Andrew Martin meets a Central Line tube driver who adored his job

"I receive a letter signed 'Robert Harriman, ex-Central Line Driver', which leads to a meeting at a quiet country club outside Milton Keynes.

"Rob Harriman is an amiable, articulate man who speaks of the time he was 'on the front' of the Central Line trains as 'the best days of my life'. Unfortunately he's no longe a tube driver, but let's start at the beiginning.

"He grew up in Ruislip - handy for the Metropolitan Line. 'As soon as I saw the Met', says rob, 'I fell in love with it...the sight of it, the smell, just the atmosphere.' After leaving school he worked in a shop, but fund himslef taling tubes even when he had nowhere to go, so in 1983 he applied for a jobe with London Underground.

"Having passed his exam for the post of 'railman' he was sent to a store in Chiswick to be issued with a uniform. 'I queued up along with loads of other men and women, and we joked about how it was like being in the army - not that any of us had been in the army'. When the supervisor called 'Harriman 1091232' - the staff number he'd been allocated - and handed him a uniform that (more or less) fitted, he felt a surge of pride.

"After five years of working on stations , he qualified as a drive. He still remembers the barked questions at his oral exam: 'You're approaching Perivale on the eastbound. Your dead man's handle is locked in full motoring position, and you can't shut the power off. What do you do?' He'd chosen to be a driver on the Central 'because I liked the colour red', a whim that triumphed even over the nostalgic appeal of the Met. At West Ruislip Depot, the guards would sit on one side, drivers on another. The drivers were a cut above, but the relationship with the guards was good nonetheless. 'The drivers would always be laughing and joking with the guards over the train phones.....in a professional manner of course.'

"Rob liked early turns. Strangely, there was nothing he enjoyed more than waking up at 2am and setting off for his beloved Ruislip depot. He enjoyed every aspect of the life: from playing soccer with other Central Line drivers in the West Ruislip All-Stars Eleven ('We lost 15-nil once' he remembers fondly), to the sense of responsibility that came from being in charge of a train.

"Like any driver, Rob preferred open-air stretches, but he never became claustrophobic after years of going through 'the pipe', as some drivers do. 'I was always chilled out on the front,' he says. He once sent a letter to the staff magazine saying how much he loved his job, but they thought he was taking the mickey.

"The 'one unders' were the only negative aspect. A man survived a leap in front of Rob's train at Snaresbrok; and later Rob suffered a bizarre variant on the usual suicide bid - a 'one over'. He was approaching woodford when he saw a man weraing slippers pacing on a footbridge. As Rob drove under the bridge, the man leapt onto the cab roof. 'The noise was incredible...and the dent he made in the roof.' Rob later phoned Whipps Cross hospital to be told that the man had a spinal injury. 'Apparently he'd tried it before on the District'.

"During his time as a driver, Rob received 14 commendations, but he had his fallings out with management. In retrospect, he thinks he spoke out of turn too often, but he's not keen to go into detail. Currently he works as a traffic warden. 'I left LU three years a go,' he says. 'I'm only just beginning to get over it'."

Andrew Martin on the most heeded unofficial rule of London Underground

"On the Underground, you stand clear of the closing doors, and move down along the carriages, but there's an unofficial diktat which is obeyed more rigourously than either of the above; you don't talk.

"It's a rule applying only to Tubes. I've had plently of good conversations on overground trains. Only recently a man sat oppositew in a dining car told me all about the cigarette vending machine leasing business, and why it's prone to outbreaks of violence. But on a long rail journey people are fundamentally relaxed, whereas the stresses of Tube travel make everyone go into a state of mental siege. My wife also says that women don't talk on the Underground because there are no staff on hand to prevent situations from getting out of hand. Over the past week, though, I have attempted to overturn this orthodoxy, and strike up conversations on the Tube.

