The Tube on TV

Yup - I wasn't front line staff (worked at Friars Bridge Court) but the frustration of seeing a complete hatchet job without any kind of understanding of the problems was total. It's fairly disturbing that whenever you see something in the media on a subject you know about, it's practically always inaccurate. Who knows what else we're being fed! I should have started this in the Rants bit, I suppose!

I am amazed that she still has a job with an attitude like that

Strangely enough (or maybe not which is why it is referred to) I caught that very episode the other night on Sky Travel. They generally show an episode around midnight.

On the whole, I think the series should have been shown on national ITV rather than the London area. At the very least show it in the regions that are likely to be regular travellers to London.

It is for once, a pretty honest and independant look at the system. It doesn't try too hard to make everything look good (in the way some managers would like) and also doesn't waste time in trying to knock everything we do. In an argument between passenger and company, it appears more likely to take the company's view before the passenger.

Series three should be with us soon (unless I've missed it somewhere - haven't seen anyone else on here talking about it though.)

Remember, if anyone wants a copy of both series 1 & 2 of 'The Tube' on DVD, drop me a PM for details.

You are still shown for about 2 seconds.

Well I never...

There's an episode with a revenue inspector (Northern line I think) on a tube platform being particularly aggressive with a customer. Now wether or not the guy has a ticket is not the point - there's no need for the revenue inspector to act the way he did. This 'inspector' also appears in another episode at a ticket barrier, and again is over the top with his aggressiveness. I'm actually surprised that LUL approve these type of things (including the Miranda saga), as they hardly put LUL in any form of positive light.
I feel the tube programe is, IMHO, mostly a load of tosh. What they need to be showing is managers / control rooms / signal operators making decisions that affect the day to day service. How top managers come up with daft ideas, and discussing them with the unions. What's actually involved in an engineering possesion. The aggro customers cause at ticket office windows and how crowd control works at large events. And if they're gonna show someone in training, show the whole lot. That's the real underground, the one the public needs to see, and will find more interesting.
Oh well, no doubt series 3 will be the same old rubbish. ;D ;D ;D

Just scrolling through and saw this post, have to agree about that District driver (miranda?), i don't think editing would make much difference, she has an appalling attitude and makes us proper drivers look bad - no wonder the public have such a poor perception of drivers with ITV guff like this, have to say the programme has awful docusoap type theme music, generally boring stories (did anyone fall asleep during the busker episode?) and patronising narration.

At least the narration is not as bad as Big Red Bus narrated by Nick O'Dwyer, the most patronising turd on Tv (i think he did the sneering docu on britains fattest man - shameful how he treats his subjects). The way it's worded, i think they need to reduce his dosage.

The 'agressive' RPI in question, be he the one with tache?

PS i remember old, dirty and late well, at least it showed the realities of how poor things were at the time, if only 'The Tube' could sometimes show this instead of watering down the problem scenarios to look almost comical for the benefit of dumbed-down ITV viewers.

He's the one who also seemed to think it was right to walk in for work in the mid-afternoon, and then leave an hour or so later during the tube strike!? He was definatly showing off to the cameras!

Miranda! I'd like to give her a massive slap round her face. Doesn't she realise that she put hundreads of lives at risk?! I hope they've fired her!

You would've thought that because they commissioned series 3, they'd put the effort into making new titles/credits and music? These have got to be the worst on TV! The narrator isn't as bad as Big Red Bus, and to be honest, if they got someone "lively", then it wouldn't be the same for some reason?

Also, with most of the "younger" ones featured, you could tell it was another job to them. They were just there for the 9 to 5, got a chance to appear on camera and thats it for the day. This is who they seem to feature more, and it just makes the show completely pointless as it ends up telling you very little about The Tube!

Mind you I think I should mention some of the good things about this series. I enjoyed the episode where new man Terence went through his Northern Line training as 44 year man Keith was having his last day. Keith also popped up in another episode, talking about 'Tox' - "If I met Tox I'd give 'im a kicking!"

Also I find the staff at Brixton (Supervisor Monty and GSM Paul) quite watchable too, the bet with the 6 coke cans made me smile, as did the whole escalator story (One was out of action for a long time, the time to fix it over-ran horribly and when it was fixed the one next door more or less packed up straight away), mind you I bet ther punters weren't too happy!

I found the episode featuring H&C driver Alan quite moving, as his very - near one under was having very obvious effects. I'm very surprised that a driver let someone film all this and I just hope it didn't take him long to get back to normal. I think I can safely say if someone grabbed the Pos/Neg rail in front of me, even though I'd just made a mayday on the radio, it would seriously freak me out.

I think generally the second series was better than the first, the only episode I wasn't really that into was the one on Canary Wharf - look forward to seeing Series 3!

I did wonder how you knew!
Anyway, the point is this forum is in the public domain, and is known about by senior managers at LUL. If you were that member of staff, how would you feel? It's one thing to be talked about - quite another to have your name announced. Also, as I originally mentioned, the data protection act plays a part also - as the persons name appeared here, there is nothing to stop you storing it on your computer. Unless you have a valid reason to store it, you are breaking the law. By not posting full names in the first place we stay out of trouble

Colin.

i was in the first series for about 5 seconds , as i am sure the staff members on this group will agree, i spent most of the time picking huge holes in the programme . so many things on there that made me laugh, for example, :----
since when do you clout a stick and the manager escorts you to look at the stick in question ? " look driver this is the signal u hit ( as if u needed to be reminded) so dont be a naughty driver and hit one again please ;D ;D ;D ;D

also ,if u looked closely , when the trainee was announcing , we are approcahing kennington this train terminates here all change please, the train then arrived at leicester square ,

loads more exapmles i could name but ill let you work them out for yourselves

from a public point of view and an anoraks point of view, this programme is very entertaining but i do wish the producers and editors would pay more attention to detail

I met some of the production team when they were doing the first series (they didn't film me!) and I got the impression it was a distinctly low budget operation.

What was more odd in my opinion and lots of ather programmes fo this, is have a clip of a train approaching a green signal, and play it in reverse.
Yes the film "crew" looked like they were doing a college project