The Global Citizen's guide to: London Transport (part 3)

The Northern Line:

The Northern Line (that's the black one) is the busiest line on London's tube network, carrying some 660,000 disgruntled commuters through its tunnels every day, and over 206 million passengers a year (many of these use the line every day, so by the end of the year, they're really disgruntled). The line runs north to south through the centre of London. Whoever named the Northern Line must, therefore, have been very pleased with themselves, for it does indeed have the most logical name of all the tube lines (perhaps with the exception of the Circle Line, which, as you might expect, goes round in circles. Although if you think about it, there's something rather illogical in that....).

Unfortunately, that's about the only logical thing about the Northern Line. Firstly, there's the layout: travelling north, the line splits into two branches after Kennington. The Bank branch travels through the City, whereas the Charing Cross branch travels through the West End. The branches then come together again at Euston, split briefly again (the Bank branch skips Mornington Crescent, which is kind of a pointless stop anyway), then rejoin at Camden Town, only to then divide yet again into the Edgware branch, which travels northwest, and the High Barnet Branch, which travels northeast, and which itself has another branch veering off to Mill Hill East. Mysteriously, there's no way to travel from the Edgware Branch to the High Barnet branch. In fact, nobody has ever traversed from the northwest to the northeast of London. Legend has it that there is a vast expanse of deserted land in between the two branches of the Northern Line. Some have called this land Hendon, but nobody has ever been there. Or if they have, they haven't returned alive......

Anyway, back to the Northern Line. I see what you're thinking now... "But that's good!", I hear you say, "More consumer choice, right?" (see part 2 below....). Well, yes, you're right. There are, in fact, six route combinations: Edgware via Bank, Edgware via Charing Cross, High Barnet via Bank, High Barnet via Charing Cross, Mill Hill East via Bank, and Mill Hill East via Charing Cross. There are, however, only 2 interchange points between the four branches: at Euston and Camden Town. At either of these you have five choices: you can go south via Charing Cross, south via Bank, or go north towards Edgware, High Barnet or Mill Hill East. Interchanging at Euston is useless, because you have to go up an endless escalator (more on these in future!), dodge the masses and make your way down another escalator before finding the right platform.

So that leaves Camden Town. Camden Town is quite possibly the most ridiculous station ever. In either direction it has two platforms, for each of the two branches. During peak hours, one of the southbound platforms serves the Bank branch, while the other serves the Charing Cross branch. To get from one to the other, you have to go up a set of steps, cross an intersection where all the tunnels merge with the escalators (you can imagine the cattle herding that goes on there) and go down another set of steps to the other platform. At other times, however, both platforms serve both branches, and the decision about which platform a specific train goes to is a source of great mystery. There is some evidence that Northern Line trains can display quantum mechanical properties and, in a manner analogous to the wave-particle duality of electrons, can travel simultaneously down both branches. Unfortunately, humans exhibit no such phenomenon, so that you will invariably have to make a choice as to which platform to go to. There are, of course, helpful electronic boards at the tunnel intersection to inform you of which trains go through which platforms, but their accuracy is such as to make you think that most of the time, they're taking the piss, and it will not be uncommon for you to find yourself walking like a lemming from one platform to another only to realize that you should be on the other platform. Particularly helpful are messages saying: "Destination: please check front of train". Unfortunately, your ticket doesn't come with 20/20 vision to enable you to make out the train's destination as it approaches you at 50mph. You will also find that, while the front of the train may say it's intending to go down the Bank branch, that really has no bearing on which way it actually ends up going (see wave-particle duality above), so that you may often find yourself thinking you're going down the Bank branch, when in fact, you're somewhere in the West End.

My advice to you is thus the following: flip a coin. You have a 1 in 2 chance of being right, and it's far less stressful........