Come on baby, do the locomotion

Doesn’t everybody want to do the locomotion? Little Eva pointed us towards something essential when she sang The Locomotion, that classic song by Goffin & King from 1962 which told us everybody’s doing a brand new dance and I know you’ll get to like if you give it a chance. And she was right. Whether you’re a driver or a passenger, we all love to feel that movement from where we are to where we want to be, as long as we remember to do it nice and easy and don’t lose control with a little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul.

You may be familiar with the red line on the London Underground map crossing the city from East to West. Today known as the Central Line, it originally opened as the Central London Railway or CLR in 1900, extending in the 1930s until it reached its full length and became the Central Line after the Second World War.

It was the line I took when I first jumped on a tube train in Epping as a kid after a short Green Line bus-ride from Harlow. It started its journey as an overground train, and I’d been on those before. But I still remember the marvellous sensation as we dipped out of the daylight and drove into darkness underground before pulling up at the platform of the ominiously named Mile End station. It felt like the end of the world I’d known before but it was reassuring to discover that the tunnels through which we trundled were all miraculously equipped with stations where people like us could get on and off – and climb back to the surface.

But let’s not lose sight of Little Eva‘s guiding light, because the Central Line in London was also a place for much experimentation concerning locomotion.

In fact, as the Line’s Wikipedia page explains : It was initially operated by electric locomotives, with motor armatures built directly on the axles to eliminate noise-producing gearboxes, hauling carriages. This did not allow springing, and the locomotives’ considerable unsprung weight caused much vibration in the buildings above the line, so that the railway rebuilt the locomotives to use geared drives. This allowed higher-speed and lighter motors to be used, which reduced the unsprung, and total, weight of the locomotive.

Finding myself on the same line as an adult back in the UK on a brief visit, I realise that, in a world where designers and engineers have solved so many problems, the sounds of the Central Line haven’t changed at all. It is still as noisy as ever, sounding like some mad percussionist is beating on the carriages as we rush and rock between stations.

When there aren’t delays, of course. Because tube travel is not only about a chugga-chugga motion like a railroad train that Little Eva promised. It is also fraught with delays. Fortunately, delays require explanation in these days where passengers are more than mere passengers : we are customers and, as such, we get announcements.

The travel text below is about transport announcements when things go wrong. It us based on real events and real things people said. The driver did his best to keep unshakeable faith in his power to move, yet that didn’t mean that he could do the locomotion at will.

What he did prove, however,in two public announcements as that that just wanting to do the locomotion and sharing that with others can even make you happy when you’re feeling blue.

I ask myself if this is a typically British incident or if could happen elsewhere. Comments are open for any thoughts you my wish to share about this.

Determination

On the Central Line rush hour tube
On our way to Woodford, we think.
A longish halt at Liverpool Street
Brings a station announcement:

All change. This train terminates here.
Eastbound traffic is suspended indefinitely.

The carriage rough and rumble stirs,
Blood pressures, panic unbuttons,
Ready for the final shootout,
Until our boyish driver sounds:

I am not aware of any termination,
Ladies and gentlemen, and therefore
Invite customers to get back on
The train for immediate departure.

We alone as visitors laugh.
Our fellow riders are too used,
Too used to having such hopes dashed.
The punch line puts paid to all revolt:

This is your driver again.
Apparently there is an obstacle
Blocking the line at Stratford.
Nobody ever tells me anything.
But then I am only the driver.