How the Tube Works | Guide to the London Underground!

Hi, I'm Jess, Bright Trip contributor and founder of Love in London, and I help people to visit London like they live here via my YouTube channel

In January of 1863, the first underground train left Paddington Station and traveled 3.5 miles

It was the first underground train in the world, and it was the beginning of London's vast subway system

which is officially called the Underground but also nicknamed the Tube. Today the Tube is one of the best transportation systems in the world

It's smooth, it's clean, it's generally on time and it's pretty easy to navigate considering how big London is

You can get a glimpse of the entire Underground network by looking at this

It's likely you've come across the very iconic London Tube map and if it looks confusing as heck to you, don't worry

It's actually super simple once you know a few key things. First off, you don't in any way need to memorize or really study the detail of this map

because in almost every instance, you'll be using a smartphone app that gives you really clear instructions on what train you should be taking

That being said, we should go over a few concepts about the tube system

so you are at least familiar. On some maps, you'll notice these gray and white sections and numbers in them

These are called zones and this is how your Oyster card knows how much to charge you for a trip

because the more zones that you travel through to get from point A to point B, the more that you're going to pay

Don worry you don need to pay attention to this too much because it all calculated automatically on your Oyster card All you need to know is that the further you travel meaning the more zones you cross through the more expensive your journey will be Each line has its own color and name

We always call it by its name, like the Northern line, but the color is used on the map. You can

think about the lines by color if you'd like, but because there are a couple of variations of blue

for different lines, it gets confusing and therefore it's best to always talk about the

names over the colors like how do I get to the northern line? So let's talk about a few useful

symbols on this map. If you see this sign, it means that station also has overground trains that go

outside of the city and to the rest of the country. When you're looking at a map like this that shows

just one line in which you'll find on two cars and in most stations, there are a couple things to note

When you see this, it means that in the station you can change to these other lines. When you

see this where it's not just one straight line it means that this line splits off at some points

Let me show you what I mean. Let's say you're getting on at Clapham North Station and want to

go to Old Street up here but do you see that the northern line splits off right here at Kennington

They are both northbound but one goes this way through Taring Cross and the other goes over here

through London Bridge and Bank Stations. These are called different branches of the same line

And the key word that you're looking for to indicate different branches is via, meaning by

way of or passing through. So back to our example, if you're in the Clapham North Station and you

follow the signs to get on a northbound train you see two options One the northbound train via bank which would be this branch and the northbound train via Charing Cross which is this branch If you trying to get to Old Street then you want the northbound train via bank

As always, your phone will tell you all of this using that same word, via

to tell you which train to get on. And of course, if you get confused while waiting on the platform

ask a Tube staff member or just a Londoner, and they'll usually be absolutely willing to help you

Finally, each map shows clearly which stations are step-free in case you have a lot of bags or unable to take stairs

Just look at the key to see what each symbol means. Right now we are in Waterloo, very close to Waterloo Station which has three tube lines that runs through it

And I want to get to King's Cross, so I'm going to be pulling out my phone to check out CityMapper to see what my options are for routes to get up to King's Cross

Kings Cross. By the way, City Mapper is really good because it lets you save routes, so if you're not

going to have Wi-Fi or data while you're on the Underground, you can still see the route that you

need to go. You can also use Google Maps. It works in pretty much the same way. You're just going to

put in your destination and click this over here, and you will get the routes that are available to

you. Today, I'm going to use City Mapper, so let's put in Waterloo as my starting point and Kings

Cross as the destination. This is giving me a few options. I'll choose the one that's the shortest

length and it looks like I'm going to need to transfer one time and it wants me to get on the

Bakerloo line going northbound to a station called Oxford Circus where I'll get off and then I'll jump

on the Victoria line also going northbound. Seems easy enough. You can see the route either as a map

like this or as a list of steps So first we need to walk to Waterloo Tube Station which I can navigate to using CityMapper Okay now we at Waterloo Station I follow the signs directing to the Bakerloo line and once I get there I tap my

Oyster card at the barriers to get down to the platform. We're going to this platform because

it's going northbound and has the station we want to get to which is Oxford Circus which this sign

also shows us. Once you're on the train and you're going the right direction you can check your app

again. It will tell you how many stops you need to go and in this case I'm going four stops and

then getting off at Oxford Circus station. If you lose count of your stops don't worry the stops are

announced right before you pull into the station. You'll also see a lot of signage that tells the

name of the station as you're arriving. I look outside the train window until I see that we have

arrived to Oxford Circus. Okay now the app is telling me I need to get to the Victoria line

heading northbound. So I look for the signs on the platform pointing me to that line. Okay so

So I'm heading to King's Cross, so I make sure I find the right platform to head in that direction, and then I just wait again

Same deal as before, the app tells me it's just three stops this time. But I can also listen to the announcement or look out the window for King's Cross

Once I'm there, I get off and follow signs to an exit, which say Way Out. Right before I do exit, I hit a ticket barrier, so I'll tap my Oyster card on the yellow card reader to complete my journey

And we've made it to King's Cross. The journey took just over 20 minutes, and it cost £2.40

The tube is super well signed. So with that and also the help of City Mapper or Google Maps

then you will find it very easy once you do a journey, once or twice, to get around the city, I promise