The Underground

If you ever have to travel to London and wonder around the city, one of the ways you can do so is using the London Underground.

Every year "The Tube" carries more than a billion passengers, over 11 lines with 270 stations, on both sub-surface and deep tunnel trains, with 150 Years worth of History and Experience.

The London Underground is not just a transport system. It's an integral part of the city which the late cannot live without.

The Underground is regarded as a cultural symbol of London and the UK, being present in tourist guides and british art not only for its use as a mean of transportation but also because of its iconic presence throughout London, in such a way that it shaped London itself, specially since the then London Transport was established.

Many boroughs were built in consequence of the expansion of the Tube and the stations were the central part of them. The Design, the Architecture, the Engineering and the Brilliance around the Underground has led it to the system we get to know today. It is regarded that not visiting the London Underground, either to travel around or just to check it out, would be equivalent to not visiting other landmarks like the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, the Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, the Royal Parks, the River Thames and even the Routemasters Double-deck Buses.

By the present time, the Underground is undergoing a deep upgrade plan, that will put the system up to date and, once and for all, cornering all the reliability and efficiency issues that the historical underinvestment created, from security problems related to platform to train distance (from were the famous warning sign MIND THE GAP comes) to modernisation and/or replacement of Trains and Stations.

Now, you may notice around Central London a similar roundel with a slightly lighter colour, which looks like a worn out tube roundel. But it stands on a newly renewed station, so it gets a bit confusing.

In the end, it is the roundel of the London Overground, a very recent system created with another idea in mind compared with what the Underground has.

The Underground was thought to bring people from Greater London to Central London and move around inside the last, but as London grew to the proportions it has now, some people have daily moves around Greater London, so travelling to Zone 1 is both unnecessary and expensive. Since the Oyster card was introduced, as well as its respective zones and fares, some people started having trouble avoiding travelling to Zone 1 while moving from Zone 2 to another point of Zone 2, because Zone 1 is the most expensive one to travel on. People either had to find buses to avoid this zone, or adventure in the wonders of National Rail's TOC's (Train Operator Companies) which were either uncomfortable, complex or slow.

This is why the London Overground came to be. Starting from the ex-London Underground East London Line, the service reused the already existent railway infrastructure around London, built necessary portions of track and adopted stations and platforms, applying to these last two the design and quality specifications for the London Overground, making them look like Tube stations and even reshaping these later on, since all stations and platforms were renewed, they helped defining the quality criteria for the upgrade and modernisation of London Underground stations.

By 2012, the London Overground finally completed its orbital, making it possible for 30% of Londoners to travel around Zone 2 without having to travel in Zone 1, with the London Underground quality, reliability and speed, with a station at less than a 15 minute walk.

Railway services from Transport for London don't just end here. On the Standard Tube Map you'll notice a turquoise line in Overground style, Covering most of East and South East London.

In fact, what you are seeing is the Docklands Light Rail. And what is it? Lets say that it is a light London Underground that has the particularity of running both underground and above ground (in flyover bridges, in case you're confused with Overground) and being driverless.

The DLR, short form of Docklands Light Rail, was built in the 80's by the London Docklands Development Corporation to improve transportation in the decaying Docklands. This zone of London was loosing its rate of development since maritime cargo started being transported in containers and the Tilbury Container Docks were opened to accommodate container ships.

Since the second part of the Jubilee Line, due to be built in this decade, was postponed since the Docklands weren't developing in the way it was originally, the London Docklands Development Corporation, that was responsible to regenerate a 8.5 square mile area (22 square quilometers), had to find another, cheaper, way to move people around it. The light metro, driven automatically by computer, was the chosen solution and made part in the regeneration of the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Southwark, that also created other important economic and social landmarks, like Canary Wharf, Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, London City Airport and the ExCel Exhibition Centre. This regeneration, especially in Canary Wharf, encouraged the Jubilee Line to be finally extended through the Docklands in the late 90's, with a more to south path than what was originally planed.

And so, the DLR system was expanded to answer the need of transportation in the East and South East London, acting as the London Underground on this area and with connections with the Eurostar in the Stratford International Railway Station. It serves the new economic area of Docklands and connects it directly with Bank, working almost without the aid of staff and being used as the main connection to the O2, ExCel and the 2012 Olympic Park.

Now this one is a more difficult one to discover, since it doesn't appear in the Standard Tube Map as for now. The Tramlink, once known as Croydon Tram Link, is a modern tramway service that primarily serves the South boroughs of Greater London. It started operating in 2000 and was created as a solution for the lack of London Underground connections available in the south bank of the Thames River.

The Tramlink may share the road with cars and buses, have its own dedicated track separated from road traffic and run in National Rail railways or disused railway lines. It's a service that only has two interchanging connections to other Transport for London railway services, one in Wimbledon for the District Line, and the other in West Croydon for the Overground. This is to be changed though, as plans to expand the Tramlink network will create new interchanges with the London Underground and Overground.

The Trams were once painted in crimson red and white, but now they are easy to recognize. Based on the London Underground standard livery, the Trams use white, blue and green, instead of red.

Those who travel on the Tramlink have yet to learn new exceptions to the normal Oyster Card fares, as Tramlink operates with a single specific fare and also accept zone 3, 4, 5 and/or 6 Travelcards and TfL Bus passes. And like it wasn't enough, there are special arrangements to touch-in at Wimbledon, has Tramlink shares the same station with National Rail services and the London Underground.