Subterranean Stories: What’s Your Tube Tale?

By ⋅ January 11, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
Westminster tube station, London Underground. (Photo: Wiki Commons)

Westminster tube station, London Underground. (Photo: Wiki Commons)

The London Underground turns 150 this week. The world’s oldest subterranean railway, London’s “tube” is also the location for many stories… from the recent James Bond film “Skyfall,” to the everyday occurrences of a typical London commute.

Subways around the globe are often where remarkable travel memories take place. We want to know your subterranean tale, whether it’s about the London Underground or about any other the world’s subway systems. Click the record button below to add your story, or just post the tale in the comments.

Discussion

3 comments for “Subterranean Stories: What’s Your Tube Tale?”

  • Jolie Préau

    This is a New York subway story. I was waiting for the Q express train at a busy time. I spotted a car that was not very crowded compared to all the others. I and maybe 5-10 others jumped in.  I was tired and not thinking. As is often the case, this relatively empty car contained a homeless woman sitting in the last seat.  About 2 seconds after jumping on, the overwhelming smells of urine, feces, soured sweat, other bodily odors, and whatever environmental smells that had attached themselves to those flooded my nostrils.  This woman was bundled up in layers and layers of ragged clothing, had her bags all around her, and seemed oblivious to anyone else on the train.  I gagged, and then held my sleeve to my mouth and nose to try to stop the reflex. I felt  that it was inhumane to act as though this woman was an offense.  I felt great sympathy for her and wanted to give her the respect of being willing to share space with her, though I was as far towards the front of the car as I could get. Others were holding their scarves over their noses.  Some people jumped out and moved to the next car at the first stop.  I stayed, determined to not treat this woman like a leper. By the time I realized that I just couldn’t take it and that the sleeve was not enough to stem the gags, we were above ground going over the bridge to Brooklyn.  The train, as it usually did, slowed to a crawl and stopped on top of the bridge.  For a while.  While my intentions were noble, I was wishing I’d run to the next car at the first stop myself, as cruel as it seemed to do so at the time.  We finally arrived at the first Brooklyn stop and I and others ran from our car to the next and pushed our way in to the tight press of somewhat cleaner bodies for the next few stops before my own.  I’ve never forgotten that (not infrequent) incident and what it must take for someone to set up at the back of a subway car for a little shelter and completely disregard the people running away as soon as they can. Tens of thousands of homeless people live in NYC on the streets and subways. Sadly, it’s one of the things that as a resident you build up your inner walls against.  But every now and then, your shared humanity still shines through, and you feel it all.  And it’s tough. A homeless man in NYC lives an average of 5 years after becoming homeless.  I’m surprised they make it through that many winters.

  • Rogerman12

    In the Midwest, when folks gather, they generally talk about the weather as an informal way of meeting and greeting.  In New York City they talk about transportation.  “So, how did you get here?”  “I took the S from Franklin and then the C”, that sort of thing.  It is endlessly fascinating for New Yorkers, and seems as changeable and capricious as the weather in the Midwest.  And they have their own transportation horror stories, just like the Midwestern tornado near-misses and corn-flattening hailstorms.  

    Which makes for the inevitable “you think YOU had trouble getting here, wait til I tell you what happened to ME” comparisons.

    That is, unless you’re from out of town.

    Because unless you know the subways and buses and turnpikes and straight pikes like a New Yorker and have been snarled in traffic for hours on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE to a New Yorker) , or left staring dumbly at the receding taillights of the train you thought was supposed to stop at this very station, you’re just a city-slicker lost in a cornfield staring dumbly at an approaching thunderstorm.

    Until you have your own story.

    Tracy and I now have our own story.  Not epic in scope or fraught with tension and drama perhaps, but our story nonetheless.

    It had to do with the “S from Franklin and then the C” from the first paragraph.

