2025: HELLO? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU, I'M ON THE TUBE. FULL 4G NOW. NAH, IT'S CRAP

Transport for London is to trial 4G services on the eastern half of the Jubilee line, and is looking to work with a firm that wants to run a Underground-wide network by the mid-2020s. The pilot, starting March, will cover stations and tunnels between Westminster and Canning Town, including ticket halls. Waterloo and London …

[Khaptain]

Keep the tubes quiet

I think I prefer the idea that Phones/SmartPhones could be used in the underground..

Can't think of many things more irritating that someone nearby doing a FaceChat thingy, driveling on about utter nonsense and then just as the journey ends they switch it off.

[Ryan 7]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

You've clearly never travelled on that section of the Jubilee line. You can't even hear someone next to you trying to talk, never mind someone's phone call.

[Tom 38]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

The eastern part of the Jubilee is the modern extension, as lines go I think that's pretty quiet. Central between Liverpool St and Stratford (but particularly Liverpool St to Bethnal Green), you can feel your hearing being damaged as you go round the most stupidly shaped tunnel in the world. Straight lines; we've heard of them.

[TRT]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

The sharpest bend currently operational anywhere on the UK rail network, I believe, is the one on the central line near White City. Caxton Curve I think it is. Some stupid radius like 60m or something.

[FrogsAndChips]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

Gants Hill to Newbury Park doesn't look bad either.

Shirley, there must be some good geological or topological reasons for this, no?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

Yes and don't call me Shirley

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

Depends on what you mean by the UK rail network. The tube isn't part of national rail but if you include metro systems then there are much tightest curves on the DLR just north oft canary wharf and I'm sure manchester metrolink has some pretty tight ones too.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: much tightest curves on the DLR

The DLR can't really be compared to conventional tube lines as it is a Light Railway. For this reason tight curves are not a problem as the carriages are short, articulated*. Similarly the gradients on the DLR are a bit like a slow speed rollercoaster, without the tilting.

*Though the announcements made on rapid transit PA are intelligible these days, I'm referring more to the way the carriages are constructed.

[DJV]

Central line route

There's a financial reason the route the Central line tunnels take is completely mental. They were built below the streets in central London as, if they'd gone below owned property, they would have had to pay the property owners a "wayleave". The law got changed later on so that the payment was no longer necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_line_(London_Underground)#Central_London_Railway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_and_Monument_stations

[Dan 55]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

There won't be any talking or FaceChatting, it's all Social Meeja now. Watch in horror as your world is over-run with 24 carat berks, led by strutting, brainless cock-of-the-walk Nathan Barley.

[JDX]

Re: Keep the tubes quiet

I think people being able to get solid connections might be less annoying than patchy ones at stations, but only slightly.

[macjules]

Give it to Vodafone ..

They have 5G now. They said so and they also said it covers all of London, so it must be true.

Even though it isn’t.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Give it to Vodafone ..

If Trump says something, 40% of the US believes it even when it isn't true. Maybe BoJo the clown has the same effect, and he can get 40% of Londoners to believe Vodafone's 5G covers all of London?

[iron]

So backward you Londoners, the Glasgow underground has had 4G for years.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: So backward you Londoners

At least we had points. Lifting trains off the tracks pffft...

[FrogsAndChips]

The only benefit

is that at last I'll be able to send a text to SWMBO to inform there's a delay on the <Any> line and won't make it home in time.

[Ragarath]

Exactly how the national network should be run...

The idea is that the mobile providers will pay to access the network which will be run by a third party.

Let's stop the phone companies actually controlling the networks please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Always amuses me ...

... when some tourist or other newcomer to London is doing some loud call or facetime on their phone then the train goes into a tunnel and the assclown spends the next 30 seconds unaware and continues on. Then when realisation finally dawns that they've been talking to themselves and everyone else nearby knows it the look on their face can be priceless.

To be fair I'm not too bothered about people making calls on trains and it can be very useful if its late again or the bolshevics fancy another day off and have gone on strike. Far more annoying is the sociopathic yoof who apparently has never heard of headphones and seems to think everyone else is quite happy to listen to the tinny urban shit he calls music coming out of his phone.

[Christopher Lane]

Re: Always amuses me ...

Oh God, I can imagine it now...

"Ja, ja, ich bin in der Londoner U-Bahn!"

How's the drunk in the corner gonna get any sleep now!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Always amuses me ...

"Then when realisation finally dawns that they've been talking to themselves and everyone else nearby knows it the look on their face can be priceless."

The kind of facial expression that says "what kind of fscking medieval train system is this where phones don't work in the tunnels like in every other civilised part of the world?

[Len]

Bring it on!

I don't see any downsides to this at all.

1) Typical communication has already largely moved from voice based to text and image based anyway. It's not like buses are no-go areas because dozens of people are having a voice call, why would the Tube be any different?

2) Sixty percent of the Tube is above ground and even then the Tube is not anything resembling a call centre. Why would people suddenly want to call when they are at an underground section?

3) The ambient noise levels are too high for any conversation. If the Tube would be a new product it would not be allowed to operate due to the dangerously high noise levels, the only reason it's legal to travel on some lines without ear protectors is because of its legacy. You'll notice that some drivers do wear ear protection.

4) People worried about terrorists setting off devices remotely haven't noticed that in 2005 "7/7 bombings" they set off devices by hand and that explosive devices on timers have existed for easily a century.

5) It's great to be able to tell your boss, partner, date etc. that you've been stuck in some tunnel without movement for 45 minutes now and are going to be late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that vital 'I'm on the train' call...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-42791299

http://camdennewjournal.com/article/northern-line-tube-racket-like-being-at-a-rock-concert

They say they are fitting sound deadening rail fixings, but I guess they lost the instructions and are just bodging them as the extra noise seems to have started to get worse since they started the 'improvements'. From the old builder's joke... "green side up!"

(sod the emergency services, they can wait another couple of years... after all, King's X or Moorgate is unlikely to ever happen again)