"A good opportunity seemded to arise when I boarded a Victoria Line train at Brixton. As I sat down, a man attempted to pull some newspapers out from under me saying, 'You don't want to sit on these', presumably meaning they might be dirty. Normally I would have just nodded but this time I sait: 'It's all right really', at which the man shrugged. Sensing that the conversation was faltering badly, I indicated the clothes I was wearing, saying 'It's a very old suit'. But I immediately realised that I had backed the man into a corner. It was a very old suit, so he could either agree, which would seem rude, or contradict me, which would require great energy. He said nothing, of course, so the conversation died.

"A couple of days later, I saw a man on the Northern Line reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha christie, which I once read myself. I leant across and said, 'I won't tell you who did it.' 'Right', he said, 'thanks', but he looked appalled, and got off the train at the next station, probably having decided that I was some incorrigible blabbermouth who at any moment might, after all, blurt out the identity of the killer.

"The next day I was waiting for the last Eastbound Central Line train from Notting Hill when a deafeningand incomprehensible announcement came over the Tanny, I approached a man on the platform, thinking to start a conversation about noise pollution, but as I did so, he gobbed onto the tracks in a very off putting way. then, having boarded that train, a youth asked to borrow my copy of ES, which I handed over. If he starts reading Tube Talk, I thought, I'll have the ideal opportunity to speak up, and he will naturally be honoured to converse with me. He started by reading his stars, however, and had moved on to reading everyone else's stars when, at Marble Arch, the driver announced we'd be delayed because of 'a prerson under a train' at Oxford Circus - which did provoke the young man to speak. 'The delay won't be longer than two minutes will it?' he asked. 'Yes,' I said, 'it definitely will be'. Apparently disgusted by my negativity, he fell silent.

"Then a woman sitting opposite looked directly at me, and said, 'I should have taken a cab.' Now, she was sitting next to another woman, who was perhaps her friend, but this remark was deinfitely addressed to me, or so I decied. 'Yes', I said, at which the woman frowned, evidently becasue the remark had not been addressed to me after all. The shame was too much. I stood up and walked off the train in search of my own taxi, mentally re-affriming my vow of Underground silence as I did so." And for more on the wonderful topic of people not speaking to each other on the tube visit this page of my site.

"I have three pieces of advice for London Underground at the moment. The first concerns the 15 signs on each escalator at Canary Wharf Station telling you to 'stand on the right'. My tip to LU: say it only once but in Japanese and that would eliminate the entire problem.

"The second concerns the new digitalised voice that announces delays on the network. This is crystal clear, but tends to say things like: 'The service is suspended in both directions....' at which point everyone waiting for trains everywhere on the Underground has a mini-seizure - before continuing with the crucial words, 'on the Central Line' or wherever the problem might be. My advice? Begin these annoucements by specifying the line, thus: 'On the Central Line, the service is.....' Simple, really.

My third reccomendation is more radical: it is that stirring, martial music be played on the busiest Underground stations at peak hours. This used to be done at Waterloo, and the other day I met a woman whose ambition, as a girl, was to 'put on the records at Waterloo' because it seemed the logical way of combining her two great passions: trains and music.

"The woman in question is called Ruth, and I talked to her as we watched the band that plays at Paddington Station every Friday evening between - for it naturally emplys railway timings - 19.30 and 21.00. I had been alerted to the existence of these musicians by a letter from the Reverend Gareth Evans, wh had intriguely signed himself 'Vicar of Bayswater, Paddington and 1st Tuba BB Flat Paddington Band'. He invited me along to watch a performance, but said he' be too busy playing to talk.

"As Ruth and I chatted, the Reverend Evans and his colleagues were harrumping through one of their staple marches, 'Plymouth Hoe', which lent dignity even to the comings and goings of the Heathrow Express. The whole station seemed galvanised by the music, and commuters moved briskly and cheerfully from A to B, in a way that would be very welcome on the Underground.

"Ruth, who teaches nursing at Ealing, stops to listen to the band every Friday because 'it's a good way of de-stressing after the week's work'. She was one of a group huddled around it, as thought it gave out warmth as well as music. The group included a man called Ron who told me in awed tones that among its amateur musicians - such as Reverend Evans - the band included a trumpter who was once a member of Sid Millward and his Nitwits (a musical comedy act of the Fifties, apprarently). Ron said that he often sees Bill Oddie watching the band, as well as 'that tall man from Blue Pter'. Michael Foot also used to be a regular, en route to his constituency in Wales.

"The band may be a descendent of the one that played at Paddington in the 1820's to welcome Stephenson's Rocket. But during the recent refurbishment of the station its members began to feel that, despite the long tradition, Railtrack wanted them out for good. They kept being moved to obscure undignified corners of the station, at one point being told to play behind Burger King between platforms nine and eight.

"But it seemed that all the nervousness was just paranoia, because the band has now been given a permanent and prestigious spot in front of the main entrance to the Underground from Paddington. Indeed, as you tear yourself away from the band and enter the Tube, your spirits sink and your step falters as the sound fades. Hence my suggestion to London Underground regarding music.

"Of course I'm not holding my breath."

Andrew Martin celebrates the centenary of the Central Line.

"This year marks the centenary of the Central Line, which opened as the Central London Railway - running initially only from Shepherd's bush to Bank - in 1900. At one small Central Line station, I asked an LU employee whether he was aware of any impending events to mark the event, and he said: 'I don't know. I don't take much interest in the line, to be honest.' According to the LU press offices, 'No events are in the pipeline'.

"Which is a shame. The Central has been a pain in the neck for its regular users over recent years, owing to the introduction of a sophisticated electronic signalling system costing �800 million, which, unfortunately, did not work: at least it didn't work while being installed and run alongside the old signalling system, but the traumatic upgrade is largely complete now, and the Central works pretty well - almost as well indeed, as in the days before the expenditure of that �800 million.

It is a veritable red carpet of a line, proceeding with admirable boldness through - or at least under - the heart of the swankiest bits of London, but the most interesting parts are the outlying ones, and to celebrate the centenary, I rode from Oxford Circus first west then east.

"The curious thing about heading west is that, at Shepherd's Bush, if you face the direction of travel, the eastbound platform is to your right. but then, as the train leaves that station all hell breaks loose, the carriages twist and turn, squealing madly, and suddenly - at White City - the eastbound track is on your left. After White City, the lines cross again and the eastbound platform is once again to your right. I will not explain precisely why this happens: (a) because it would take more space than I have available, and (b) because I don?t know. but it owes something to the fact that in 1908, a loop was added to the eastern end of the Central, connecting Shepherd's Bush with Wood Lane station (headquarters of The Tomorrow People) which closed in 1948. The purpose of the extension was to connect the Central with a massive Anglo French exhibition, which featured many temporary structures painted white. Soon they became known as White City, which is indeed the name of the very elegant station built, in 1947, to supplant Wood Lane.

"There are equally perplexing shenanigans at the eastern end of the line, in the form of a loop constructed in 1947-9. At what point, I'd like to know, does an eastbound train entering that loop become westbound? Judging by the train and platform indicators at this end, it's a question of almost philosophical abstruseness and mutability. I used to live in Leytonstone, the last station before the loop begins, and always felt very smug, on leaving the train, as I watched people try to put together some sort of plan for reaching Hainault before nightfall.

"A bonus for people who live in the far east though, is a series of very pretty stations, little changed from the days of the Great Eastern Line, whose tracks they used to serve before being commandeered by the builders of the Central. These stations have waiting rooms, toilets (usually, admittedly, closed for one reason or another), and ornate wooden canopies. Woodford and Snaresbrook are particularly good, and have every appearance of being not Tube stations but what one might call - with all due respect to the centenarian Central - proper railway stations."

This week Andrew Martin looks at ten ways to improve the London Underground at little cost and considering from the 9th January 2000 it'll cost you �1.50 as the minimum fare to travel in zone 1, perhaps they should take heed and put some of the extra cash they're going to make into his ideas.

"1. Rationalise the extremely confusing signs at Euston. Just get them done again - by someone who's sober.

