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London Underground is the official corporate name. The Tube is the common name - slang and semi-official ... see www.thetube.com

Doesn't the Tube (London Underground) already have one?

Doesn't the Tube (London Underground) already have one?

Yes apart from the enormous expense and difficulty of fitting more lines under the city.

The Jubille line extension cost around £4bn ~$6bn and thats just 10 miles! details here.

One of the main reasons for "mind the gap" is that the legacy (Victorian) tunnels and platforms had to avoid compromising the foundations of buildings above, hence they bend all over the place.

Links are being built and extended, a more recent example currently in the news is the high speed rail link tunnel (~20Km) sections of which collapsed swallowing peoples gardens.

make it run more often,
I'm sure if the signalling and rolling stock was more reliable it would be possible to increase the number of trains running. Even a 5% increase would do the trick (for now). Otherwise, staggered working days would also help (how many people HAVE to be at work for 8:30 on the dot).

It's also the location of the notorious Ministry of Serendipity, immortalised by Robert Rankin in Apocalypso.

The Sproutlore event held at the venue is given credence by the official Tube site. The site exclaims: Mornington Crescent reveals secret ministry!

There are a lot of sites out there with some info on the tunnels:

http://www.thetube.com/content/metro/01/0110/31/
http://www.londonrailways.net/ghost.htm

The BBC has a great article here.

Most older cities have a lot of steam tunnels and abandoned stations like these. Does anyone out there have some interesting exploration stories to share?

The Tube has nearly 256 miles of track and, per the following link, nearly 40 old ghost stations that are no longer in service.

I found this old article on The Tube's Web site that really gives a nice overview of things. I actually read that a few weeks ago, so it's kind of ironic that this /. article was just posted.

I'd like to know how the New York subway manages to run 24 hours a day, when London Underground claim it's impossible!

Because it is impossible for LU, but not for NY Subway. Any railway needs regular maintainence work, and the trains cannot be running while the work is being done. The NY subway has two tunnels in each direction, and so can shut one for maintainence and keep the other running, thus making 24hr operation possible, whereas the LU only has one tunnel each way. London Underground's website does explain this in their FAQs. Whenever I have got the last (or almost last) tube home at night, I've seen groups of workmen waiting at many stations along the line, presumably to do work on the track/signals/whatever once the last train of the night has gone through.

I'd like to know how the New York subway manages to run 24 hours a day, when London Underground claim it's impossible!

Because it is impossible for LU, but not for NY Subway. Any railway needs regular maintainence work, and the trains cannot be running while the work is being done. The NY subway has two tunnels in each direction, and so can shut one for maintainence and keep the other running, thus making 24hr operation possible, whereas the LU only has one tunnel each way. London Underground's website does explain this in their FAQs. Whenever I have got the last (or almost last) tube home at night, I've seen groups of workmen waiting at many stations along the line, presumably to do work on the track/signals/whatever once the last train of the night has gone through.

Apparently the inventor from the article is Selwyn Wright. Coincedentally, there's *another* Selwyn wright in the U.K., described in this article.
It would be hilarious if these two were the same person, since this other guy is described as a thug "who has been the subject of almost daily calls to police over the past five years..."

So now the problem is not living within scooter range of work, it's living withing scooter range of a mass transit station, and working within scooter range of a mass transit station.

Except that how many mass transits have room for many of their passengers to bring these things on board? I commute on the Victoria line and it's cramped enough that I know I'd be very unpopular with my fellow sardines if I was the only one to bring an IT on board a train. Hell, I've seen near-lynchings of morons trying to bring microscooters onto crowded tube trains as it is.

you must therefore be mistaken about the public transit being better over there.

The T is way cleaner and more reliable than the Tube. Still, that's not difficult.

I quite agree. Whatever happened to the Bauhaus principle of 'form follows function?'.

I think this point is really important, it disturbes me the way things are going.

Surely, the point of a GUI front ent to an OS is:
i) to give you the relevant information quickly, efficiently and as unobtrusively as possible.
ii) to let you navigate the data and apps to get the job done as easily as you can.

This sounds to me exactly the same demands placed on the signs we take for granted in metros and streets. Taking Harry Beck's fantastic, London Underground map as an example, it takes the complex tangled mess of underground lines and represents it with a clean and simple diagram. Sans serif fonts, no complex shading, straight lines and a complete lack of unnecessary clutter.
The same is true for road signs and the direction signs around public spaces. No beautifully shaded pictures of toilets or telephones, just a few distilled strokes that are enough to clearly represent the concept. I dread to think how many more people would die in fires if these simple design principles weren't stuck to by the graphic designers responsible for 'Fire-Exit' signs...