Utente:♠ ᴛѳҗїϭ ϐƟƦĐȜℓℓ ♠/Sandbox/Metropolitana di Londra

Il titolo di questa pagina non è il titolo di questa pagina perché siamo dei cretini. Il titolo corretto è MIND THE GAP .

« When one is tired of the London Underground, he takes a mainline train. Or sometimes a black cab if he's going to the only 24 Hour Tesco for miles around, in deepest darkest Brixton. »

(The Tube)

File:Londoncity.jpg

The city was just begging for its own train network. Again.

The London Underground is a series of tubes stuffed with motorised trains that are indended to take the Londonian public to places outside of the local pub. It was originally called "London Subterranean Homesick Blues Transit Service" but this got shortened to 'The Lube' by those who had to use it. It was was opened to the public in 1863 by William Gladstone. Considered a 'vulgar' way to travel about London at first, the Underground system grew over the next 150 years and helped the city spread in all directions like an ugly blood stain.

The poet Oscar Wilde wrote whilst he was still alive that travelling on the Underground was like 'descending into Dante's Inferno, the hot air blowing out of the tunnels ruffling my hair and inflaming my own passions for the sticky embrace of the dark environment'. Others at the time liked the close proximity you could have with the opposite sex as you stood swaying together in the dim lights whilst trains shuddered to a halt. The first conviction for groping happened not long after.

It's a well known fact train drivers who manage to arrive on time are punished, and that if you are too fast moving through the barriers you will be shot on sight. If you manage to get off at your stop without being hassled by a busker or having your pockets picked, you will also be shot.

History

Origins

The idea of opening an underground time-wasting transportation system in London started with the Romans or, more specifically, Emperor Valentinian II, who had an obsession with conquering the soil and, later on, the sons of the soil. In AD 377 he commissioned the Londinium Subterraenea, which was completed three years later. It was opened on October 14, 401 with much fanfare, and then promptly forgotten about roughly four minutes later. In 1846 Sir William Hershey, discoverer of Uranus, re-discovered the Subterraenea, and drew up plans for a newer underground system. These plans were soon scrapped when Hershey rushed to give the newly-discovered planet Neptune an obscene name. In 1860, Transport for London (TFL) campaigner William Gladstone discovered Hershey's plans and decided to, with the help of TFL, recreate and reopen the Subterraenea. Funnily enough, they never got to recreate it, but the Londinium Subterraenea, rechristened the London Underground, was opened to the public in a matter of hours. Two days after opening, the London Tourist Board opened a clothes shop at Oxford Circus station called the London Underpants. The station was quickly burned down by outraged tourists.

Rebuilding

The world renowned map of the London Underground, believed by many to be the zenith of cartography and readability.

In the early 90's, the London MPs decided that they needed a new way of wasting taxpayers' money, such as passing a "give us wonga" law or chaining hire bikes on every street corner in full knowledge of the fact that Londoners are incapable of cycling. In the end, the MPs' lack of creativity led them to rebuilding much of the perfectly good (although incredibly dangerous) Underground network. This would cost some two hundered million pounds and is not yet finished as of June 2011. Work included laying new track and buying fresh flowery wallpaper, however all this did little to help the tube's condition.

When attempting to pass of the believability of the rebuild, engineers were met with a problem: the original method for building tunnels was the good ole cut 'n' cover method, ie

• Dig a big hole in the ground
• Bury anything tube-related in it, and while you're at it, your ex-wife
• Cover it up again

However modern technology had surpassed this and using this method would raise more suspicion than the marijuana found in the Houses of Parliament. In the end, it was decided to build a new tunnel lower in the ground by using foreign prisoners who operated a giant spinning shaver blade (the Gatishead Shield) in an attempt to get the 300,000 to escape Wormwood Scrubs prison (isn't prison overcrowding so bad these days?). Half of the workers died during the process, mainly because many of them thought that eating the London Clay would save having to carry it out. Finally, the survivors emerged at Stratford. However, they discovered they had tunnelled the wrong way (they wanted to get to Heathrow by tunneling under the M25) and eventually settled in Leyton. The tunnel later became the Central Line.

Upgrade plan

The new trains feature fewer seats, but are faster on journeys where the engine has been given new shoes

After many years of running a network and trains which because of their age needed to be held together with shoe laces, parcel tape and paperclips, Transport for London chose to begin an upgrade plan. The centrepiece of the glorious manifesto was for the oldest trains to be replaced, allowing more passengers to stand on long journeys due to there being fewer seats. Passengers reacted positively to this new development, as it meant they could see the London countryside more clearly when pressed up against the windows during peak times.

The signalling was also replaced, with old cables helpfully collected by criminals under the cover of darkness. This method of removal brought with it a more random system for the upgrade programme to proceed on, described by TfL as a "fresher approach".

An earlier suggestion for relieving congestion at stations during the busiest parts of the day was to close the London Underground network, so that there would be no more congestion or delays. This was eventually replaced by the new plan, whereby fewer trains would run, in the hope that by the law of averages, they would have less chance to be delayed.

The Lines

Le linee e gli orari di apertura

Tutte le linee emergono in superficie al di fuori della zona centrale, ad eccezione della Victoria Line che scorre in galleria per tutta la sua lunghezza, (salvo per un deposito di manutenzione), e la Waterloo & City Line che, essendo molto corta, corre solo in una zona centrale sotto la superficie.

