Just in case you really really really want to know about driving trains. 
I work in London and am learning to drive stock on the Underground. So far it’s fabulous. I’m about halfway through training and hopefully I’ll make it right through to the end.
So if you ever had a burning need to ask about being a tube driver now’s your chance!
Based on recent history you must have a lot to mull over.
In a large and complicated subway system such as you have there, is it possible for a train to end up on the wrong track either through operator error, or through switching problems?
Do they hush up incidents of people jumping in front of trains? I have reliably heard that that happens here in Toronto.
Do Tube trains drive on the left? (Most of the time I was in London, the trains were in separate tunnels, so it often wasn’t apparent.)
Do you deal with the public much? Is there another crewmwmber on board the train who closes the doors?
Is there a railfan comminity for the Tube? (I certainly hope so!)
Are there many different types of Tube trains? Do some lines run completely-different equipment than others?
Does the Jubilee Line extension seem overbuilt and overpriced to you? I was startled to learn that it cost 5 billion pounds–we don’t have a hope in hell of getting that kind of financing for subways or any sort of transit over here.
How are the plans for the East London Line extensions coming along?
And lastly, have you ever noticed anything unusual about Mornington Crescent? 
As regards 2005 I’m not too bothered. I’d have to use the tube daily anyway so i’d still be at risk. And as I used to work a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament I reckon I’m probably now at less risk.
The tube system is fascinating to me. The majority of lines were developed individually by different railway companies yet today they all interlink. I could, in theory, take a train from any station to any other station regardless of what line it’s on. I might annoy the Line Controller if i suddenly decided to go in a different direction though! But every night engineers go out on their tiny trains and they get about the combine by using old connecting tunnels to find their place of work.
An in-service train can go wrong for example if two lines are running next to each other and the signalman thinks he’s redirecting a Distric Line train when he’s actually got a Piccadilly Line train but it rarely happens. I do recall a story of a Pic train being sent to the wrong station and the rather embarrassed driver letting his customers out and telling them to take the next train back to the last station they had been at on the correct line. Of course once the disgruntled passengers got back and got on a second Pic train they had the misfortune to be wrongly directed a second time by the now **extremely ** flustered signalman. Oops.
That couldn’t happen in reverse though - District Line trains are much larger than Piccadilly trains and just wouldn’t fit down a Pic tunnel. So where there is even the remotest possibility of a large train being sent down the wrong track there are safety devices to prevent movement of the larger train.
**Do they hush up incidents of people jumping in front of trains? I have reliably heard that that happens here in Toronto. **
No, but we only get approx 50 incidents per year which is not bad for a city of 7 million so perhaps it’s not too surprising that you don’t hear about it much. A one-under is not something any driver wants, it’s unpleasant and can be very dangerous for the driver when it happens and when he’s dealing with the aftermath. It causes delays while our Emergency Response Unit guys are getting the person/body out and sometimes the police will close a station if they think there is something suspicious. We tend to make announcements along the lines of ‘passenger action’ or ‘person under a train’ when explaining why part of the line is out of service.
Do Tube trains drive on the left? (Most of the time I was in London, the trains were in separate tunnels, so it often wasn’t apparent.)
Well, yes…and no. It depends on the line and how it was developed. Some lines are over/under with one tunnel being bored directly under another while others share track with national rail trains and we go by their rules. Mostly we drive on the left but it’s not a requirement as with road traffic.
**Do you deal with the public much? Is there another crewmwmber on board the train who closes the doors? **
Not as a trainee and not much as a driver. Only to make announcements really or if I had to go back in my train to fix something. That’s when they persist in trying to talk to the driver to find out what’s wrong and how long we’ll be waiting in the tunnel. To which we usually reply ‘We’ll be going as soon as people stop trying to hold me up by talking to me!’ 
There is only one member of staff on the train. The last line to have guards was the Northern Line in 2000. Other lines switched earlier. So now it’s me who gets to play with all the funky door buttons from the comfort of my cab.
**Is there a railfan comminity for the Tube? (I certainly hope so!) **
Yes, there’s lots of stuff round the net. TubePrune is especially good and if you look at their links page you’ll find lots of other good sites.
Are there many different types of Tube trains? Do some lines run completely-different equipment than others?
Yes, lots of different types. It all depends on who built the line and how they designed it and then matching appropriate trains to that. Stock ranges from the 1960 Met Line stock (which is very similar to a railway train) to the 1996 stock on the Jubilee Line. Some trains are automated and the driver just operates the doors whereas others are mechanically complex and require much greater driving and technical skill. These differences mean that procedures and rules can vary from line to line as they are often dictated by what the train can do or how it’s built. If a driver wishes to change lines he has to go back to school and learn how his new train works and what the new operational procedures and rules are for his line.
Does the Jubilee Line extension seem overbuilt and overpriced to you? I was startled to learn that it cost 5 billion pounds–we don’t have a hope in hell of getting that kind of financing for subways or any sort of transit over here.
To my mind yes it does seem overly expensive. Especially when you consider that each line was built relatively cheaply in the beginning. I can’t really comment on what things were like before the extension as I didn’t live in London then. But to my mind it’s worth the money as I used to take that train to work which saved me from having to go the long way round. 
How are the plans for the East London Line extensions coming along?
Oh, as swiftly as these things usually come along. Expect progress sometime around 2206.
And lastly, have you ever noticed anything unusual about Mornington Crescent? 
Heh. Nothing unusual whatsoever. But bearing in mind what I said earlier about every station on the combine being connected and the differing rules and procedures for each line it is possible for me to play the *best * and most realistic game of Mornington Crescent ever. Or it would be if I didn’t keep somehow managing to go directly from a Met Line station to a District when it’s the last Friday before our payday because that means the DMT’s privilege is invoked and while he technically can’t order the Signalman to stop playing the Stepping Back All Lines manouever he can still create an obligation to reroute round the Circle Line four times which of course means I will **never ** get to MC within the bounds of my shift 
What line do you/will you be driving?
Also, I’ve noticed that sometimes a train will just…linger for an extra moment or two in a station. Not enough to really be a delay - just a literal minute or minute and a half. No announcement made, and it’s not one of those times when people keep trying to cram themselves onto the train. What gives - are you guys powernapping or something?
<morbid, morbid question>Just the other day I heard a “delay due to passenger under the train” announcement. I assume this means someone decided to throw themselves in front of the train. Seriously, this is morbid but I’m really curious: the cause of death would be electrocution, because of the electrified rails, right? And also, how long does it take to clean that up? If someone’s actually under the train, I assume you have to move the train, cut the power, clear everyone away from the scene, call in the cops, etc…Serious, serious disruption, right?</morbid question>
How often do you “Mind the Gap”?..
You actually say someone’s under a train? Here, they just hide it as a “medical emergency” - during the dot-com bust a few years ago, there would be at least one of these a week at the evening rush, presumably after the poor saps found out they were being let go, or that their stock options had become a smothering tax liability.
For the uninitiated, what’s Mornington Crescent? Is that a particularly busy transfer station or a game?
[channeling my train-obsessed son, Dweezil ]You drive TRAINS??? You are a GOD(DESS)!!![/Dweezil]
Sorry, can’t think of any real questions right now. Dasn’t let Dweezil see this thread or I’ll never get away from the 'puter
If I may:
Yes, they do say “person under a train”. I have heard that announcement and quite honestly, it freaked me the hell out. I’ve also heard generic “medical emergencies” or “passenger taken ill”. They’re oddly specific when they announce a delay.
Mornington Crescent is a strange mix of…theoretical geocaching, Risk, public transportation, and Mao (the card game, not the dictator. Or Calvinball, if that suits you better). It started on a call-in radio show. The Wiki on it is pretty good here: basically, the leader names an Underground station, and you try to get from there to the Mornington Crescent station. If I told you any more, I think we both would be killed.
Just make sure you don’t give away the rules!!!
Could be lots of reasons. The most obvious is that the train ahead of us hasn’t quite cleared the signal section and that means our signal is still at red. Others might be that there is a slight problem with the train and the driver is fixing it. Usually that’s something like a fuse blowing or an MCB tripping or whatever. We hande a LOT of juice in those trains so that’s easy to happen. Most likely to be due to waiting for a green signal though.
TBH cause of death is more likely to be a 300 ton train hitting them at 30mph! By the time they get to the track they are mostly dead or in a state where they are about to be dead. That’s not to say you won’t be electrocuted if you fall onto an empty track, just that if you jump in front of a train travelling at speed (and most jumpers pick the high-speed lines so that it definitely works) then electricity is going to be literally the last of your worries.
Some do survive til they are on the track and most drivers will be running around getting the current switched off at that point in the hopes of saving them. I have to say it’s unlikely that they will survive after being hit by a train. They’ll have lost limbs or received severe internal injuries before hitting the track. I have heard icky stories of jumpers crashing through the window and suddenly teh driver has a headless corpse in his cab. Very much not looking forward to that one. 
As far as the immediate response goes it rather depends on how the driver is doing (given that he’s essentially just killed someone). If he’s too shaken up he just secures his train and puts out a mayday call. If he can cope enough he’ll get the current off too. If he’s not able to then someone else will do that for him. We have an Emergency Response Unit who come down and deal with whatever needs to be done and the police will be summoned til they can decide if it was an accident/suicide/murder. If the police decide to close the station then obviously everything takes a lot longer - which is only right, there was a murder on 7th July this year and that HAS to be looked at. Annoyingly some passengers STILL complain if the service is up the wall because of a suicide. It’s hard to know what they want us to do - just drive through the body? Sheesh. :rolleyes:
Well i’m not very tall so if there’s a gappe I’m minding it!!!
Have a google for ‘Gappe Bats’ for the real reason you are minding those gappes. 
Yes.
We drift in and out of being squeamish about our announcements. Sometimes we are a bit more euphemistic than others. It’s the same with security announcements. I guess they are trying to get the balance right between alerting people and unneccessarily scaring them.
Yes.
And I’m a girl!
Oh that last one was to Mama Zappa!
Just coming back to this question…
If you heard it the other day then you were travelling on either the Met line or the Jubilee line as it was at Finchley Road.*
Not trying to get all cocky here. Just to indicate how rarely these things happen. If it happens then we know where it is because it’s so unusual. I’m just sitting here now pondering how weird it is that I can predict the movements of a Random Internet Strange ™ because of knowing where a one-under happened.
*Of course I could be entirely wrong and you weren’t on those lines in which case feel free to laugh at me.
Indeed. I was not actually on the Met. line, but I was heading home from Farringdon station, so that must have been it. I didn’t hear where it happened, my brain sort of shut down after the words “passenger under train”.
Ah, that explains all!