Episode 2 The Tube

Good morning. It's me again.

Below London's streets exists another world.

CHEERING

The madness is my swimming pool. I'm at home in that kind of water!

Every day, 20,000 workers

struggle to keep four million people on the move.

There's a customer asleep on the platform? Get them on the train.

And it's not easy,

when the tube is undergoing the biggest upgrade in its history.

You've got five minutes. I want this site cleared!

Now, cameras will reveal an underground world

we've never fully seen before.

10,421 mobiles since April.

Listen to what I'm saying. Pay-as-you-go. Yeah?

You just went.

-SHOUTING

-This guy running up the stairs. We need to stop him!

HORN BLARES

That's the underground part of the city.

London comes down here every day. It IS part of their world.

It IS part of everyone's world.

I love you.

TANNOY: Late service. One minute behind.

It's Monday morning at Seven Sisters station in North London.

Have your tickets and passes ready for checking, please.

Excuse me, miss. Your ticket, please.

Ticket. Oyster?

London Underground revenue inspectors

are carrying out a ticket check.

Hello. Have you got a ticket?

I can't use the machine. I'm in a mad hurry.

You need to go and buy a ticket. You can't just come in without one.

I'm going to report you for fare evasion.

You could end up going to court, and facing up to a £1,000 fine.

-I topped it up today.

-Not with this one, no.

Working in plain clothes, Revenue inspector, Tom Brady,

-is in charge of the operation this morning.

-It's manic.

There's not enough inspectors. You could double the amount.

As you can see, this is a very problematic station.

You do find an awful lot of ticketless travel.

Basically, every train, you'll probably have three, four minimum.

Hello, sir. See your ticket?

PHONE RINGS Hello. Seven Sisters?

The general problem in London now,

where people think the whole world owes them.

A lot of people come through there without tickets, all the time.

They come through. "Let me through".

I say to them, "Where's your ticket?"

"Oh, I haven't got one". "But you need one".

"No. I haven't got one, anyway".

The analogy I give them all the time is,

you cannot go to Tesco and grab a loaf of bread,

and say to them, "I'm hungry, but I haven't got the money, anyway".

You can't do that. That's stealing.

You don't get things for nothing. You must pay for things in life.

Nothing is free. No free dinners.

Hello, sir. Just check your ticket?

Every day on the underground,

60,000 journeys are made, and not paid for.

-Do you agree you should buy a ticket for your journey?

-No, I don't.

Would you have continued to Edmonton Green,

-and avoided your fare?

-Yes.

It's up to the tube's revenue inspectors

to catch fare evaders in the act, handing out a £25 penalty

to anyone without a valid ticket.

See your tickets, please, gents?

Ticket?

FRENCH ACCENT: When I finish, I take the ticket. I go up town.

The ticket for today, I don't take. I take this.

Why did you not buy a ticket today?

Because I'm going to get money off my mum, right now.

I'm not paying £8 to go five, six stops. It's just pathetic.

It's London. No one buys a ticket.

London Underground loses £20 million a year from unpaid fares.

From their base in Kensington, the revenue department

are in charge of developing a strategy to combat the problem.

Right. Let's have a look at how we're doing this period.

Monthly performance meetings assess the damage.

If we start at the top level,

our hot stations list.

Fare evasion is high at Stratford, Oxford Circus, Liverpool Street,

Finsbury Park, London Bridge,

King's Cross, Seven Sisters,

Victoria, Ealing, and Paddington.

We are constantly amazed by the ingenuity

of a small minority of customers

who are determined to evade paying a fare.

You do get the very blatant fare evaders,

but you also get people who, on the surface,

you'd never believe would do it.

A lot of these stations will be hit at weekends, now.

We haven't done that, necessarily, in the past.

The revenue department

has 200 ticket inspectors across the network,

to try and stay on top of all the different types of fare evasion.

The sort of things they might do is misuse their travel card.

They'd travel through Zone One, when they're not entitled to.

You do get people misusing their Freedom Pass.

We have had a real spate recently of counterfeit tickets.

But we're pretty confident that we're one step ahead.

At Oval station, in South London,

staff have finished dealing with the morning rush hour.

People, when they come up the escalators,

the first things their eyes look for is the Thought of the Day board.

They could be stressed. They could have problems at home.

But when they come out and see this,

it brightens up their day.

People come out of their way to come to see the Thought of the Day.

I've chosen one by Christopher Reeve.

He was paralysed,

so he was hoping

that one day, possibly,

he would get better.

Oval station is also the base

for the team of plain clothes revenue inspectors

who patrol the Northern Line.

Do the normal, like go to Elephant & Castle...

Diane McConnell and Denise Brunker

are two of its longest-serving members.

We don't even know how long we've worked with each other.

I think it's about eight years.

We probably spend more time at work than we do at home.

A lot of people call us "Cagney & Lacey".

We're quite well known.

BEEPING

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Revenue control inspector. Have your cards ready, please. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I've seen you before.

You need to come off at the next stop and have a quick chat.

Denise and Diane have caught thousands of people

trying to travel for free.

If you HAVEN'T come from Kennington, tell me now.

-Cos I don't think you HAVE come from Kennington.

-No.

I KNOW you haven't. So, where have you come from?

Um...

