From Friday 19 August 2016 you won’t have to worry about rushing out a gig to catch your last tube home or your hotel anymore as the much-anticipated London Night Tube is finally here! I always found it surprising that in a metropolis such as London, the last tubes would stop running just after midnight. Thankfully you can alternatively make use of night buses, but you usually have to wait for a long time before you can actually get on one, which isn’t that appealing in the middle of the night. I find it quite bewildering and amusing to see a well-dressed audience running out of the theatre at high speed right after a theatre or dance performance. There’s even no time for a social drink afterwards! Hopefully the extended tube service will mean Londoners and visitors have a more relaxing end to their day.
The 24H-service will run on Fridays and Saturdays on the Central (red) and Victorian (light blue) lines first of all. From autumn 2016 the night tube network will be extended to the Jubilee (grey), Northern (black) and Piccadilly (dark blue) lines. You can see the tube lines on the map below. Click on the image for a larger version.
Want to know more about London’s public transport system, ticket types and prices, where to buy them, et cetera? I wrote a clear overview about this all on my page public transport in London.
For more information on the Night Tube, have a look at this page of the Transport for London website.
Members-only creative hub Second Home will be celebrating the arrival of the Night Tube on Friday 19 August from 8pm till 8am in their bookshop Liberia, which I recently wrote about. The owners promise it will be a very special night of music, film, readings, whiskey and surprise happenings. And the best thing is that everything is totally free of charge – including the whiskey!
The programme: guitarist Andy Button and his band kick off the evening with live music at 8pm, followed by a DJ set at 9pm. At 10pm it’s time for Spitalfields tales. If I could make it, I’d be especially interested in the Night cap whiskey tasting at 11pm. At midnight best-selling author Mark Forsyth will open the ‘Dialogue on drunkenness’, followed by the Insomniacs’ Philosophy Club t 1am. Science writer Marathi Prasad will discuss ‘night-time medical cures’ at 2am. Finally there’s a film screening of Martin Scorsese’s classic film After Hours at 3am, and breakfast of bagels and poetry is served at 6am.
Enjoy London’s night life!
Welcome to the 21st century, London!
Exactly! Strange eh, for such a metropolis!?