Nothing is impossible for an engineer - Technology

Feb. 2nd, 2009

11:14 am - Technology

When I was in London last weekend, I had a definite preference for travelling on the underground, especially the deep-bore tube lines (I got a curious thrill being able to travel on the deepest part of the network). This is partly because underground trains are a bit like monorails, in that they're forever associated with "the future" in my head, thanks to Gerry Anderson's Space:1999, which I watched at a formative age. I can easily travel on buses anywhere in the world. Look, this is what an underground train is like in my head:

Whereas these are clunky old low-tech buses:

*Obviously* tube trains are better!

[I picked that bit of footage of buses out last night, wandering around YouTube. It turns out this morning that modern London buses don't actually work when it's snowing! :-)]

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Comments:

From:	wendles
Date:	February 2nd, 2009 01:07 pm (UTC)

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I agree; underground trains are indeed cool, for the reasons you state. There's also the in-the-know secret-decoder-ring aspect - the thrill of being the sort of person who can interpret the map and hop the tube to get from here to there without getting lost, backtracking or ending up running away from zombies in one of the missing stations. It's like The Knowledge I suppose.

Oh, and: Monorail-monorail-monorail-monorail...

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From:	vin_petrol
Date:	February 2nd, 2009 01:20 pm (UTC)

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Someone I've known for years admitted last week that she used to go to the Butlins at Skegness when she was a child, and that she used to go on the monorail there. I was terrifyingly envious. Lucky sprog!

Now I want to watch the song on YouTube. Sadly, it's one of those that's clearly being kept off. At least I can listen to the audio.

"There's nothing on Earth like a genuine, bona-fide, electrified, six car monorail!"

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