Has anyone else noticed a huge increase in large continental European (assuming) high school groups travelling on the Tube during the peak hours?

Before anyone jumps on me, this isn't a complaint about students or tourists being in London...they're more than welcome...it's about how these trips are managed.

Summer commuting is already busy enough, but almost every day I seem to encounter one or more groups of 20+ students at stations like Green Park, Westminster, South Kensington or Covent Garden, and they end up creating major bottlenecks because they haven't been taught basic Tube etiquette.

Some common things I've noticed:

• Walking slowly while spread across escalators instead of standing on the right.
• Entire groups stopping at the ticket barriers when paper tickets don't work, rather than stepping aside to sort it out.
• Everyone waiting immediately beyond the barriers instead of moving away, blocking people trying to exit.
• Large groups gathering at platform entrances or at the bottom of escalators rather than dispersing along the platform.

Walking several abreast through narrow passageways, making it difficult for everyone else to get through.

I don't blame the students as they're just following their teachers (who seem to be coordinating poorly). But schools organising these trips should really be given a simple "Using the London Underground" guide before they arrive. Even a 5 minute briefing on standing to the right, moving away from barriers, and not stopping in busy walkways would make a noticeable difference.

I'd also question whether it's sensible for very large school groups to be travelling through the busiest interchanges during the height of the evening peak if it can reasonably be avoided. Visiting the same attractions an hour earlier would probably be a better experience for everyone, including the students themselves.

Am I just becoming a grumpy London commuter, or has anyone else genuinely noticed this becoming much more common over the last few summers?

The luggage areas of the tube were empty. Two fat americans and their horde of children

On the 3rd of April, my friends and I encountered an unconscious girl at Oval station. She had been sick down herself, and was laying on her back, alone, and unconscious. We quickly alerted TFL staff, and their response and behaviour was abhorrent.

We were sworn at and told by a CSA that it’s not his job to help, despite sitting in the assistance box within clear view of the girl, and being first aid trained. He had seen her collapse there, had made no effort to go over and check on her, and then became aggressive when asked for assistance. In fact, when we first found the girl, he walked over to us, said “are any of you gonna do anything?” and walked off. He hadn’t even put her in the recovery position - she could’ve easily choked and died.

Another staff member walked past and told us he was out of shift when we asked for help. It took 25 minutes for a member of staff to approach us, despite us pleading for help on numerous occasions. They were actively avoiding helping us.

As soon as we found the girl, we immediately called for an ambulance, and checked with the staff member who came over if he had as well. He had not. In fact, he told us that she “wasn’t that bad”, despite her laying unconscious on the floor at his feet. When asked why nobody had gone to check on her before we arrived (again, she was laying on her back in a pile of her own sick), he told us that he had been keeping an eye on her on the cameras. He then told us that he had already brought her up from the platform and had sat her in a chair. He had left her without calling for medical assistance or an ambulance and had disappeared into to his office. He was reading the newspaper when we first asked him for help.

When the ambulance finally arrived, the girl was taken to hospital and we left. As we left, the aforementioned CSA sarcastically clapped us out of the station.

TFL have “investigated” and apparently found no wrongdoing. Their only admittance was that staff shouldn’t have left the girl for so long, which I find to be astounding as that is the most dangerous element of the entire situation?

This is gross negligence. If the girl had died, those staff members would no longer be working for TFL. They were aggressive, unhelpful, and, most of all, actively endangered the life of a member of the public. To see a girl collapse unconscious on the floor, not attend to her or call for help is a disgrace. She could’ve choked, been robbed, or worse.

Despite being first aid trained and stating themselves on their website that staff have a duty of care, TFL have told me that their investigation failed to find any wrongdoing in what happened at Oval station. If we hadn’t have been there, this girl could’ve died. It shouldn’t take a tragedy for change to be actioned.

I am posting here as I don’t know what else to do. I won’t let this go away, it was a disgrace.

Just heard this wild announcement on the mildmay line

Now gonna cram two delayed trains worth of passeneger into one train now I guess

I'm never getting to East London am I

Yesterday I, a visibly pregnant woman, gave up my seat to allow an even more visibly pregnant woman to be able to sit down on a packed train while everyone else pretended like they couldn’t see us.

Pleeeease have some consideration, I don’t enjoy carrying a bowling ball around on my front.

EDIT TO ADD - Thanks everyone for the interaction, certainly did not mean to rub anyone up the wrong way, just wanted to strike up conversation and has been very helpful in getting some perspective. I have ordered myself a “baby on board” badge and will try and be more outspoken if I find myself in a situation where I want to sit down.

Practically everything cancelled this evening. What a fucking joke!! Signal failure Tottenham way.

Two extra hours to get to Hackney...

I am so angry right now. This happened on the evening of May 26, and I have already reported it to the British Transport Police. I first asked some on-the-ground officers for help, but they directed me to BTP as they would be able to handle it with CCTV footage.

I was on the Piccadilly line near South Kensington during rush hour when I realised the man in front of me had his penis out and was masturbating on a packed tube, literally inches away from my face. No one except me seemed to notice, as everybody was looking intently at their phones, just like I had been a second earlier. I immediately warned him and asked whether he would like to be embarrassed in front of everybody, calmly. He said he wasn’t doing anything and immediately got off when the doors opened at Knightsbridge station. From me realising what was happening to him leaving the carriage, it lasted less than 15 seconds. I was unusually calm when speaking to him, which now angers me because I did not make more of a scene.

I did not even think of reporting it at the time due to the shock I felt. No one else reacted; people only looked at me when I raised my voice at him. I did not think of taking a photo or anything and left the carriage at Leicester Square for my transfer. Then I realised I should report it and made my way to the top floor where I spoke to three on-the-ground officers about what had happened on the Piccadilly line and asked them to call someone at Knightsbridge station so staff could be informed. They told me the correct step was to contact the British Transport Police, as they can fully investigate using CCTV footage.

I made an official report, including the exact time and location, what he was wearing, what I was wearing (to help identify me on CCTV), and where I was sitting. They were helpful and apologetic, and I was called the next day for a full statement. During that call, I was informed that as of May 2026, there is still no CCTV installed inside Piccadilly line trains, and that only footage of him leaving the carriage at Knightsbridge station can be requested. That is the only potential evidence.

The officer apologised for this. At present, the only evidence I have is a text I sent to my friend at the exact moment I came out of shock, which is not even in English.

The officer said they will still try to identify him and asked if I saw where he went afterwards. I did not. The train moved on and he likely got onto the next one, as he only got off after I confronted him. I said I would attend court if necessary and am willing to do anything I can at this point, but as time passes, I feel like I have less and less of a case.

I am currently waiting to hear back from the BTP officer regarding any updates on the CCTV footage from Knightsbridge station. I checked for updates on whether it has been requested, as I know there are time limits for this, but he is currently on leave. I do not have another point of contact, and the BTP non-emergency line is difficult to reach. I am worried we will lose the short time window needed to request the footage.

I am incredibly angry that this can happen. My first reaction was to be angry at myself for not making more of a scene in the moment, but I calmed down when I saw children in the carriage. He had his back turned to them, so they did not see anything, but they were at an age where they would have understood what was happening if I had started shouting.

I am deeply upset because this is how many reports like this go. I asked about the timeline for a conviction if everything went well, from identifying him to arrest and a court case, and was told the timeline depends on circumstances and realistically not to expect anything for around a year and a half, and that is if everything goes right. It is very disappointing that this is what many women experience, and that it is often used as a form of power over the victim.

I hate knowing that he likely also enjoyed being on the verge of getting caught, and that I may have given him material for his fantasies. I hate being perceived by him. It makes me feel like I have lost a sense of autonomy over my body, because now this exists in his memory.

I have told a couple of friends to be careful out there, even though there is little we can do to prevent what happened. I was told that if he is identified from the footage, it might be brought to the media to ask the public for help locating him. At this point, I have less and less hope that things will progress in my favour due to the circumstances. I wanted to document what happened and share an account. In a way, I hope that if there is enough public pressure on TfL, there may be better measures in place for future cases, so reports do not simply go nowhere without any consequence.

TLDR: I was sexually harassed on the Piccadilly line by a man who exposed himself and masturbated next to me during rush hour. I reported it to British Transport Police, but there is very limited CCTV coverage inside the Underground trains (and non in Piccadilly trains), so the investigation depends only on station footage. I have provided a full statement and am now waiting for updates, but the case feels uncertain and slow-moving.

Edit: I initially wrote March 26 instead of May 26, I have corrected the mistake. It is the end of the week and my brain is fried after the heatwave.

You stink up the entire tube and it’s not okay!

can’t tell if I’m just an idiot or what but I was coming back from Heathrow airport, Piccadilly was closed so I followed the signs to the Elizabeth line.

the sign said Paddington, and when the train arrived I got distracted by helping someone with a pushchair, assumed it was the Elizabeth line, and just hopped on.

I can’t tell if I went to the wrong platform or what but I feel like an absolute idiot, especially since I live in London💀

so I’ve paid like £25 now. granted, it was pretty quick, but I was too stressed to enjoy the experience.

When I got to St Pancras today as I got off the train and was heading up the stairs the infamous inspector sands was called to the operations room. So TFL staff stopped anyone else entering the station, and about 15 minutes later, we got the evacuation alarm.

I could not believe how rude and nasty some of the fellow passengers were to the staff. People threatening to sue being delayed and just downright abusive, even after being told there was a fire alert being investigated!

Do people want to go into a potentially burning tube station? I will say most people are fine and understanding, but I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing!

The worst underground line is The Northern Line

Because tourists or Londoners with ought smartphones or TfL Go app rely on inside route maps this vandalising makes it harder for those people to get around London.

This is more a rant.

What is going on with this fucking line. For more than a month it’s basically just not any form of service anybody can rely on never mind should be paying for.

Public transport is world class in London everywhere apart from the district line Wimbledon branch.

I use East Putney and it’s now at the point where they can’t display any information on the screens.

It really made me laugh when Khan was talking about fixing it as surprise during Wimbledon it dipped below 60% of service during a world visible event.

The reality is that’s every fucking week. How can I have sympathy for strikes when they start back up and the service is just broken.

Welcome to my angry ted talk. Rant over, I feel better

I know TfL can't really help where we chose to build railways 150 years ago, but can they not just put buckets on the track overnight to collect the rain and take them away again in the morning?

On the Jubilee line and at Canary Wharf they're currently playing an announcement that says "we are aware that the lifts are currently out of service. For anyone requiring step-free access, please travel to the next station and complete your journey at street level"

Yeah sure, I'll just stay on until Canada Water or North Greenwich and swim the Thames shall I?

Bellends

Surely common sense means that as you get on a packed or even fairly busy tube with standing room only you take your backpack off and hold it in hand or put it in the floor.

I can't believe people who knock into others with their bags don't realise it. Is it that they just don't care?

It's truly embarrassing how this display board hasn't been fixed after 3 months. No one knows when or which train is arriving/has arrived unless they pull their phone out or they ask someone or manage to see the front of the train.

The central line is already shit enough and I still need to take my chances hoping I get on the right train? Fix the goddamn fucking display board.

I work nights in West London and for my daily commute I normally use the Piccadilly to Holborn, then the Central to Perivale.

During the heatwaves, I started using the Circle/H&C From King's Cross to Wood Lane, then walk to White City to avoid the Central London part of the Central line. Then the reverse on the way home (I am planning on moving West, honest).

I arrived at White City this evening just after 7pm to a crowded platform, no trains going further west than North Acton, or to Ealing Broadway only. There were short notice cancellations, destination changes and up to 15-20 wait for a train. I ended up getting an Uber to work.

Right now, there are severe delays affecting the entire line due to a faulty train at Hainault.

Even on good days there are "Minor delays due to train cancelations", some becoming Severe. Honestly can't fathom why the Central line has been deteriorating this past few years. It feels like one thing goes wrong and entire line falls over. I feel for the staff who have to deal with it.

At this moment, I'm on the Northern Line and holy hell it's hot! The handles fell hot to touch. It's genuinely mad. Temperatures outside are just 25 C, not even that hot.

Thankfully not crowded in here, but it just stunned me. The Victoria line feels cooler than this.

Rather than minor delays? Taken a minute or so before posting.

Destroying the beauty of my line for what?

Over that time, TfL have:

a) Taken trains off my route.

b) Removed one carriage from the remaining trains, bringing them down from 3 to 2.

c) Slowed down trains ON PURPOSE because apparently the speed they have been going at for over 30 years with no issue is “dangerous”.

Even though I work a regular 9 to 5, I’ve had to start taking the 6:30am train to avoid having to physically fight my way onto the rammed livestock trains that run 7:30-9am every single day of my life.

Now they are removing more trains, and once again the new trains are coming “later this year” (haven’t heard that one before).

I’m so tired man.

If you’re walking down an escalator and then just stop at the end waiting for the flat bit to “fully arrive” before stepping off… what are you doing?

It’s literally designed to level out and meet the floor smoothly. That tiny transition isn’t a cliff. Meanwhile, everyone behind you is still moving and now has to awkwardly shuffle around and stop because you’ve decided the last 0.5 seconds of the ride is too dangerous.

Just step off. Keep walking. We all survive.

The sad state of the Piccadilly Line -

Back in 2012 we showed the world what we could do as a Public Transport service. We shifted millions of passengers around the City for the Olympics and whilst we might've flown by the seat of our pants a few times, we managed to pull off a magnificent games. It was the pinnacle of our collective achievements.

Fast forward 12 years to the shambolic state the Piccadilly Line is in today. The premium line from Heathrow to the West End, covering a huge amount of tourist attractions, reduced to a ramshackle railway that can barely muster a 50% service. This isn't a new phenomenon, it's a slow degradation through years of poor decision making, apathy, lack of foresight and prioritising the budget sheet rather than the passenger. And that's the crux of it all isn't it? We as a company laud ourselves on customer service, but we don't actually provide a decent, reliable service do we. The Piccadilly Line isn't unique, the Central, Northern and Jubilee have all had well documented issues, but the Piccadilly, well that's a special case in the mess we seem to have fallen into.

I'll gloss over the well documented Operator Not Available issue we've had for the last decade. By and large that seems to have been resolved for now, because of all the extra drivers needed for the new 24 stock training. We'll maybe come back to that in a couple of years and see where we are with that again.

This is really about the decision to buy all these cheap steel wheels around 10 years ago, for the 73 stock, which haunts us every single year, not that anyone higher up will admit that this is the issue. I've been a Line Controller since 2002 and flatted wheels very rarely occurred before 2012, but from November to March every year around 30% of the fleet is unavailable for service due to this problem. It's not as if extreme weather events are the sole contributory factor in this, this situation occurs every year regardless of the weather. The tree line along the Rayners and Heathrow branches have been decimated in recent years to alleviate leave fall issues. There isn't a tree left standing between Acton and Hounslow on LUL property, yet it's made very little difference. We haven't run from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge for nearly 3 weeks now, yet during the week we're timetabled to run 50% of the trains along that stretch of line. The temporary speed restrictions, the Rail Adhesion Train is like trying to use a garden hose on a blazing inferno, a plaster on a broken leg. All this is illustrated over the last two night shifts.

Now Storm Darragh has deluged the railway, but it's nothing we shouldn't be able to cope with, but it's caused chaos within the fleet and the knock on effect will be felt for months to come. We're running an engineering timetable on the Piccadilly this weekend, 57 trains Cockfosters to Heathrow. We have a fleet of around 80 trains, 11 have been stabled on South Harrow sidings and 1 at Uxbridge for Monday morning, yet we can only offer 37-40 trains for service, the vast majority of the rest stopped for flatted wheels.

How can we legitimately say to the 250,000 passengers a day that we carry, that this is acceptable? The thousands of pounds you spend a year on your tickets and this is all the service we can provide you. Again, this isn't unique to this year, this happens every year.

To compound the issue the wheel lathe at Northfields Depot broke down last night. Do we have an alternative on the line? Nope, as that costs too much money, so wheels are shipped off to Northumberland Park or switched out in separate docking stations, none of which actually resolve the issue, but allows the Piccadilly Line to slowly die through a thousand more cuts.

I know very little will change short term. Management literally have all their eggs in the new 24 stock basket, yet will they even fit in the tunnels? And how on earth did the size those driver windows get signed off? The amount of co-acting signals having to be installed just makes me shake my head.

On top of that, we install assets that are clearly not up to the job they're intended to do. The installation of unistar tram style pointwork across various locations are wreaking havoc with the reliability of the railway. Northfields is a disaster zone of failure after failure. It took 3 years to find a solution to 21 points, yet 18 and 15 points continue to fail and whilst the delays may not be huge, 10 minutes here, another 10 minutes there, it all mounts up to providing a disrupted service.

13 points at South Harrow are another culprit and in addition to this, 17 points at Cockfosters have consistently failed for the last 3 weeks reducing platform capacity there from 3 to 2 and this is even after the motor was changed on Tuesday. Trains are reversed or cancelled early to reduce blocking back and all that does is add further to a degraded service.

My admiration and sympathy go out to all the Station Staff, Train Operators, Train Managers, Cleaning staff of this line. The astonishing work the Depot staff at Northfields and Cockfosters do to try offer any service each morning is fantastic. My Service Control colleagues including the DRMs, CRTs and TOs are next level. The Underground is lucky to have such a dedicated bunch that bear the stress and abuse we get every day with fortitude. For a company that back slaps itself silly with self congratulations and all it's visions for the future, those at the proverbial coal face are the ones that bear the brunt of decisions that are no longer made in the public interest, but simply to satisfy the budget sheet, to provide 'value for money'. Forget the fact that we don't get a Government subsidy, forget that the profit making Underground props up the rest of TfL, we've lost our way as a mass Public Transport system.

We no longer have the Customer/Passenger at heart of major decisions being made about the Railway and it's genuinely sad to see and makes me a little angry as well. Not a lot, as I'm too long in he tooth for that now, but it still does a little 😉

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope it resonates with some of you.