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Ladataan... The Little Book of the London UndergroundTekijä: David Long
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With 980 million passengers a year, more than 250 miles of track, literally hundreds of different stations and a history stretching back nearly 150 years, the world's oldest underground railway might seem familiar, but actually, how well do you know it? Do you know, for example, who the Queen sat next to when she first went on the Tube in 1939? Or what they did with all the earth dug out to make way for the Piccadilly Line? Or indeed why it is that without the common shipworm, Teredo navalis, the Tube network might not even exist? Thought not. But now, with 10,000 wacky facts at your fingertips, The Little Book of the London Underground will tell you everything you need to know - and plenty more that your probably don't. Kirjastojen kuvailuja ei löytynyt. |
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Google Books — Ladataan... LajityypitMelvil Decimal System (DDC)388.42809421Social sciences Commerce, Communications, Transportation Transportation Local transportation Local rail transit systems Underground systems (Subway systems) History, geographic treatment, biography Europe England and Wales LondonKongressin kirjaston luokitusArvio (tähdet)Keskiarvo:
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In a nutshell: Author Professor David Long provides a sweeping overview of the London Underground, including fun facts, trivia, and more in-depth stories about the people behind it.
Worth quoting:
“Holden was a Quaker … he too declined a knighthood, maintaining that because successful architecture was the result of good teamwork it would be inappropriate for him to profit from the work of others.”
Why I chose it:
I went to the Museum of London last week, as part of my attempt to get to all the free museums before I get a job. I made the mistake (given the size of my to-be-read pile) of going into the gift shop, and ended up leaving with FOUR London-specific books, including two about the Tube. This is the first of those.
Review:
This is not a chronological narrative of the London Underground, so if that’s what you’re looking for, keep looking. Instead, it’s a fun collection of facts, figures, and stories that might make me somewhat obnoxious when I’m traveling on the Tube and find cause to share a fact with my traveling companion.
Prof. Long does offer some things you’d expect, like a time line of the the Tube, a description of each Underground line, and some interesting stories about the people who helped get the different lines from imagination to reality. But he also includes topics like the different maps that have been used (and ways the maps have been revised in clever ways, including one where each line is a genre of music, and each station is a person or band in that genre, with intersections of lines including people who cross genres), how the Tube was used during war, different trains and Tube technologies, as well as how the Tube has featured in pop culture.
There was one area that I found a bit ignorant: in the discussion of the use of escalators vs. lifts (elevators), Prof. Long uses the phrase “…relatively few stations have resisted the temptation to switch from [escalators] to [elevators].” But there’s no mention of how inaccessible this makes the Tube. He’s interested in the technology aspect, but it strikes me as a missed opportunity to treat it solely as a tech issue and ignore the very real impact it has when there is no step-free access.
Otherwise, it’s an entertaining book that has given me some ideas of things to look out for, such as the art at my nearest Tube station, or disused stations I can spot in the tunnels. And hopefully it’ll help bump up my pub quiz scores. ( )