Like anything, if you're caught doing something,

you'll take a chance, and maybe try and bluff it.

If you start asking more questions, they're digging a bigger hole,

because they're telling more and more lies.

Eventually, they come clean, and say "I'm sorry. Blah-blah-blah."

You didn't really buy a ticket, did you?

Be honest with me, and I'll be fair with you.

If you keep telling me about tickets you didn't have,

I'll have to deal with it differently.

-So, did you have a ticket?

-No.

-Where have you travelled from?

It falls down to body language.

We have a famous saying. "Pocket dancing".

That's a typical one that someone hasn't got a ticket.

They're sitting down. "Can I see your ticket please?"

They look in every pocket. They know they haven't got it.

-"Just show me the ticket. Have you got one?"

-No.

That's "pocket dancing".

TANNOY: The next station is Chalk Farm.

Sorry. What ticket did you have?

If you just come off at this stop, and have a proper look?

Take your time.

How about the pocket in your trousers? Did you pop it in there?

-Oh, no!

-No, it's OK. Don't worry.

Take a seat. There's nothing to worry about. Take a seat.

Take a seat.

Some people get emotionally upset, for whatever reason.

They might be having problems at home...

All different reasons why she's being like this.

Even though she's crying,

It doesn't really wash with us, unfortunately.

Crocodile tears, they may not be. They might be real tears.

If I felt sorry for every person crying, I'm in the wrong job.

Same as Diane, and then the other inspector.

So, we'll just play it by ear, see what happens.

She may have a ticket she doesn't want to show us.

We'll see what happens.

Cos you cannot find your ticket,

this inspector is going to write out a ticket for you,

but it is also a penalty fare.

You have 21 days to pay this penalty fare.

Or 21 days to appeal. OK?

So, can you show us some ID?

I don't know what do you say.

-OK. We'll talk slowly to you.

-I am a ticket inspector.

I check tickets.

You lost your ticket.

-You can't find ticket?

-Yeah.

-You can't find. No problem.

Some people, they may not be able to SPEAK English...

I just talk slowly, and I try to have an accent.

Not the same accent as them, but I suppose it DOES come out like that.

-Octo-bah?

-Oco-tober.

-Octo-bah?

-Your birthday?

-No.

Septem-bah?

I use that technique. It works for me.

I get a lot of stick from colleagues, but it works.

Can I have your name, please?

-Name? Name?

-Yes, your name. Your signa-tcha.

One moment. I have to get penalty for you.

Eventually, the customer admits to having a ticket

which is not valid for a whole journey.

And she leaves with a penalty fare.

It's not the crime of the century.

It's a ticket issue.

But it does cost London Underground a lot of money.

All the revenue they lose could be ploughed back into the system.

We would have a really good system.

The tube can't afford to lose all this money to fare evasion.

On top of the daily running costs of £6 million,

London Underground have committed to spend a further £10 billion,

modernising the entire network.

The most pressing and expensive project on the upgrade programme

is replacing one third

of the underground's entire fleet of trains.

On the Metropolitan Line, one of the lines due a complete upgrade,

many of the trains have been in service for over 50 years.

The trains are housed at Neasden Depot.

This is the existing, A stock train.

Doug Jayes is the fleet manager.

They came in 1960/61.

There's a lot of seats. There's not much room to get through them.

Luggage racks, which takes you back. That's where the old guard was.

The driver's quite close to what he needs to do.

He has all his controls next to him. Doors, air gauges, speedo.

Traction controller, to move the train. Brake, to stop it.

When you look at it, it IS old.

It's 1960s build.

Probably 1950s technology, and maybe before with some of the equipment.

I came in here in the '70s, had my apprenticeship.

I spent my life on these,

and one or two other stocks we've had through the depot.

It's like an old car. You become attached to it.

Much as we'd say to you, "No, we don't care", of course we do.

Of course we care. We've nurtured them over the years,

and there's a time for everything to go, isn't there?

As much as we love them, they have to go.

150 miles north of London,

the replacement fleet is beginning to take shape.

Staff at Bombardier Transportation in Derby

are building 191 state-of-the-art tube trains.

We fit all the end panels, the seat rises.

All these glass poles.

How long does it take to do this stage?

It's 13 hours, from start to finish.

Each of the train's eight carriages

is made of hundreds of constituent parts.

Starting with an aluminium frame,

the carriages are assembled in stages on a massive production line.

Trying to set the doors at the moment,

so they close almost perfectly together.

It looks tricky.

This one is proving to be, at the moment.

If it's not at the right angle, when we test it,

the sensitive edge will fail.

Which means a small child could get their arm trapped at the bottom.

Never actually been on one of these, myself,

so I don't know how well they work. Hopefully, they work.

Do you think the passengers in London

know how much work goes into making these?

I like to think they appreciate what I do...

I wouldn't really know, really.

They're all high bankers down there, aren't they? Well paid jobs.

The new trains will carry 25% more passengers.

They're the first underground trains to have air conditioning.

The biggest thing is it's air-conditioned,

and you can walk from one end to the other.

It's a brilliant train, to me.

How can the public not love this train?

You can see all the way through it. There's space.

Carries more people. This is the train of the future.

There'll be a lot of them. Let's hope the public's happy with them.

