The Worst Tube Map We've Ever Seen

M@
By M@ Last edited 85 months ago
The Worst Tube Map We've Ever Seen

At first blush, this (non-official) tube map shower curtain looks pretty impressive. Who wouldn't want to have a soapy adventure behind this classy drape? You can even hang it so that Waterloo lies next to your actual loo, while Mudchute lurks down by the plumbing.

But we need to have words.

First off, what's going on with the colour scheme?

The Northern line has gone District green. The Hammersmith and City shares the colours of the Central. The Metropolitan mercilessly plagiarises the Piccadilly. The Waterloo & City has merged with the Victoria line. The Overground has opted for the precise shade of yellow last seen in our urine the morning after a heavy night out. And as for the Jubilee... well, it seems to have been flooded by the Thames.

Water has made further ingress north of Camden Town. Here, the Barnet branch of the Northern line is shown in non-traditional green, while the Edgware branch is totally flooded. Hampstead? Dampstead more like.

Look harder, and you start to see other peculiar mistakes.

Notice how Morden and South Wimbledon have journeyed north to the Lambeth area? How did that happen? It's like those paper chromatography experiments we all did at school. The curtain got left in the bath too long, and the stations migrated upwards by capillary action.

OK, so perhaps someone lost track of a few layers when fudging this up in a graphics package. But how do you account for the following error?

What error? Look closely and you'll see that the three letters 'i' in 'Limited service' have all gone upper case — but not those in the label beneath. (In case you're wondering, 'ELW' was the name of the rail replacement bus route that ran from Shoreditch to Wapping when the East London Line was being converted to the Overground.)

And there's more. Look at the poor old DLR out of Bank.

Not only is it wearing an away kit (looks like Piccadilly blue, with added white stripe), but it also terminates abruptly before reaching Shadwell. Passengers should be reminded to hold on tight for the sudden plummet into Leman Street. The truncated DLR also leaves Limehouse high and dry. At least it's wheelchair accessible.

This error-ridden shower curtain was purchased via a random seller on ebay, whom we're not going to gratify with a link. A bit of googling reveals that tube shower curtains are a bit of a thing. There are many variations out there, all presumably knocked together and marketed without permission from Transport for London.

So, now you know what to buy the tube pedant in your life. This washout of a shower curtain is guaranteed to get them in a lather.

With thanks to Sarah McCabe for agreeing to spend a Saturday morning photographing her shower curtain.

Last Updated 03 February 2017