    Tracy and I had returned late from the US Open in Flushing (for reasons that have to do with weather, but that would be a Midwestern thought…also involved was the 5 Train and the 7, but I digress…), so we missed a ride with my son Erik and his wife Solana to an Adult Gathering in another neighborhood.  

    This is getting needlessly complicated, but I must digress again.  For the Adult Gathering had to do with the impending birth of my first grandchild (happily under construction thanks to Erik & Solana) but it was NOT, in any way, shape, or form, a baby shower.  It was a casual New York gathering of like-minded New Yorkers eager to discuss transportation, politics and just on the outside chance that it might come up, babies.  An astute observer might note that there were presents present, small, and in various pastel shades.  But an astute observer would keep that to himself.  

    Solana had left very clear and detailed directions for us to meet them, a journey of less than half an hour according to the Google map she left with the written instructions.  Because Solana & Erik have both traveled the world in modes of transportation ranging from camels in Morocco to dugout canoes on the Amazon, she knew the maze of subterranean transport available in New York would be somewhat unfamiliar to surface dwellers from coastal Florida.  In Florida, if you go underground you get wet.  End of story.

    So we quickly and correctly caught the S (make sure you take the one going ‘left’ as you are facing the trains…) from Park Place to Franklin Avenue, where we were to catch the C heading toward Manhattan.  We made our first error here, as Tracy raced on down the steps as a train roared by heading the wrong direction.  So we re-emerged from the depths, crossed over on a walkway to the other side of the four underground tracks, and found our correct platform.  At least that’s what we thought.  And we had.  Sort of.

    An F Train pulled out as we descended, and A train flew by on one of the interior tracks, and then another A.  We found a bench to sit on, next to a somewhat dazed New York couple.  “We were on the F,” they said.  “And now we’re here.  We’re not supposed to be here.  The F doesn’t stop here.”  

    This did not instill confidence in the two out-of-towners sitting next to them.  Another F roared in, squealed to a stop, and roared off.  

    “I don’t understand it,” said the she of the couple, and they wandered back up the stairs to catch a cab.

    I checked our subway map.  There was no F Train supposed to be on this track.  

    So far, no sign of a C.

    Another F pulled up.

    We tentatively got up from our seats.  

    “That’s your train.”  A voice from left and behind.  Another New Yorker, built low and solid. 

    “But it says F,” said Tracy.  “It’s your train,” he said, pushing her through the door.  Tracy jumped on, I hesitated, the doors closed.  

    “It’s your train,” he said again, as he put his hand on my back urging me toward the door.   “Sometimes the letters are wrong.”  I pulled on the gasket between the doors, forcing them open.  Tracy at the ready to jump out, not wanting to wander by herself at night wherever the F Train might take her.  With the considered help of my new linebacker friend, I too was propelled onto the train.  

    The doors shut with my arm just popping free.  Who says New Yorkers aren’t friendly?

    We roared off into the tunnel to wherever the F Train was bound.

    Tracy sat on the bench next to another friendly local, local at least by a year.  

    “Yeah,” she said.  “Sometimes the letters are wrong on the trains, or they run on different tracks.”

    Helpful to know.

    In minutes we were at Lafayette, and walking happily to the Adult Gathering.

    …AND we had a transportation story.

    Very New York.

  • openur_i_s

    Before our European trip we warned our three kids that if they were ever separated from us on the crowded subway, they should simply get off at the next stop, where we would meet them. In Paris, one of us was left out of a train – me! Fortunately, they didn’t panic and followed the plan.

    Watch out for foreign pickpockets on the Barcelona airport train. I caught one covering the hand he was sticking in my bag with a black sweater. When I protested loudly, my daughter yanked at the sweater, thinking he had taken mine out of the bag. She almost unknowingly stole the thief’s sweater before he ran off.

    The London tube is the greatest. While the rest of my family naps in the hotel, recovering from a long flight, I make a dash for the tube and visit my favorite haunts: the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the Brompton Oratory.