There's enough hard work gone into them, believe me!

WHISTLE BLOWS

Trains are coming off the production line at the rate of one a week.

Every Monday, a new train leaves the factory in Derby.

Pushed by a diesel locomotive on the main line rails,

it will arrive in London late Wednesday night.

An update from the controller, here at Finchley Central station.

At present, the District Line is operating with minor delays,

due to an earlier signal failure at Earl's Court.

Morning rush hour at Finchley Central,

a suburban station at the top of the Northern Line.

And an unlikely hotbed for fare evasion.

We discovered recently a chap who travels from Barnet.

For the past three or four years, he's never paid a shilling!

He's travelling free from East Finchley to Barnet

for the last four years. He's never paid a penny!

Finchley Central is one of the few underground stations

without a ticket barrier.

The majority of customers use plastic smart cards,

known as "Oyster cards", instead of paper tickets.

When there isn't a gate line, they're expected to touch

an oyster reader to be charged for their journey.

But not everyone can be trusted.

He's thinking about it. No, he won't bother today.

It's free!

You're more than welcome to join the free system that we provide(!)

HE LAUGHS

Here's another freebie.

Welcome(!)

He waved at us!

Here we go. Here we go.

You're welcome(!)

Have another free journey(!)

Where have you just come from? Station?

This station, Finchley Central. Where you come from?

This morning, Denise and Diane,

and the Northern Line revenue team have come to Finchley Central.

You have not touched out, OK?

Now, you can say you did. I'm telling you, you didn't.

Therefore there's a penalty fare.

If you can pay now, it's £25. Do you have £25?

-What crime did I commit?

-You haven't committed a crime.

Listen to what I'm saying.

-Pay-as-you-go, yeah?

-Yeah.

-You just went!

Within an hour, they've given penalty fares to 20 customers.

Good morning, there. Revenue. Just check your ticket there, my love?

I do feel sorry for a lot of people

I end up reporting, or penalty faring.

They're doing that action because they literally have no money.

I suppose they're just surviving, at the end of the day.

I've stopped you before, haven't I?

-I remember you.

-Sometimes, maybe.

A while back, yeah.

-Are you working?

-Sometimes.

-OK.

-What do you do?

-Building work.

-Nice clothes!

-Builder.

It's hard out there for lots of people today. It's not good.

Just checking tickets.

I didn't see you touch out that's all, I have the right to ask.

The thing is that I work here, McDonald's.

Two or three days, I got the job. I can touch it now, sir.

No, that's why I'm here. It's not negotiable, that's why I'm here.

-How much is that going to be, sir?

-The penalty fare...

-Yes?

..is £25 if you pay on the spot or in three weeks, yes?

To some people, £25 is not a lot of money

so they think, I've made a mistake, I'll pay it.

But to other people, £25 is maybe their week's food,

so it's a big, it is more of a big deal.

I suppose it all comes down to money at the end of the day.

-Do you wish to pay any money now, sir?

-I've got only £10.

That's OK, you can pay it later.

Hang onto that, you'll need that for lunch.

When I said can I see your ticket, you said

-you haven't got one, yes?

-Yes. No job.

-Unemployed?

-Yes.

People like me who are on benefits, we don't have much money

at the end of the day, on a week to week basis.

So some of us do it, we sometimes, we get away with it plenty of times,

but there are sometimes we do get caught.

It's a gamble. You get away with it,

you get away with it, you don't, you don't.

He was nice, he was lovely. But it's not free.

He's got a bike. He could've cycled!

The tube system covers all the Greater London area,

From barking in the East, where the average household income

is less than £24,000, to Richmond in the West,

an area with one of the largest number of millionaires in the country.

Thank you.

-Round-trip to Wimbledon, please.

-£7.30, please.

£39.40, please.

-It's going to be £4 each.

-How much?

-£4 each.

80% of all underground journeys are made with an Oyster card

to take advantage of discounted fares.

But for the small number of passengers without,

a single cash fare in central London costs £4.

-I'm going to Euston Road...

-Yes.

-Just the two of us, it's £4...

It is, £4 each, yes.

SHE LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

Bloody expensive.

I come from New Zealand, we don't have subways,

but we've been around Europe and Paris

and it's like a euro or two euros at the most,

and we've got to pay four euros for one section.

I was going to get it from the machine and thought, it can't be right,

so I asked the lady and no, it's right. Bugger.

It is a lot. If you're only going one station, £4,

it is a bit steep, I think.

That's why a lot of people don't bother.

They just go upstairs and get a cab,

which, I don't blame them really. Hello.

-Can I get £10 top up?

-10?

THEY SPEAK IN ITALIAN

They were alarmed at the fares.

Apparently in China you can get across the whole system,

one hour travel, 20p.

It's a shock if you say it's £4 for a single ticket.

-Can I have two to Waterloo, please?

-Just one way or are you coming back?

-Yes, just one way, please.

-£8.60.

-What, to Waterloo now?!

-It's going to cost me how much? Eight quid to get to Waterloo?

-Yes.

You're having a laugh. Cheers.

London is London.

Wherever you go, you go outside and buy a drink, it's expensive.

You go out for a meal in central London, it's very expensive. Hello.

-Can I put £20 on that?

-Sure.

They need the money to update the underground.

