Ever caught the tube from Nork to Cheam, or picked up a flight from Debden airport? It's all possible in the latest tube pastiche from map wizard Alastair Carr.
This time, Alastair imagines the Beijing subway overlaid on geographic London. The two maps are anchored with Tian'anmen East corresponding to Trafalgar Square. Then, everywhere you'd find a station in Beijing, the map shows what would appear in the corresponding London location. Got it?
The grid-like Chinese metro sprawls more than its London equivalent. If we had the same tunnels and tracks as Beijing, we'd be able to travel out to such exotic places as Bisley, Crayford and the charmingly named Tolleshunt D'Arcy, out towards Clacton.
While the suburbs might be better served, the West End is hollowed out, with no stops between Edgware Road and Holborn. The area south of the Thames is also relatively lacking in tube lines, just as with reality.
The other major change would affect trivia fans. Today, the only station to contain none of the letters of mackerel is, famously, St John's Wood. On this rejigged underground, we'd look to Sipson.
The map has no practical purpose, but it's fascinating to imagine the London tube if it had been centrally planned to a grid-system.
It's another barnstorming effort from the man who brought us the tube map that never happened, the inside-out tube map and, of course, the tube map of Waitrose versus Lidl. Follow Alastair's blog, Not Quite Tangible, for more.
