With the London Olympics planning well underway, one proposal was to run the London Underground 24 hours a day, but can that really work?
Proposal: The idea being proposed by the London Mayor’s office was aimed at making sure the vast numbers of extra visitors coming to the city during the games could get around without the entire transport network collapsing.
The problem: On the surface this sounds like a good idea and perhaps could be extended full-time. There is however a major flaw with this idea which the majors office don’t seem to have spotted – maintenance.
There are two sides to the maintainance of the tube which the public and perhaps Boris Johnson have never seen.
1) The infrastructure needs checking and fixing and as everyone who’s used the London Tube knows, this is a nightly battle which often overruns into the daytime anyway.
2) Cleaning The London Underground is very important as stray newspapers and litter could cause a fire even worse than the Kings Cross disaster. Imagine a large amount of rubbish getting ignited by a spark inside the tunnels. The cleaners even have a special name – “The Fluffers”.
Other complications: There is also the little question of whether anyone actually wants to use the London Tube at 3am, except perhaps on a Saturday night even during the London Olympics?
Films of London Underground: If you wanted to know what happens overnight when the trains go to sleep, then this film from the 1950s gives a pretty good idea:
Part 2 of Under Night Streets – Story of the London Underground at night:
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[...] As we reported last week, there are quite a number of reasons why a 24 hour tube is a bad idea. [...]