CELEBRATING 150 YEARS OF THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

150 YEARS-LONDON UNDERGROUND: Quite surreal imagining people in 1863 fashion/attire traveling in beautiful, quaint little train carriages underground in London. It must have been quite frightening at the time much like using the first lifts-1853 and escalators-1892 where people threw up because of the motion even though they ran at a much slower pace in those days. Fascinating to think of the millions of people over 150 years traveling on the Underground, quite astounding and extraordinary. We are now much more impatient, rushing to get everywhere on time. If the train doesn't come within a minute we are frustrated and people fight to get 'packed in like sardines' into carriages, let alone diving for a seat and the tactics involved, all coughing and sneezing over each other (an incubator for germs). With the sizeable population working and living in London the Tube system is undeniably overcrowded. It breaks down constantly and has signal failures, fire alerts etc. More than that, I noted in horror 10 years ago, the amount of people throwing themselves under trains so now the 'person under a train' announcement doesn't even raise an eyebrow, which is very sad. The cost of tickets go up every year and we expect more for our money but with overcrowding, especially peak hour commuters (tracks cracking under the weight), it desperately needs expansion which takes years to plan, cost and set into motion. Where to from now oh underground and what will you look like in another 150 years time I wonder? More space age I hope and running at great speeds!