"2. Credit the late Harry Beck on the Underground map. I would reap a personal benefit here, in that I wouldn't have to keep writing letters to irate readers saying: 'I don't know why the name Harry Beck does not appear on the map he invented, it's outrageous,' etc. If some bow-tied design guru of today came up with Beck's radical stylisation of the actually spaghetti-like lines, he'd get millions. Beck received five guineas from London Underground for his map, yet was so selflessly devoted to perfecting it that he'd sleep with a copy of it under his pillow just in case inspiration struck during the night concerning how best to represent the strangely ambiguous position of Mornington Crescent. A name check for Beck would focus attention on the brilliance of the map - one of the Tube's biggest assets.

"3. Rename the Northern Line the 'Southern Line'. The line is, after all, just as much southern as northern, and it was probably a mere toss of the coin that accounted for the present name. but it was surely the wrong result because Londoners don't take well to phenomena with the tag 'northern'.

"4. Stop Northern Line announcements from saying, 'This train terminates at Morden via Bank'. There's no such place as 'Morden via Bank', and correcting this mistake would lower the blood pressure of people who have a love of the English language. On average, the lives of several novelists a year could be saved.

"5. Restore the litter bins to station platforms. They were removed because of the threat of Irish terrorism. Replacing them now would show faith in the momentous changes taking place across the Irish Sea. Plus, it would provide somewhere to put rubbish.

"6. Replace all digital platform clocks with proper clock face clocks. Then people will be able to tell the time from a distance of more than five yards.

"7. Every train should feature a carriage with no seats whatsoever. This would reduce platform overcrowding and, since there'd be no possibility of sitting down, thousands would be spared that daily defeat of hoping against hope for a seat only to find they're all taken. See this page of my site for more on this

"8. On the Heathrow Express (not part of the London Underground, I know, but purporting to be integrated with it), instead of having one 'Quiet Carriage' where you can escape the noise of the on-board TV, have one 'Noisy Carriage' where the infernal TV is broadcasting, and all the other carriages are quiet.

"9. LU produces a map for cyclists, showing which stations have cycle racks. But what about people with weak bladders, or people who like a few pints every now and again...or people like myself , in whom the two characteristics tragically coincide? A map should be produced showing which stations have lavatories, and one spin-off could well be a reduced burden for LU cleaners.

"10. Anyone fined under the penalty fare system should be entitled to reclaim their money wherever they come across a ticket machine which reads 'Exact Money Only'. This would provide an incentive for LU to keep ticket machines stocked with change - an incentive which, it seems, they badly need."

This week Andrew Martin looks at "the tacky problem of chewing gum"

"Riding up the escalator at Piccadilly Circus, I was tapped on the shoulder by a youth 'Oi, mate', he said, 'your trouser leg's got chewing gum all over it'. He looked the chewing gum type himself, and he informed me of my misfortune in such a way (triumphant) that he immediately became my number one suspect.

Gum chewing is increasing rapidly (there are now 20 million regular users), and it seems as prevalent on the Underground as it is in the mouth of Sir Alex Ferguson. In the same week as my entanglement with the foul stuff, Steve Munro, production manager at the Piccadilly Line's Northfields depot, told me that a train on his line had to be taken out of service because of chewing gum jammed in the door runners.

This is a rare occurrence, but chewing gum on the seats ia a familiar problem to his contract cleaners. 'A chair with gum on it is called a casualy,' Mr Munro explained. 'The cover is taken off and dry cleaned straight away'. (Or of course it simply stays on the seat forever, becoming an anonymous, but still slightly tacky black blob). The biggest problem accroding to Mr Munro, is caused when chewing gum gets stuck to heater panels. When this happens it gains a sinister immortality, reviving and becoming sticky every time the heat is switched on.

If you do get covered with gum on the Underground, you can claim compensation." (I don't believe it - The Mole) "Or you can try. the first step is to phone the Underground's insurers, Zurich Municipal (0171 265 1033). I did this myself and was told by a young and very polite man that I would be eligible if the presence of the chewing gum on the escalator could be traced back to the negligence of LU. 'If for example, they hadn't cleaned the escalator since June.' I then asked him who would be looking into the question of whether LU has been negligent and he said, 'We would'. 'But,' I said, 'being the insurers, you're not really impartial arbiters, are you?' 'We're not exactly impartial,' said the young man, for he was a fair-minded lad, 'but we do have a legal responsibilty towards claimants, and we're not going to pull the wool over your eyes.' " (Specially not if you're a regular columnist for the Evening Standard - The Mole)

"I decided that, in my own case, any claim for compensation would be a long shot, so I directed my ire, instead, towards the Wrigley Company" (This is sounding more American by the minute - how on earth can it be the fault of the manufacturers of the gum? Sorry about this if you are from the States, but in England we hear so many stories of people in the US suing people for anything! - The Mole) "I left a message saying I'd had a pair of smart trousers covered with chewing gum on the Tube, and what did they have to say about it. Quite surprisingly, they rang back - in fact, the managing director, Philip Hamilton, called and said, 'The problem is not the product, it's the consumer'. " (Wow doesn't it help to be a columnist on the Evening Standard and good on Mr Hamilton for using this as a chance to give his company some free publicity - The Mole)

"He told me, in exasperated tones, that his compnay had watched gum users emerging from Bond Street Station. 'The gum', he says, 'goes straight on the pavement. At first we thought it was because the bins were wrongly positioned, so we asked Westminster Council to move them.'

Mr Hamilton claims his company is doing all it can to educate people in gum disposal, but suspects that 'we are simply an untidy nation. go on any metro system around the world and you won't see as much gum as in London.' I asked him whether this implied that the English users of his proudct were a bunch of moronic anti social louts. 'Obviously,' said Mr Hamilton, 'I would not draw that conclusion.' "

This week Andrew Martin looks at noise on the Underground

Users of the new Northern Line trains "suffer an ordeal" as the door closing bleeps have developed a fault which means the bleeps continue between stations, sometimes for up to two or three stops at a time. "The noise has been making a piquant addition to the rich brew of stresses caused by line closures, overcrowding, summer heat, the relentless electronic announcements of upcoming stations, and the small seat size of the new Northern stock. According to a correspondent of mine from Edgware, the seats are just one inch narrower than those on the old trains, but that missing inch is all it takes to stop you relaxing.

" 'This is aural pollution,' says an LU spokesman, cutting straight to the heart of the matter of the prolonged bleeps, 'and we're sorry for subjecting people to it. It's all to do with an electronic relay problem, and we're doing everything we can to correct it.'

"This extended bleepeing is actually a more hi-tech version of an earlier aural irritation. It occurred in the days when announcements for destinations and forthcoming stations were not electronic but left to drivers. (It was more or less officially the case that they made these announcements if they could be bothered.)" This is what happens on the District Line as fortunately there aren't any of those annoying electronic things.

"Sometimes having addressed passengers over their intercoms, the drivers would forget to press the 'off' button , and you'd be left listening to the noisy crackling of static combined on occasion, with the driver's absent-minded humming and/or disgruntled mutterings." I heard this once on the District Line and the whole train remained really quiet as he was talking to a friend and we were all hoping he'd let out some massive trade secret about the train - like where all the money they collect from penalty fares goes! Anyway, back to Andrew Martin...

"It was both stressful and embarrassing, because your constant fear was that the driver, unaware of being overheard, would embark on a full-scale conversation with himself, thus proving himself to be a complete nutter.

Meanwhile, Underground News, the excellent journal of the London Underground Railway Society, is concerned with two other sorts of pollution on the Tube. The first is the deafening screaming of train-wheel flanges on the Central Line tracks around Bank - apprently reaching 102 decibels westbound and 107 decibels (which is a lot) in the eastbound direction. This is caused by the curvature of the track at this point, a near-unrectifiable problem (although a little oil might help). The second issue of concern is that growing phenomenon of mobile phones ringing unheard for minutes on end. Why? Because their owners are listening to very loud music on their personal stereos." For my thoughts on this, see the section on my tuberules page.

Andrew Martin finishes by recommending you buy a pair of soft wax earplugs "The mobile-phone disease being so virulent and widespread I seldom get on a train without them....they offer immediate transportation back to the golden, more silent age of train and Tube travel".