'I used the London Underground in rush hour for the first time as a Northerner and instantly regretted it'

Anuj looking shocked at Euston station by the escalator to get down to the London Underground platforms
-Credit: (Image: Anuj Mishra)


For me, a Northerner, London’s vast Tube network has always had an air of magic about it. For years I bought into the never-ending promise of a 'London-style transport system' in Manchester, inadvertently looking at London from afar as the gold-standard to which the rest of the country can only ever hope to aspire.

This week, however, everything changed. For I, at last, have had the pleasure of making the commute into London, and the experience has shattered my naïve impression of the magical and mysterious London Underground. My journey into the city began with an 8.17am train into Euston from the glorious commuter town of Leighton Buzzard.

Though I am no Londoner, I have taken the train from Manchester into Euston a fair few times, and so I was expecting no surprises. How wrong I was, it turns out that the last fast train into London before 9am is, in fact, quite popular.

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And so, I joined throngs of blank-faced and parka-clad commuters as they piled onto the train. My illusions of bagging a seat failed to materialise, and I instead had the privilege of leaning against the toilet door.

Arriving into Euston, a tad delayed, at 8.50am, it was a mad dash from the seemingly miles-long platform down to the Underground. I, and hundreds of others, attempted to barge our way from platform to station concourse, while the platform adjacent to ours was announced for a 12-carriage train to Edinburgh.

General view of a platform at Euston underground station
A pretty much empty platform at Euston station was not the sight Anuj was greeted by -Credit:Steve Taylor/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Anyone familiar with Euston will know that, for whatever reason, they only announce platforms about two minutes before trains depart. As a result, outbound passengers must sprint the ‘Euston dash’ the second this top-secret platform number is revealed to try and bag a seat.

As a result, a mass charge – reminiscent of the final battle in 300 – from both sides occurred as we commuters, desperate to make it into the city in time, rushed at travellers gripping enormous suitcases on their way out. My determination to make it through proved insufficient, and I got stuck within a gaggle of American tourists decked out in Harry Potter memorabilia.

At last, I made my way down the escalators and got underground. Though I expected minor hitches, queues at the barriers, people failing to insert their tickets in the right way, my rose-tinted view of the Tube wrongly had me thinking it would be plain sailing from here.

Passenger behind me got whacked in the head by closing Tube doors

I only had to travel three stops on the Northern line to make it into Tottenham Court Road, and yet they turned out to be the longest seven minutes of my life. Though I survived the ordeal of squeezing onto the train intact, the same cannot be said of the lady behind me. She faced the double whammy of having her head whacked by the closing doors and getting separated from her friend who failed to get on.

After an intense bout of avoiding eye-contact and pretending to look at my phone (despite having barely any signal), I emerged into the award-winning, air-conditioned Elizabeth line. It was here that my dreamy notions of London transportation came true: fast, barely crowded, with a distinct lack of foul odours. If this is what politicians have in mind when they promise Manchester a “London-style transportation system”, then so be it. In any case, I have a newfound appreciation for working from home.

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