Where else is the money going to come from?

They get a certain amount from the government,

but they don't get the amount they need.

If people want a good, reliable service,

for us to be able to do the good, reliable service,

we need the money to go into the pot to make all the repairs.

Simple as that.

London Underground's annual pot of money is £4 billion,

half of which comes from government and borrowing

and half from customers' fares.

Good afternoon, reception 55 Broadway.

Every four weeks at the company's central London headquarters,

the tube's finance directors meet to assess how the money is spent.

Talk me through investment then.

At Tottenham Court Road we need to understand closer why it was 2 million.

They're 4.1 down, year to date.

We've got to understand what that means for the year end.

-It's not rocket science.

-No.

This railway is enormous.

It carries over 4 million passengers a day

and you can't do that on a shoestring.

The largest cost is undoubtedly wages, about £4 million a day.

You've got head office costs, you've got maintaining the trains

we're one of London's biggest users of electricity,

traction current alone is best part of £100 million a year.

£100 million. Imagine going home, opening an electricity bill

and thinking "Oh, it's £100 million a year."

It's best part of £3 million on stationary. Right?

Yes, no, you are reading it right. That's that...

As well as everyday running costs, the Underground is committed

to a further 15 years of upgrade work

at the cost of £1 billion a year.

We've got old assets and an increasing number of passengers,

growing exponentially every year.

So the network is getting busier, our assets are getting older,

we need to invest, not because we like delivering projects,

it's because it benefits our customers.

Less crowding, more reliable, really, really important.

The morning rush-hour is over.

And at the north end of the Metropolitan line,

on one of the Underground's many open stretches of track,

technical officer Adam Gloor is starting his daily maintenance work.

We've got to change this light bulb.

One of the green lights, one of the green lights on here.

I think they made these signals about 70 years ago,

but I think they came into use straight after the war,

that sort of time.

It's only because we've found some bits of paper in there,

talking about the transformers in here

and the date of manufacture is 1930.

Signals are essentially traffic lights for the train

and they're vital to the safe running of the Underground.

Across the network's 250 miles of track,

there are over 9,000 sets of signals, all of which need regular monitoring.

These cables, if they're not tight, it would cause a failure.

Again, just tightening the track connections.

If you lose too much voltage it causes a track failure.

I think we look at these every 12 weeks,

and it's worthwhile because

the chances of them causing a failure is quite high

because there's moving parts in there and we have to get the water out

because that could freeze in there for another failure again.

Every technical officer is responsible for a few hundred metres of track.

Adam has been looking after the north end of the Metropolitan line for 10 years.

It's nice coming out here, as long as it's not too cold,

the fresh air, you just feel alive out here.

It feels more natural being out here, yes, then stuck in a tunnel.

There's a lot of pride in doing a good job.

Sometimes I come out here and think

that wire's about to fall off, I can repair it,

knowing it definitely would've been a failure.

-No one really cares...

-When it doesn't go.

I can go home and tell the kids but they'll be like, "Oh, OK.

"Can I have a pizza?"

Yes, I'll go over by there.

-All right.

-You hang around here, yeah?

-No worries.

-OK.

Just a few stops away, at Willesden Green station,

two ticket inspectors are working undercover.

All right, buddy?

Hello. Can I have a quick word with you? Where's your ticket money?

Just come this way a minute.

I've just watched what you've done. OK?

-Just put your hand over the reader and followed the woman out.

-Yes.

Just put that through there, buddy.

When you just went through the gate, the lady in front touched

and you went like this,

put your hand over the monitor and quickly went behind her.

-I did not.

-You didn't touch this on the gate, I watched you.

Most of the revenue London Underground lose from fare evasion

is not from one off opportunists, but from a small minority

of passengers using various scams to persistently avoid payment.

I'm going to check out the address here. Shouldn't take too long.

The tube has set up a special task force to track down

and prosecute these long-term offenders.

Ben and James are working together on the operation.

He tells everyone he's the brains and I'm the brawn.

REPORTER: Is that true?

I'll let people draw their own conclusions.

He is the computer whiz, I'll give him that. He's the CCTV expert.

And if I need a bit of muscle, I do turn to James.

We're complimentary, mate. That's what we are.

TANNOY: ..train to Barking.

This afternoon, Ben and James have been called to Latimer Road Station

where a particularly determined fare evader

has been giving the staff trouble.

Our major problem at the minute is a long-standing chap.

It's this, er, him.

White male, mid 40s, flat cap.

He's a white bloke, mid 40s, tubby. To be honest, he looks like

an old football hooligan, that's how he dresses.

He's always got Ralph Lauren gear on

or shorts and boating shoes or trainers and that.

The station CCTV shows the customer forcing his way through

the ticket barrier on numerous occasions.

He just comes through and smashes the gate down, makes his way on to

the station and waits for the train and I assume he does the other end.

If he comes through now, he asks to be let through.

If you just say no, then he just kicks the gate open anyway.

We need to try and identify him, really.

He doesn't really cooperate

with the station staff I don't know if he will with us

but we've got to give it a try.

While Ben and James are gathering evidence,

someone matching the customer's description

arrives at the station and he doesn't have a ticket.

How did you come through the barrier?

It was open. These things were down,

the black things were down here and it wouldn't take my £20.

