-unders" (or "track pizza", to use a "lovely" piece of New York Slang). There's more stories about passengers travelling with strange companions an ugly, baby turns out to be a monkey, and a dog on a lead a domesticated fox.

The Daily Telegraph said it was: "The best book about the London Underground since the knockabout picaresque of John Healey's Streets above us . . . Tunnel Visions succeeds on several levels; as information; as a collection of anecdotes; as Zen lectures. It is also very funny . . . a parable of our times." Or get it through amazon.com

Tunnel Vision - amazon.co.uk
No I'm not repeating the entry above, Keith Lowe wrote a really fun novel about the tube - Tunnel Vision. The central character Andy is about to get married and makes a drunken bet which threatens to ruin everything. His task is to travel to every tube station on the system in a single day. As part of the challenge his passport, his honeymoon tickets and his credit cards have been hidden in various places along the way - he has just 20 hours to find them all and complete his journey or the wedding is off. Check out my interview with him here. You'll also be able to read Chapter 1 from the book too. Or get it through amazon.com

London Under London - amazon.co.uk
One of the most popular books on London (it has reprinted six times since it was first published in 1984) London under London has now been updated to take into account the latest subterranean developments. Drawing extensively from the literature and visual archives of the underworld, London under London traces the history of the tunnellers and borers who have pierced the ground beneath the city for close on two thousand years. The authors trace the routes taken by man and nature, and enable us to follow them from the comfort of our armchairs. They can also tell us, gazetteer-style, exactly where we can get below and see the strange world which they depict, whom to ask for permission, and which of the public service authorities organizes trips underground. or get it through amazon.com

Frommer's 2002 London From $85 A Day

Great book and not only cos it has a great review about this site in it. "The genius behind www.going-underground.net, "Annie Mole" posts irreverent observations on everything from Tube etiquette to celebrity spotting on her site. The site has drawn an audience keen to participate and escalate the grumbling about the service.

"This is a must visit site for a passenger eye view of the Underground. And by the time your holiday is over, you may have tales to tell, too. Perhaps some more nutty, but oh so everyday, driver announcements to add to this selection."

The author, Harriot Lane Fox, has produced a very honest guide to travelling to London on a budget and spending roughly $85 a day. There's walks, free or very cheap entertainment, good value restaurants and accomodation too.

Eccentric London - amazon.co.uk
Fantastic guide book, particularly if you're interested in the madder and more eccentric side of London. You'll meet a guy who listens to tube trains from the road above with a large tube, the mad yellow Frog Buses, one minute they are on the road, the next in the river and a whole series of walks exploring the weird and wacky side of London. Perfect, shows you how London is full of nutters. Or get it through amazon.com

100 Walks in Greater London - amazon.com
If you don't want a guided walk this is a handy book if you get tired of travelling around on the Underground and want to stretch your legs. The walks are between 2 and 12 miles in length, are mostly circular and have points of interest and refreshment places detailed en route.

London by Terence Conran
Here's what a reviewer from Amazon.co.uk says about this book which is currently receiving extensive advertising on the London Underground

"A wonderful book for those who do or don't know London. Provides a close up on London from the perspective of a real insider, with wonderful photographs that make you feel glad that you live here - or, I suppose, eager to come and visit. Just leafing through the pictures makes the City come alive ... so much so that I haven't even gotten to the words yet. One to dip in to, and definite present potential for either reminding someone of what London is all about, or introducing them to it for the very first time."

Books on The London Underground - amazon.co.uk
If none of the above books caught your fancy, have a look at the latest listing of books on the London Underground from Amazon.co.uk - delivered from the UK.

Books on the London Underground - amazon.com
If none of the above books caught your fancy, have a look at the latest listing of books on the London Underground from Amazon.com - delivered from the USA.

History of the London Underground
Good value video showing the development of the London Underground and its expansion in the 1920's and 1930's, two Wars and millions of passengers. Only £5.99....a bargain!!

Alternative Funny Tube Map - click to see more
The detail from this map comes from a really funny tube map from the "Have I Got 1997 For You" book. It's from the satirical team who put together the popular quiz show "Have I Got News for You". It really gives you a flavour of life on the tube like the rest of this site. It has stops such as "Busy", "Full", "Squashed", Elephant & Castle (real station name), Elephant & Chips, Elephant & Tuxedo, "Out of Centre", "Further Out" etc etc. Copyright prevents me from showing the whole map but Amazon have a few second hand copies and you should be able to get your hands on a copy from this excellent "hard to find books" website.

Dr Who Gallifrey London Underground Map

This map comes from a Dr Who convention where Bonnie Langford was also in attendance.

Simon Patterson's The Great Bear
If you are a bit arty you MUST look at this. It's a piece of "art" from 1992 which was in the Tate Gallery, shortlisted for the Turner Prize and in the Sensation exhibition at The Royal Academy in 1997. Simply it takes the tube map but changes the station names to names of artists, footballers, newsreaders, comedians, philosophers, saints etc. See detail here.

"The map suddenly seemed to offer the opportunity to travel the famous names of history and popular culture, passing a succession of comedians on the way to a philosopher. Patterson uses familiar systems for the classification and the ordering of information and undermines their authority by imposing new yet similarly familiar information. He has used the forms of maps, typewriters, circuits, slide-rules, air traffic route plans and constellation diagrams. They become metaphors for the connectedness of things, they suggest new relationships between them, parallel readings, other ways of configuring the data which govern our lives". Said the British Council.

"the playful subversion of familiar classification systems. He draws unexpected and extraordinary connections between people, facts and ideas by fusing recognisable visual forms with incongruous conceptual associations. That these achieve their own kind of legitimacy shakes our faith in common logic, opening the door to a universe governed by curiosity and imagination." said the Lisson Gallery

However is it art????? Matthew Collings, another art critic from the Independant newspaper, asks what is the relationship of "The Great Bear" to the conventional map of the London Underground? "Where exactly is the art in 'The Great Bear'? Is it the concept or the execution? Is it about words or places?" Have a look at what the BBC said about it as it fetched £14,950 at auction.

If England had lost the war tube map
There's a rather strange tube map which someone has designed showing the tube map with all the station names changed to German sounding ones. Similar in vein to the Great Bear above, but my German's not good enough to tell whether these are real translations or just "sound alikes", I think the latter!!

Thanks to web archive I managed to track down the Geographically accurate Tube Map. It's not great quality but it does let you see how close certain stations really are in reality and how far away others are which look quite close on the tube. Very handy if you're fed up of waiting for tubes and planning to walk instead.

The Way Out Tube Map
This is brilliant for old timers and tourists alike. For tourists it shows the tube map in relation to main streets in Central London. For old timers it shows you which carriage to sit in to be the nearest to the exit - therefore you can save that vital few seconds if you're running late. Top idea!

Cross Sections of Stations
If you ever wanted to see a plan of some tube stations and how they might look with all the tunnels and lines running into them, take a look at this site.

The founding father and original designer of the London Underground map, Harry Beck, lived in Courthouse Road, North Finchley, N12. Most tube or subway maps from around the world follow his original design. The London Underground's managing director had once dismissed a suggestion from Beck, a junior draftsman in 1931, for a new approach to mapping its railway using a simple diagrammatic method based on straight lines. Influenced by the recession of 1932, the MD was persuaded to give it a try in 1933. It was immediately embraced by the public, though no one ever attempted to measure its commercial value to the Underground.

This quote comes from Howard Gerbis who signed my guestbook

"You simply MUST read the book about Harry Beck, Mr Beck's Underground Map by Ken Garland, it is the seminal definitive book on intelligent, lateral thinking design (see how he incorporated the Victoria line as a perfectly straight line in his orginal approach, by just moving orginal tube lines slightly). The book ponders on Harry's frustration, until his death,(in the mid 70s) how London Transport never officially acknowledged his copyright or contribution. A Grey Plaque (the Underground equivalent of London's Blue Plaques which show where famous people lived) was put up at Finchley Central Station 2 - 3 years ago, together with a replica of his orginal map. Too little, too late, and probably more as a result of LT's guilt over the affair."

Ian McLaren had the pleasure to be taught by Harry Beck and has produced an article on what Harry Beck might have thought if he were alive today and could see all the tourist goods which his map has illustrated.

"Harry Beck could not have guessed at the range of items to which his design has been applied; and the international influence he has undoubtedly had upon the design of other public transport network diagrams. Today one can eat and drink; clothe and entertain oneself, and sleep and bathe, all using products based upon Beck's design....

"Over the years numerous commercial organisations have continued to purchase licences to reproduce the diagram in diaries and guidebooks. The diagram is reproduced over 60 million times each year by companies other than London Transport; who produce a surprising array of items ranging from aprons to wash bags"

He concludes: "It is doubtful whether Beck ever imagined that his design would become such an icon of London; or that he would have expected such a dry subject as a public transport route diagram to be the basis of so many witty and commercially successful souvenir products and poster images. Given the sense of sheer fun which his design has engendered, and the degree of affection and international respect for it; I cannot believe that despite the vicissitudes of his relationship with London Transport, he would today resent that his ideas have created the means to help preserve the design heritage of London. So on balance, to misquote Queen Victoria; yes, I am inclined to believe that Harry Beck would "have been amused".
The whole article can be found here.

I also came across a book which argues with the importance given to Harry Beck when designing the map. In this fascinating study of pre-Beck tube maps (1867-1932) "No Need to Ask! Early Maps of London's Underground Railways co-author David Leboff says: "I have long been frustrated by the acclaim given to Harry Beck. Whilst acknowledging the massive contribution he made through the introduction of diagrammatic elements, it is false to assert (as is often done in the media) that he "designed" the London Underground map, for its origins predate his work by many decades. My book aims to address this misconception, whilst at the same time illustrating (using numerous, colour photographs of the maps themselves) how the system has developed over the past 138 years." The book contains an extremely high quality of illustrations, considering the rarity of the maps themselves. It's great for anyone with an interest in the London Underground, maps in general or the history of railway publicity. I was lucky enough to interview David Leboff so check out this page to see the interview.

For more on the history of the map and some illustrations of the first maps check out the London Transport Museum's website here.

If you would like to see lots more illustrations of how the map has changed from 1906 to the present day, there is an excellent web page here which charts the geographical history of the Tube map. There are illustrations of each map taken when a major change to the format was made.

Also see the revival of a site where I originally found the "geographically correct" tube map - The London Tube Map Archive.

Paddington on the Tube Map
I love how people get so fascinated with certain stations they have to wax lyrical about them on the web. The above is page devoted purely to how Paddington Station (one of London's oldest stations) has appeared on the Tube Map from the 1900's to the present day!!!!

For current maps of London:

Here's a quiz with clues to the names of stations. Who was not amused? Where's Heidi's house? Where might you find a flockwatcher's fauna? 50 clues to 50 stations. Give it a try here.

50 fascinating facts about the tube

Who was the only person to be born in a tube carriage?
What's unique about St John's Wood tube station?
What's the oldest tube line?
Where are the longest escalators?
Which stations get the most suicides?
Which station has Lara Croft fighting rats?
Who was the tube's first legal busker?
Which tube stations are nearest to each other?

The answers to these questions and more can be found here.