London: Seeing the sites via The Underground, part 1
You might remember me mentioning my new series in last months round up, and talking about it on this post here too. Well today marks the start of the first post in that series, and it is going to be on a feature my favourite city in the world, and the place I am lucky enough to call home LONDON!!
London is a vibrant, multicultural wonder which attracts millions of visitors a year. You have the likes of up market and sophisticated West End, which offers amazing shopping, bars, restaurants and expensive hotels, to the more relaxed and edgy East London, offering pop up street food stalls and funky vintage markets. The capital has so much to offer, and no two parts of the city are the same.
One thing us Londoner's cannot fault is our extensive transport system which enables us to get around freely, safely & quickly. We welcomed the long awaited night tube last year. Currently the night tube is running 24 hours across the entire Central, Jubilee. Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines with plans to roll it out across all of London's public transport systems (including London Overground & Dockland's Light Rail) by 2021. All of the Underground, DLR & Overground are run by Transport for London. Having this new night tube means that London is quickly rivaling larger more expansive cities, such as New York & Tokyo, as another 'city which never sleeps', making it even MORE convenient to get around the city.
In this part 1 of this series I am going to be talking about the formalities of The Underground and how you can use it to get about. In my next post I will go a bit further and talk more about the stations themselves & some of the amazing places you can see in London (& how to get there).
So as mentioned above The London Underground is owned by Transport for London, they also run London Overground network, The Docklands Light Rail & of course the big infamous red buses which scatter the city, they too are owned by TFL.
So far I have focused on how well our Transport serves us as a city, but as every commuter knows the underground does also come with its faults, as do most underground systems I suspect (except Tokyo's you really cannot fault that system!). The sheer popularity of the London Underground can sometimes make for an uncomfortable journey, some days it feels like the entirety of London are trying to board your train, and what with the lack of air-con (Jubilee line I am looking at you!), some days it does make it harder to get about. This paired with the expense of journey's to and from each stop also leaves a bit of a sour taste in your mouth, which brings me on nicely to my next subject, Fare prices.
The most common way to get around the city now is buying an 'Oyster Cards' (as pictured above), this card acts like a credit card, whereby you have to load your 'credit' onto the card before you make your journey. You touch in at the barrier's (entrances to the Tube found in ALL stations), and the money you spend on a single journey will automatically be deducted from your card, this process will happen until you run out of credit on your card.
You can buy your Oyster Card from the official TFL website, most shops in London sell them (they will have the blue Oyster logo on the front of the shop) & you can also get them from most larger London Train Stations. When you buy your card, make sure you register it on the TFL website, in case you loose it, or it gets stolen. If there is any money on that card, you will receive a refund to add on to a new card.
Topping up your card once you have run out of credit couldn't be simpler, the most common way to do this is at whatever train station you are visiting. There are self services machines at every station now or you can ask the person at the ticket desk (if there is someone there), to load your credit on for you. You can pay in Cash or with a Debit/Credit card.
If you want to make sure you never run out of credit, you can sign up online for a services called 'Auto Top up', this works slightly differently to the pay as you go credit I mentioned above. You select your desired amount of credit (£10.00, £20.00, £50.00
There are a few different options you can choose from to pay your fare, this largely depends on a) where you are going, b) if you are intending to visit London for a longer period of time then say just the day & c) How many stations/journeys you intend to make in any one day. As mentioned above most people tend to use London's famous 'Oyster Cards', but if you are say for example a tourist who isn't staying in London and just visiting for the day a paper travel card might be a cheaper option for you. Or if your journey is a really short one (for example 1 stop from London Bridge to Southwark Station on the Jubilee line approx 2 mins.) you might want to just consider a single paper ticket, or return depending if you are coming back! There are lots of options which can make your journey (hopefully) that bit cheaper, it really is just a case of doing your research before you travel! TFL's (Transport for London).
London is a vibrant, multicultural wonder which attracts millions of visitors a year. You have the likes of up market and sophisticated West End, which offers amazing shopping, bars, restaurants and expensive hotels, to the more relaxed and edgy East London, offering pop up street food stalls and funky vintage markets. The capital has so much to offer, and no two parts of the city are the same.
One thing us Londoner's cannot fault is our extensive transport system which enables us to get around freely, safely & quickly. We welcomed the long awaited night tube last year. Currently the night tube is running 24 hours across the entire Central, Jubilee. Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines with plans to roll it out across all of London's public transport systems (including London Overground & Dockland's Light Rail) by 2021. All of the Underground, DLR & Overground are run by Transport for London. Having this new night tube means that London is quickly rivaling larger more expansive cities, such as New York & Tokyo, as another 'city which never sleeps', making it even MORE convenient to get around the city.
In this part 1 of this series I am going to be talking about the formalities of The Underground and how you can use it to get about. In my next post I will go a bit further and talk more about the stations themselves & some of the amazing places you can see in London (& how to get there).
So as mentioned above The London Underground is owned by Transport for London, they also run London Overground network, The Docklands Light Rail & of course the big infamous red buses which scatter the city, they too are owned by TFL.
So far I have focused on how well our Transport serves us as a city, but as every commuter knows the underground does also come with its faults, as do most underground systems I suspect (except Tokyo's you really cannot fault that system!). The sheer popularity of the London Underground can sometimes make for an uncomfortable journey, some days it feels like the entirety of London are trying to board your train, and what with the lack of air-con (Jubilee line I am looking at you!), some days it does make it harder to get about. This paired with the expense of journey's to and from each stop also leaves a bit of a sour taste in your mouth, which brings me on nicely to my next subject, Fare prices.
FARE PRICES
England in general is known for having one of the most expensive transport fares in the world, which seem to be increasing each and every year. So it is no surprise that one of the most expensive Cities in the world is following suit. It is not all bad news for Londoner's however, because as of last year our newly elected mayor of London, Sadiq Khan froze the fairs until 2020, which is fantastic news as a single journey is still £2.40 (train) and £1.50 (bus) and this will stay this way until then.
The Oyster Card
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| The TFL Oyster Card Photo Credit: 'The London Magazine' |
The Oyster Card
The most common way to get around the city now is buying an 'Oyster Cards' (as pictured above), this card acts like a credit card, whereby you have to load your 'credit' onto the card before you make your journey. You touch in at the barrier's (entrances to the Tube found in ALL stations), and the money you spend on a single journey will automatically be deducted from your card, this process will happen until you run out of credit on your card.
You can buy your Oyster Card from the official TFL website, most shops in London sell them (they will have the blue Oyster logo on the front of the shop) & you can also get them from most larger London Train Stations. When you buy your card, make sure you register it on the TFL website, in case you loose it, or it gets stolen. If there is any money on that card, you will receive a refund to add on to a new card.
Topping up your card & using Auto Top Up
Topping up your card once you have run out of credit couldn't be simpler, the most common way to do this is at whatever train station you are visiting. There are self services machines at every station now or you can ask the person at the ticket desk (if there is someone there), to load your credit on for you. You can pay in Cash or with a Debit/Credit card.
If you want to make sure you never run out of credit, you can sign up online for a services called 'Auto Top up', this works slightly differently to the pay as you go credit I mentioned above. You select your desired amount of credit (£10.00, £20.00, £50.00
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| London Underground Ticket Barriers Photo Credit: 'Macworld UK' |
THE LINES AND DESTINATIONS
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| Oxford Circus Underground Station Photo Credit: Flickr' In my next installment I will be going in to much more details about the Underground lines and the places you can visit on each one, but I just thought I would write a little bit here on this post to help those of you not as familiar with the different destinations which make up the tube. 1. Bakerloo Line (Brown line, first opened in 1906) starting at Harrow & Weadlestone, finishing up at Elephant & Castle with 25 stops across the line. 2. Central Line (Red line, first opened in 1900) starting at West Ruislip/Eailing Broadway ending at Hainault/Woodford & Epping (In Essex) with 49 stops across the line. 3. Circle Line (Yellow line, first opened in 1871) starting at Hammersmith ending at Edgware Road with 36 stops across the line. 4. District line (Green line, first opened in 1868) starting at Eailing Broadway/ Kensington (Olympia)/Richmond/ Wimbledon and ending at High Street Kensington/ Edgware Road/ Upminster with 60 stops across the line. 5. Hammersmith & City Line (Salmon pink line, first opened in 1864) starting at Hammersmith ending in Barking with 29 stops across the line. 6. Jubilee Line (Grey line, first opened in 1979) starting at Stanmore finishing at Stratford with 27 stops across the line. 7. Metropolitan Line (Magenta line, first opened in 1863) starting at Baker Street/ Aldgate finishing at Amersham/Chesham/ Uxbridge/Watford with 34 stops across the line. 8. Northern Line (Black line, first opened in 1890) starting at Kennington/ Morden finishing at Edgware/ High Barnet/ Mill Hill East with 50 stops across the line. 9. Picadilly Line (Dark Blue line, first opened in 1906), starting at Cockfosters finishing at Heathrow Terminals 2 &3/ Heathrow Terminal 4/ Heathrow Terminal 5/ Northfields/Rayners Lane & Uxbridge, with 53 stops across the line. 10. Victoria Line (Light Blue line, first opened in 1968), starting at Brixton finishing at Walthamstow Central with 16 stops across the line. 11. Waterloo & City Line (Turquoise Line, first opened in 1898) starting at Bank finishing at London Waterloo with just 2 stops across the line.  So now you know a bit more about the logistics of the infamous London Underground and where you can find the different stops located on the map my next post will be all about places on the underground and what sights you can visit from a selection of my favourite stations, so why not come back next time to see exactly where the underground can take you! |
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