-Can I have a single, please?

-I think this is the flat cap guy.

Can you confirm, this is flat cap guy, yes?

-Yes, that's him.

-Definitely?

-Definitely.

-Cheers.

Adrenalin does go a little bit

because if you've got a person you've got images of

and when you see them, it sharpens your senses, I think that's the guy.

I'm not here to bunk the trains, I'm 44 years of age, mate.

-Have you any ID on you?

-I haven't got ID, mate.

-I'll just take some details...

-Listen, do you have to

-carry ID in this country?

-No.

-Right then.

I haven't got no ID.

I went to pay for my ticket, all right?

That's what I'm checking out. We've told you who we are.

-You ain't got no fucking...

-No need to swear, mate.

-What's the matter with you?

-You! You're the fucking matter!

These fucked up trains! You're the fucking matter!

You need to calm down, mate.

What are you going to do if I walk out,

None of you are police officers?

What if I walk out of here? What the fuck are you going to do?

Can you get out of my face, please? Yeah, please, Dave.

What the fuck are you going to do? No, it's not that. I'm pissed off.

Why are you pissed off at me? All I asked is where you travelled from.

Your poxy machines won't take this!

We'll take some details off you and you can be on your way.

You might be abusive,

but it doesn't deter from the fact you haven't got a ticket.

Tell him to stop calling the police, will you? Silly bollocks in there.

-It's water off a duck's back, really.

-Does it not bother you?

-No.

If it bothered you, you couldn't do the job for any length of time.

-We're here today. We're revenue inspectors.

-Right.

We look at things that go on in this station.

I have to say, I suspect yourself

of several offences of fare evasion over the last couple of months,

and also committing by-law offences on the underground. MOBILE PHONE RINGS

-I'm cautioning you. You've given your details. You don't have to stay.

-I'll phone you back.

I'm cautioning you. You've given your details. You don't have to stay now.

-I'll be writing to you, basically.

-No problem.

-Cool.

-Cheers.

-Thanks a lot. Sorry about the outburst.

-No worries.

-So here's the caution.

-I've had it all me life, guv. Can I just get...

I'm just going to read it cos I have to, right?

Instead of a penalty fare,

this customer was prosecuted in court and fined £1,240 plus costs.

-I'm going to be writing to you, right?

-Yeah, I'm moving.

-He's a nice chap, wasn't he?

-Oh, he's lovely.

You, you fucking slags!

-Excuse me.

-Fuck off!

In an ideal world, everyone could travel for free

but we don't live in an ideal world and that's not the way it is.

So, you know, myself and Ben, we don't dictate what the fares are.

Again, if we did, I'd say everyone could travel for a pound or whatever,

but obviously they can't run the network receiving a pound per person,

so fares are what they are.

Back in the city, the last of the commuters have headed home

but the work isn't over for the tube.

Keeping the city moving through the evening is a big challenge.

Any hold up in the service will affect thousands of passengers.

At Liverpool Street Station, a busy central interchange,

supervisor Jane Oakes is overseeing the night time shift.

Liverpool Street is constantly busy all the time.

They want to go to Camden, the West End, Oxford Street.

Sometimes now they're going to Stratford, to Westfield.

People have things to do and when they want to do those things

they get on a tube.

Please use the full length of the platform.

Allow passengers to alight. Allow passengers to alight.

Towards the end of the evening, a problem occurs on one of the lines.

-WALKIE-TALKIE:

-'The line's been taken out.

'I'll let you know if I hear from the driver.'

All I've heard is a train possibly going out of service.

'Yeah, nothing moving on the westbound because of it.'

Appears nothing's moving on the westbound. Let's have a look.

-Be back in a minute.

-Excuse me, this train's not in service.

At Farringdon, a few stations down, a piece of track has lost power

and all trains on this line have been suspended.

-There's no moving on this platform.

-We've got a problem, mate.

-That's why we've got no trains, yeah?

-Metropolitan?

-No Metropolitan.

There's a problem on Metro. We have only got eastbound central.

This is when they get kind of angry

cos they're all trying to get the last trains

and it's not happening at the moment so they're going to be delayed.

Unless it's running soon, there'll be angry customers trying to get a bus.

There's no service on this line at all cos there's a track failure at Camden.

The night controller don't know how long it's going to be,

so if you don't go by an alternative route,

you won't get your last trains.

Hammersmith & City line, how am I going to get it?

-Central line, change at Holborn for the Piccadilly.

-No, no.

-There's nothing we can do, sir.

-Piccadilly don't do shit for me.

I don't fucking...

Get the Central line to Bank and change for King's Cross.

-There's not another train?

-Not at the moment.

With nothing moving westbound,

customers are having to find alternative routes home.

We need to get the Northern line but we can't get there now

cos this track ain't even working.

So... we need to try and get home.

And we can't.

If you need assistance, see a member of staff at the top of the stairs,

cos we're trying to get rid of trains and get people off.

If you're going south west London... Anyone for south west London,

-Victoria, Fulham, anywhere like that?

-Yeah.

-Bus number 11.

We need to go to King's Cross and there's no way to get there.

We don't have time to catch a bus.

At least they could tell people.

-INTERVIEWER: Have you got a train to catch at King's Cross?

-No, no,

we're just going to a party,

but it's an important party. We can't miss it.

I can't do nothing right now. I've got no facilities.

The ticket office is shut and I have no computer in my arms to do it.

I can't give you nothing, yeah? Give me one minute, mate.

-Please be patient.

-Yeah, but, I'm trying to get through.

-One time, one thing, mate, yeah?

-Fuck me.

-Wait to the side

then I can help you out, yeah?

-Where are you going to?

-Loughton, so can I get through?

-OK, please.

Don't swear. You're swearing.

-Yeah, I'm telling you to wait.

-Fucking prick.

They want to get to where they're going and if something's in the way

they don't respond well to it,

and especially if it's us having a break down, then we're just useless,

the worst people in the world ever and everything is our fault.

Finally, trains start moving again.

The track failure has only lasted 20 minutes,

but thousands of passengers have been affected.

Many have been stuck in tunnels

and will now miss their mainline rail connections home.

-The transport system is rubbish.

-Is it?

Yes, I've just sat for ten minutes on the train

and missed my own mainline train.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

'People paid a lot of money for their tickets'

and for what they pay, they expect an immaculate service.

No service is immaculate.

They feel they should get more though. Everyone wants more, innit?

'This station is now closed.'

All last trains have now departed from this station.

It's three o'clock in the morning, and at Neasden depot,

cleaners and mechanics are preparing the fleet for another day's service.

All the guys in depots and maintenance and that,

it's the unseen heroes for me.

It's the middle of the night and they're doing their job

and a lot of people don't see that

and don't understand what goes on when trains aren't running.

As well as the regular maintenance work,

once a week, Doug Jays' team has a special delivery to take charge of.

That's good, Tony. He's going at a nice pace.

The new train from Derby is being delivered to the depot.

That's good.

Pushed all the way by a diesel locomotive.

The circuitous journey has taken over 16 hours.

That's all right. Yeah, that's OK.

OK, take it away, please.

Another one in.

170 to go.

I'll do my walk round now and make sure everything's OK.

Do you receive? Over.

Doug is responsible for checking that the new train

is in complete working order.

'Due to an incident, arrangements are being made

'to transfer passengers from this train to the next station.

'Please remain where you are

'and await instructions from a member of staff.'

If you hear that, they will take you off the train on to the track.

Or if you're on a platform, get you off on to the platform.

'This train and station are now being evacuated.

'Please leave the train and exit the station.

'Follow any instructions given by staff.'

Only one feature from the old model remains completely unchanged.

Yeah, hi.

WHISTLE BLOWS

We have a standard whistle across the underground.

It's been with us for as long as I can remember.

It's a brass moulding, just like an old fashioned whistle, really.

You could probably use steam through it. We just put air through it.

WHISTLE BLOWS

'Testing, one, two, three, four, five.'

In just a few days time,

this train will begin its life of service on the Metropolitan line.

-I'm losing you, Steve.

-'Two, three, four, five.'

-That's it. Keep going.

'This is planned to be with us for 40 years.'

It's got a life coming to it, but hopefully it will withstand it.

We'll carry millions.

People being sick, people being ill,

people having parties on it at Christmas.

But it will certainly be running long, long after most of us

have retired and made old bones.

For every new train that comes into the depot, one of the old stock

is taken out of service and sent away to be scrapped.

I just wonder if you can help me.

I believe I may have left a novel on the train this morning.

I just wonder if you can check if it's been handed in this morning.

-Right, I'll see. What was the novel called?

-The Associate.

John Grisham novel.

Every day on the underground,

over 1,000 people accidentally leave something behind.

All the lost items come here

to a basement underneath the lost property office at Baker Street.

It's different every day. You just don't know what's coming.

That's a rucksack, obviously.

iPhone is quite common now cos everyone's got one.

iPads. You wouldn't believe how many iPads we get.

iPad 2 come out, I think it got released on a Thursday or something,

whatever day it got released.

By the next Monday, we had two of them.

Handbags is a nightmare.

That's the worst. It's crazy.

I don't want to say anything about women, but, wow.

Some of the things we see in handbags.

Knickers that have been worn. It's just not cool.

I found, like, a broken crack pipe, I think, which,

when you saw the Oyster card, it was, like, an elderly lady.

I don't know how that works. People do some crazy things.

40 full time staff work at the lost property office,

looking after everything that London loses.

Wallets and purses on this side.

Keys.

On this side is your ops, your sunglasses, glasses.

Handbags, school bags

and small briefcases, attache cases and that.

Lunch boxes and make-up bags.

Buggies, we got them all over the place.

Mobile phones on this side.

That's an awful lot of mobile phones.

We've had 10,421 mobiles since April.

MOBILE PHONE RINGS

Some of them are still switched on, as you can hear!

Sometimes in a morning and there's alarms going off everywhere.

It scares you.

At any one time,

the basement at Baker Street holds 200,000 items of lost property.

This is something that come in.

We nearly sent this to charity, which would have been funny.

Samurai swords.

-Any embarrassing objects?

-We had a couple. They'd been on holiday.

Opened the suitcase up and everything imaginable was in there.

Big ones, small ones, fat ones, thin ones. Gimp masks, the lot!

Did they come back and claim it?

Yeah, I think the guy sent his missus in for it,

cos there's no way I would have come in for it without wearing a mask.

Upstairs, it's the job of the front-of-house staff

to deal with the bereft customers.

I lost something on Sunday night.

All the things is some document.

-Like in a folder?

-In a folder and in Chinese.

-Oh, so the documents in this folder are in Chinese?

-Yes, right.

I'm inquiring whether something of mine has been found.

A computer carrier case like this. But there wasn't one in it.

I lost my wallet about a month ago now.

I had very shallow pockets that day and it just plum fell out.

Mr Speed?

And every day,

over 300 people are reunited with their precious belongings.

Ah, there it is. Memory stick. That was the important thing.

It's just my bag. It had my glasses in it.

A bit of a struggle navigating London cos I don't know the area,

so trying to see signs on the tube and in the street,

it's not been the easiest for me.

It's like seeing everything in HD.

What's in the bag?

Radio-controlled cars and a radio-controlled transmitter.

These are the cars.

There's like £400 here, so...

It was a huge loss.

My iPod, and I love my iPod.

I was getting off a train at Green Park to change

and the train lurched and I had two bags in my hand -

one had the iPod and my French book in there, to do my lessons,

and the other had my other thing, and when I got off, I realised

that with the lurching of the train, I had dropped the one bag.

-And the doors had just shut.

-Oh, no!

So I knew immediately, you see. I couldn't get back on.

-Here's your bag. You check it.

-Yeah, thank you.

I told you it wouldn't be. Somebody stole the iPod.

Well, they would, wouldn't they?

I've got the book.

Thank you.

At Ladbroke Grove station,

Ben and James are investigating another persistent fare-evader.

Since the Underground introduced Oyster cards

as a new method of paying for travel,

customers have discovered new ways of scamming the system.

We've come down, we need to have a look at some CCTV

and try to identify someone who's using this station.

It's Ben's speciality.

Why is it?

What James means is he's not very good with computers.

I know how to turn it on.

A central database records the activity

of all seven million Oyster cards currently in use across the city.

The data is carefully controlled and only held for eight weeks.

Suspicious patterns of use are passed on to the revenue department.

This is a recent report, that was given to us yesterday, wasn't it?

The database gives information about where and when

the suspect Oyster card was used, but not who was using it.

They need to search CCTV footage to match the card to its user.

On 5th August,

the person we're looking for came in at Ladbroke Grove at 16:28.

So now what we'll do is we'll look at 5th August for that specific gate,

gate number 41 and 42, at Ladbroke Grove,

and see if we can identify the person who's doing it.

-No idea what they look like?

-Absolutely none. Could be a male,

-could be female.

-Sorry, James. Just got it.

-OK.

-Who are we looking at? The guy in blue?

-Yeah,

the guy in a blue T-shirt, big headphones on.

He's touching in on the entry gate with an Oyster card.

He goes in through that gate.

-Watch the paddles on the way out.

-He's turning,

and he's reaching towards the way-out Oyster card reader.

He touches on there and this gate is seen to open,

so he's touched in and then touched out, and now he turns

away from the gate and comes up the stairs towards the platform.

By touching the entry and then the exit reader at the same station,

the customer fools the Oyster system into not charging him

the full amount for his journey.

So he should be walking up the stairs towards this camera.

Let's hope so. Here he comes.

He's smiling. Busted.

Do you think they know that you can see them?

No.

No. Most people are not aware that all their movements

with Oyster are recorded and kept.

Now they have a face and a regular pattern of travel,

Ben and James will return to Ladbroke Grove

to try and find the customer.

If we come down to try and intercept him,

I bet he's wearing the same big red headphones.

If you listen to music on the train, you'll do that...

-..all the time.

-Yeah, as a habit.

On the Metropolitan Line,

the new train from Derby is almost ready for service.

It's being given a final test run.

For the train operators who work on this line,

new trains mean learning to drive all over again.

I say it's like a new mobile phone, you know?

Once you get used to it, they're very easy. I find them great.

Joe Breslin is one of a team of instructors

coaching all 303 Metropolitan drivers

on how to handle these state-of-the-art machines.

All right, then. Just take your time.

VOICE OVER RADIO - INDISTINCT

-VOICE OVER RADIO:

-'...west-bound at this time.

'A slight delay while we divert a defective train into Margate Bay Road...'

Some gentlemen retired early because they were too scared of this train.

They decided it was their time to go.

Some of our drivers have been on the line for 40-odd years, you know?

And having to go back to school and learn all over again.

They decided not to. They cashed in their chips and left.

TRAIN TOOTS

Unlike the old models, just one control runs these trains,

setting the speed and activating the brakes.

Known as the dead man's handle, the driver must keep hold of it

at all times, or the train will automatically stop.

OK, you're stopping...

The new trains are also two metres longer

and lining them up on the platforms isn't easy.

Spot-on, you're in. These trains are much more advanced.

They'll help you along. If you've got a problem it'll tell you.

Technology wise, it's light years ahead.

The old train is like a dragon.

You can hear it breathe and sigh and make noises and bang around.

This one seems to...just be quiet.

This is nice. It's the way of the future, man.

At £8 million a train,

the new fleet is costing London Underground £1.5 billion.

Quite expensive.