La rete non funziona 24 ore al giorno perché, diversamente da altre metropolitane come ad esempio quella di New York, non è dotata di binari supplementari per deviare il traffico durante la manutenzione. I treni corrono dalle 5.00 della mattina fino alle 1.00 di notte, le domeniche dalle 7.00 a mezzanotte; alcune stazioni sono chiuse di domenica.

rosso, rosso pompeiano, arancio aragosta, viola, viola addobbo funebre...blu tenebra!

Linee della metropolitana di Londra

Nome della linea	Colore	Apertura	Tipo	Lunghezza	Stazioni	Passeggeri/anno
Bakerloo Line	Marrone	1906	Profondità	23 km	25	95,9 milioni
Central Line	Rosso	1900	Profondità	74 km	51	183,5 milioni
Circle Line	Giallo	1884	Sub-superficie	22 km	27	68,4 milioni
District Line1	Verde	1868	Sub-superficie	64 km	60	172,8 milioni
East London Line2	Arancione	1869	Sub-superficie	8 km	9	10,4 milioni
Hammersmith & City Line3	Rosa	1863	Sub-superficie	14 km	28	45,8 milioni
Jubilee Line	Argento	1979	Profondità	36 km	27	127,5 milioni
Metropolitan Line	Viola	1863	Sub-superficie	67 km	34	53,6 milioni
Northern Line	Nero	1890	Profondità	58 km	51	206,7 milioni
Piccadilly Line	Blu	1906	Profondità	71 km	52	176,1 milioni
Victoria Line	Azzurro	1969	Profondità	21 km	16	161,3 milioni
Waterloo & City Line4	Turchese	1898	Profondità	2 km	2	9,6 milioni
Originariamente si chiamava Metropolitan District Railway Originariamente era una linea separata dalle altre e gestita da un consorzio di società. La linea fa parte della metropolitana di Londra dal 1948, ma continuarono a transitarci treni merci delle Ferrovie Britanniche sino al 1966. Per molti anni fece parte della Metropolitan Line fino a quando non acquisì una propria identità verso la fine degli anni ottanta. Chiusa nel 2007 per l'estensione ora fa parte dell'Overground Originariamente parte della Metropolitan Line, la linea prese il nome di Hammersmith & City Line nel 1988. Fa parte della rete metropolitana di Londra dal 1994.

Fonte: Transport for London

The Underground network is made up of eleven "lines", each being name, colour and noisiness-coded. The lines are:

Name	Map colour	First operated	First section opened*	Name dates from	Type	Length (km)	Journey time (hours)	Stations	Journeys per annum (× 1,000)	Average journeys per mile (× 1,000)
Bakerloo line	Feces-style Brown	1906	1906	1906	Deep level	23.2	14.5	25	104,000	7,172
Central line	Bloody Red	1900	1856	1900	Deep Impact	74	46	49	199,000	4,326
Circle line	Yellow	1884	1863	1949	Subsurface	27	17	36	74,000	5,286
District line	Ugly Green	1868	1868	1868–1905	Subscription survace	64	40	60	188,000	4,700
Hammersmith & City line	Pink	1988 (1863 as Metropolitan line)	1858	1988	Subsurface again	26.5	16.5	29	50,000	3,030
Jubilee line	Depressing Grey	1979	1879	1979	Deep as the earth's crust	36.2	22.5	27	127,584	5,670
Metropolitan line	Joe Magenta	1863	1863	1863	Subsurface	66.7	41	34	58,000	1,398
Northern line	Black as an emo's hair	1890	1867	1937	Above sea level	58	36	50	206,987	5,743
Piccadilly line	Dark Blue	1906	1869	1906	Final level	71	44.3	53	176,177	3,977
Victoria line	Not Dark Blue	1968	1968	1968	Boss level	21	13.25	16	183,000	13,132
Waterloo & City line	Turkish	1898†	1898	1898	Jeez man, that's deep...	2.5	1.5	2	9,616	6,410
† Actual price may be higher or lower than displayed number.

Wildlife

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The original logo, which warned people of the Underground.

The London Underground is home to a small creature known as 'the gap'. Warnings are frequently given out, both on the trains, and on the platforms warning citizens of this threat. These warnings usually go along the lines of "Please mind the gap", however few people take this seriously and this often results in numerous injuries; in the last year alone, 7 people lost feet, and 52 lost toes. The gap itself is a small carnivorous mammal which lives between the train and the platform. The Underground tunnels are also home to large, mutated mice (look! behind you!), frenzied badgers, rabbits, over twenty species of spider, black mambas, the occasional chav and a number of lost schoolboys. Passengers have reported several times that they had seen tigers outside the train, however the fact that the average number of lost schoolboys remains constant suggests otherwise.

Secret tunnels

A full-scale working model railway, leading from Victoria Station to Highgrove, Prince Charles' house in Gloucestershire via Buckingham Palace and the House of Commons. This is to let the Prince and members of Government attend premieres, shows and pub quiz nights with minimal disruption. Rumour has it that Princess Camilla herself drives the train, liking nothing better than grabbing the "dead man's handle". The great tunnel collapse of 2010 may, however, have caused the end of these secret trips. The Daily Mail attempted to question Underground engineers about this in early 2011 but instead failed miserably.

Nuclear Activities

The Underground is mainly used by the government for testing nuclear and hydrogen bombs. Once detonated, the blast will sent a shockwave throughout the city, hence 2000's many earthquakes. Template:London