tube: December 2007 Archives

London Underground's tube trains are among the most advanced modes of transport in the world and are very difficult to control - which is why all tube train drivers are secretly recruited from the ranks of the world's very best jet fighter test pilots. When a test pilot shows exceptional daring and promise - perhaps by flying upside-down through Wookey Hole, or doing a 'cloud skid' with no hands - they receive a secret telegram from London Underground inviting them to study at the mysterious tube train driving academy situated 25 miles below the capital's crust. If they accept, their death will be faked in an air show crash and they'll begin their gruelling nine-year studies. The subterranean students don't even get to sit in a tube train cab until they've spent a full four years examining the aerodynamic properties of earthworms, mole rats and badgers.

Here is a diagram of a tube train control panel, which a tube train driver has to be able to use with his or her eyes closed, even under 30 atmospheres of pressure: