Capture a piece of History, in advance.
London by Tube. 2008.
Harry Beck.
You may not have known his name until this moment but chances are that if you’ve travelled through London at any point, you’ll have seen his work. In 1931 Harry Beck was an employee of the London Underground (Tube, as it is commonly called) and he designed the Tube Map, pretty much as we know it to this day.
Cheers Harry – it’s helped me enormously across the years. xx
However, as of 2010 and with the implementation of the now relatively familiar Oyster Card which is about to stretch its powers of entry and exit far further afield, there’s talk that the Tube map will become defunct…? Hmmm.
Sure, it remains valid for the Tube itself but with Overground and buses now all qualifying the Tube Map does perhaps seem a little antiquated…
So, what next?
Frankly, I have no idea how anyone will try and replace the Tube Map and incorporate the breadth and range of the Oyster Card – a challenge indeed! I hope they manage something that’s at least tidy because for all I admire Harry Beck, I’ve still had to help out endless tourists in deciphering it!
Nonetheless, there’s a chance that those funny little leaflets, freely available from each station, will soon disappear. No more will we find them wedged into corners of escalators, skid on them as we rush on to the Tube or have them blow across our feet as we exit rush hour stations.
I think tomorrow, I will take a quiet stroll down to my local station. I will stand to the side as people rush by. I shall look at the system we have in place currently; a system that has changed with little acknowledgement from me across the years (except when my Oyster didn’t cap or they decided to charge me £3.00 for getting one – bastards! Bloody technology 
) and I’ll pick up one of those tiny Tube Map leaflets and tuck it carefully away in my pocket.
In times to come, I may re-visit this blog post and be grateful. Cheers Harry.
