What happens in a Tube station when all the passengers have gone home? Why do Tube workers carry cards about rat piss? And why isn't standing on the right of an escalator necessarily a good thing? Londonist finds answers on our latest nocturnal investigation. Some of London's busiest Tube stations are in a mess. Missing tiles and chicken-wire cornices are a familiar site, especially at King's Cross and Leicester Square. It's a case of......

Unlocked safe, stack of explosives...not a scene from a Guy Ritchie heist movie, but Golders Green Tube station. It was revealed yesterday that rail union staff discovered maintenance detonators (along with what was thought to be petrol) in an open, unattended safe at the station. The explosives are normally used to alert track workers to oncoming trains during night work. After this security embarrassment, they're being used to illustrate "a worrying slip in safety standards......

While the line between vandalism and art continues to be trampled brazenly by the likes of SheOne and Banksy, unwanted spraypaint artworks and broken, pissed upon station furniture are still just unwelcome and unpleasant to some. The Conservatives have released figures that show vandalism has indeed increased over the last three years with Bickley station in Bromley experiencing a charming 87 incidents of "urban guerilla artwork interventions" in 2005-2006 compared to the wee three......

The 15-year-old girl who went missing last Wednesday after going to meet a man she met on an internet chatroom has been found safe and well in a park in Hammersmith. The cost of building the London 2012 Olympic Stadium might have just gone up from £250 million to £280 million. London Underground has published its third Annual PPP Report and it shows "unacceptable failure" by Metronet and Tube Lines to meet the challenges......

On our way to the Londonist Dungeon this morning, we were unlucky enough to be travelling in the Central Line as it went absolutely tits up. Our friendly and throughly engaged driver told us that the problem was a signal failure at Bethnal Green. Having used the Central Line for nigh on 12 years, we've become used to this kind of bestial shit, but this morning we found ourselves wondering..."What does 'signal failure' actually......

- Woman goes to court over £1.20 bus fare. She claims her Oyster Card didn't work, TfL claim "the Oyster card readers rarely fail". She needs to hope for a judge who gets the bus a lot. - Tube Lines (who currently control the tracks) may buy some of Alstom's Northern Line contract. Not that Tube Lines have a got a perfect track record (excuse the pun) either. - Ken has backed the proposal for......

- Northern Line shows no sign of reopening. "We are still working very closely with London Underground and Tube Lines to resolve this issue as quickly as possible," say Alstom. Although no word on what is actually getting done. - An Algerian man wanted in connection with the London bombings was jailed for three years in Bangkok yesterday for forging French and Spanish passports...confusing huh? - A 'No Shoot To Kill' conference is taking place......

Since a brakes scare last week the Northern Line has been pretty much crippled with almost constant 'severe delays' and crowded, interminable waits for anyone using it. The problems began when LU were forced to double-up drivers on the Northern Line trains after four (count them: four!) "incidents of emergency" i.e. brake malfunctions. Since last Friday the service has improved a bit with two-thirds of trains operating as opposed to just the half which......

A couple of bits of Underground news came out today and, as you would expect, one of them focuses on increased security for drivers and other tube staff. As the Guardian reports today the Rail and Maritime Union has drawn up a list of security demands which include: - A "no radio, no train" rule. - Clarification of the "code amber" procedures - i.e. should an entire network be closed after a suspect device......

The Guardian are reporting today that in the past two years the total amount of fines that have been imposed on the companies who operate the London Underground system is £26.5m. That may sound like a lot but bear in mind that in the year end to March 2004 Tube Lines made a profit of £41m while Metronet made £50m. Plus Metronet SSL (who look after the Metropolitan, District, Circle, Hammersmith & City and......

This is nice and would be nicer if we lived somewhere else. Londonist has often noted that Mexico City has a better underground than we do and Stefan Magdalinski noticed the same thing on his travels through Thailand, Argentina, Korea, Tokyo... just about everywhere. When he noticed that Transport for London were publishing disruption maps he grabbed some and threw them together in this quick time movie: 15 Days of Tube Hell in 3......

Just once we'd actually like to see Ken get in the wrestling ring with one of these Tube Lines bosses so he could literally slam them. After all, it's the only real way to settle delicate and complicated transport policies: get in a leotard and start practicing your 'corkscrew leg drop'. But until that day comes we will just have to make do with figurative slamming which is what Ken got up to on......

According to statistics released today the Northern Line is Godawful. Why? Well, it's the only line on the entire sytem to have actually got worse in the past year. Tube Lines (who seem to have spent most of their budget creating pointless Flash animations for their website) failed to hit performance targets in all four quarters for the Northern Line, and to top it off, Transco also underperformed when it came to "cleanliness, graffiti......

How do you think bats have sex? In the dark we presume, with their little, inbuilt sonar going like the clappers. However, if said bats reside in Highgate Wood then they're unlikely to be getting any hot, nocturnal action thanks to the proposed construction of a new "Highgate Tube control centre". Ray Poole, headkeeper of the woods, is quoted in the local papers as saying "A number of rare bat species have been found......

It's becoming easier and easier to mock the London Underground system recently, what with the grand promises of a gleaming new transport system by 2012 and the fact that Jarvis are involved. But now it seems that the tube bosses are actually trying to make London's transport system the laughing stock of the world. We're talking, of course, about Jim Haynes of Tube Lines who said today: "If something goes wrong in the signalling system,......