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NYC Subway Atmosphere News

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:16:19 +0100

Today in subway atmosphere news, we learn from WNYC that the NYPD is partnering with Brookhaven National Laboratory to study how chemical weapons might disperse through the city’s underground tunnels. The researchers plan to release a “non-toxic, odorless gas that mimics how chemical, biological and radiological weapons would disperse” in twenty-one subway stations across the five boroughs in July, with 200 sampling devices deployed to monitor its spread.

“We want to be able to determine how toxic material can flow through the transit system, it’s one of the concerns that we’ve had for a while and how it flows on the streets of our city,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement.

The image at the start of this post comes from the invaluable 1908 classic,The Air and Ventilation of Subways, available to read online here. For more on New York City’s subway vents, check out this BLDGBLOG post.

“The underground story of King’s Cross...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:20:00 +0000

“The underground story of King’s Cross square.” (via)

It turns out that Andrew Godwin has coded a 3d visualisation of...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 23:01:47 +0000

It turns out that Andrew Godwin has coded a 3d visualisation of several London Underground stations, including King’s Cross St Pancras.

If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around the station diagram, you could find being able to turn the thing around and refocus on different platforms useful.

I previously posted this map of King’s Cross St Pancras as...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:52:00 +0000

I previously posted this map of King’s Cross St Pancras as part of my review of the then-new Northern Ticket Hall, but it seems relevant to the previous post.

It also seems useful to post since a video of the secrets of the Victoria line was recently posted, and it contained the (apparently little-known) fact that the best way to the platforms is definitely not to follow the signs.

If you look at the diagram, from above it’s always easier to walk to the eastern (“existing”) ticket hall, and from the Northern and Piccadilly line you should head towards the cluster of staircases where the three platforms meet.

(The image used to be hosted on TfL’s site as part of their information about the station’s upgrade, but now it’s done it’s been taken down. Instead I took this from Leewood Projects, who worked on the western ticket hall.)

From The history of the Tube in pictures: 150 years of London...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:33:18 +0000

From The history of the Tube in pictures: 150 years of London Underground at the Telegraph:

8 March 1939: Some of the four million tickets collected from London Underground passengers are examined in a survey by London Transport to discover the most and least used routes to help future infrastructure development.

Nowadays, all they need to do is crunch the numbers from the automatic ticket machines to produce lists like this.

Picture: Gerry Cranham/Fox Photos/Getty Images. Link via Paul Clarke via Michael Smethurst.

IanVisits notes that the Metropolitan line is not the only part...

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:33:44 +0000

IanVisits notes that the Metropolitan line is not the only part of Underground history to have an anniversary this month:

… at some point in January 1933 London Transport printed 700,000 copies of its latest map leaflet, and sparked a revolution.

This was the first mass print-run of Harry Beck’s iconic tube map design — although it is not technically a map, and neither was it the first time such a design had been seen.

The post goes on to point out some of Beck’s inspirations, but the map remains a fantastic (and resonant) piece of design.

The Royal Mint’s London Underground £2 coin gift set: On...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:04:00 +0000

The Royal Mint’s London Underground £2 coin gift set:

On 10 January 1863 the world’s first underground railway opened in London. An engineering triumph, the 150^thanniversary is being marked with not one but two new UK £2 coins for 2013.

The ‘Roundel’ £2 coin is inspired by the 1938 poster by Man Ray and depicts the world-famous London Underground logo, while the ‘Train’ £2 coin shows a Tube train hurtling out of a tunnel. Presented in a specially designed pack based on the iconic Tube map, no other memorabilia captures the spirit of London so well.

London Underground map after the 7th July attacks and failed...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:13:17 +0000

London Underground map after the 7th July attacks and failed bombing attempt on the 21st July 2005. By Feòrag NicBhrìde.

Top: London Underground Circuit Map Radio by Yuri Suzuki,...

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:04:00 +0100

London Underground Circuit Map Radio

The Underground ‘straight eight’ all-electric skit-set circuit diagram

Top: London Underground Circuit Map Radio by Yuri Suzuki, 2012 (more here, here).

Bottom: The Underground ‘straight eight’ all-electric skit-set circuit diagram by Harry Beck, March 1933.

Three books by Capital Transport Publishing on the history of...

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:04:33 +0100

No Need To Ask

Mr Beck's Underground Map

Underground Maps After Beck

Three books by Capital Transport Publishing on the history of London’s underground maps: No Need To Ask by David Leboff & Tim Demuth, Mr Beck’s Underground Map by Ken Garland, and Underground Maps After Beck by Maxwell J Roberts.

Taken together, the three cover over a hundred years of maps of the Underground, from the different companies in the early part of the 1900s, through the pivotal 1933 Harry Beck diagram, and to the present day. The writers are all well qualified (Tim Demuth, co-author of No Need To Ask, designed the London Railways map of the 1970s; Ken Garland is a respected designer and writer; while Maxwell Roberts has designed his own maps aided by his primary study of cognition) and, despite some overlaps between the books, generally they cover the story very well.

Probably the most interesting is the middle volume, covering both the route to the Beck diagram, his many variations over the years as lines were extended (and management meddled), and the nearly decade-long fight to keep designing the map in the early 1960s. The book includes the worst diagram since 1933, the Hutchinson design, and a first look at the Garbutt diagram that came to succeed it.

The Garbutt diagram and its slow evolution (as opposed to the Cambrian explosion of variations that Beck produced) is at the heart of the final book, which I think I enjoyed more than many would; the story is one of subtle change, livened mainly by the changing landscape of the system (with the Victoria, Jubilee, and DLR lines expanding the scope of the map).

Overall, I’d recommend Garland’s book on Beck’s diagrams to anyone with even a passing interest in the Underground and mapmaking. Roberts is more for the completist, while those looking for history and more decorative design may enjoy No Need To Ask.