Commuters working near a station on the Central line will be all too familiar with a few things.
Not least among these is how packed it is during both rush hours, meaning, even with regular trains, you’ll often have to wait for a second train to show up. Good luck getting a seat, too…
There’s also the heat during the summer, which can be absolutely brutal at the best of times.
But perhaps even more frustratingly, the line may be wracked with delays, cancellations or suspensions. While these aren’t entirely absent from other lines, it’s the Central line that draws most of the commuter wrath these days.
Problems on the line can be for myriad reasons, of course, but there’s a how and a why to it for the Central line. Basically, it’s really, really old. But it’s not quite that simple…
Beginning as a private transport link, one of London’s richest men of the 19th century, Sir Ernest Cassel, foresaw a tricky financial situation in building the line directly beneath a lot of the city’s best real estate, not to mention St Paul’s.
As such, so the story goes, the decision was made to make the line follow London’s street patterns which, if you’ve ever been to certain parts of Central London, you’ll know can be a bit all over the place. That’s what you get in a medieval street plan, though.
The bends in the track to follow this street plan mean that the tracks are affected by wear and tear faster than other lines.
As for the heat…we’re afraid that’s pretty tough to fix as well. Again, it’s because the line’s really, really old.
There’s very little space for a proper ventilation system, with the line being as deep beneath the ground as it is.
It’s meant that the Central line, back in 2017, actually exceeded the EU limit at which it’s legal to transport cows, pigs and sheep.
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