If you look at the Underground itself, it's 100 years old plus.

It has to continuously...

You have to decide what you want. Either you want to run a...

-a railway or not.

-Passenger numbers are increasing every year.

-Yep.

The Olympics coming up.

I think we carry something like 20...

Is it 24 million customers a week?

Let's just say, "Let's not spend any more money," and the whole thing will just fall apart.

In their office next to Baker Street station,

Ben and James are on the trail of the man with the red headphones.

How long is it going to take him to go from Homerton

-to Highbury and Islington and from there to King's Cross?

-It should take about 20 to 25 minutes.

Right, he's going to have to be somewhere along the line

-or at Ladbroke Grove.

-Yep.

We're just sort of debating our best tactics

for catching up with the user of this Oyster card.

It's been fairly consistent for the last three weeks

that they've made the journey starting in the Homerton, Hackney area

at around about 7:15 to 7:40, and exiting Ladbroke Grove

any time before just before 8:00 till about 8:30.

Ben is monitoring the Oyster system.

When the customer begins his journey at Homerton,

they'll head to Ladbroke Grove, hoping to intercept him.

OK in Homerton, 7:40.

So we need to get moving.

We actually can't show you the way that we normally get down there.

We have these, like, poles.

-RESEARCHER LAUGHS

-But...

I'm just getting on the train now. I'm on my way there.

I'll be there in about ten minutes,

but we know the individual we're looking for

is definitely on his way there.

Three units down there already.

The customer's destination is only ten minutes away,

allowing Ben and James to get into position before he arrives.

-You're wearing the same outfits again.

-Yeah.

He's a higher rank. He has three stripes. He's a sergeant.

I'm only a corporal.

-OK.

-Just have a look at the loading.

-Let's have a little look.

-I'll just wait along here, Ben.

-Yeah, yeah.

Spotting their man at the station is going to be a long shot.

Although they're certain that his card has touched into the system, there's no guarantee

he'll come to his usual station or that they'll see him in the crowds.

-Want to check them all?

-Yeah, they're all all right.

In the images we've got of him, he's wearing big red headphones.

If it's too busy, Ben, anyone who looks similar, we'll do a stop on.

All right?

Hello, sir. Ticket inspector for London Underground.

Could I just check your Oyster card, please? Thanks, mate.

OK. Yeah, can you just take your Oyster card out?

I just want to check it's the Oyster card that I want to find.

-Watch it - you're going to drop money.

-Yeah, it is this one. OK.

-Where have you travelled from this morning?

-Homerton.

-OK.

-Have you got any other tickets that you're using today?

-No.

-OK.

-I need to get your name and address.

-Why's that?

Because I'm investigating suspected offences using this Oyster card.

I gave my Oyster card to my friend to use as well.

-You shouldn't be doing that.

-If I'm not going on the train

-and he wants to use it...

-No.

-It's not transferable.

I think you know this Oyster card hasn't been used correctly

and that's why you're trying to say someone else has been using it.

-OK.

-Is that right?

-That's not right.

-OK.

Shall we move back from the platform edge?

At the moment he's saying he lost the card and someone else had it

but he won't tell Ben who it was but the CCTV and everything else that

we've got proves totally different to that, so we'll see how we go.

What you normally do is you touch in at Homerton,

then you immediately touch out at Homerton,

and then you get on the train

and then the next time you touch out is here at Ladbroke Grove.

-You remember doing that?

-So, is that a bad thing, then?

-Sorry?

-Is that a bad thing?

-Yes.

Basically, there's no reason for doing what you're doing

unless you know it saves you money by avoiding paying for Zone One.

-There's no explanation for doing that.

-I've answered your question the best as I can.

I've been naive. I was silly. Check my record. I'm a clean boy.

I've been to university. I've done all of that.

POLICEMAN SPEAKS - INDISTINCT

You've got at least a £10 note in your wallet. I saw that.

The customer eventually gives his details

and is later prosecuted in court and fined £110 plus costs.

I have more sympathy with people that really can't afford it

and are just doing it because they...

They're honest with you and they say, "I just can't afford it. It's too expensive."

Compared to someone who you deal with and you know pretty well that they can afford it, but they just...

Personal greed - they want to save money.

It looks good. "Love hurts more than hate."

It is a lot of love. It's Friday, the weekend. People might feel happy.

Hello?

-Hi. I'm from St Pancras...

-Yes?

I paid £3.70.

Right. The fares did go up.

Since I've been working here they've been gone up every year

but people still pay it.

They have to get around London somehow. The quickest route is the Underground.

The new trains, they're fantastic. They're bigger, they're spacious, they're well lit.

-It's better than before, definitely.

-It's the best. The best, definitely.

I think it's cleaner.

It's smarter.

But it wobbles a bit.

Yeah, they do look different.

They look streamlined and they look acceptable.

A train is a train.

Once you've seen one train, you've seen them all, basically!

Good morning, revenue control.

Tickets and passes, please. Thank you very much.

If you don't touch in, or touch out, it is a penalty today, of £25.

They get caught in the end. They all get caught in the end.

And we tend to think, "Oh, horrible place, horrible people."

But it isn't!

I think the majority of Londoners are nice people,

they're honest people.

This is definitely the best city in the world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd