If you ever do have to remove a body from the Underground don't forget to tap out their Oyster card as you leave the station. If that was someone's last ever journey, it's rubbing salt in the wound for them to be overcharged for it.
@@highpath4776 It's a single paper ticket with a magnetic strip and is retained by the gateline equipment. Different colours for different religions so the bearer can be directed to the correct line; not sure whether priests, cardinals etc. have special fast-track 'diplomatic' ones.
Approximately three years ago on the DC metro, I found myself alone in the car with just one other passenger. As I got to my station, she fell to the left in her seat. I couldn't see breathing, but I called to her, and, as we were alone in the car, yelled "are you all right? Can I help?" There was no response. I didn't want to touch her; if she were awake, I didn't want to seem like a threat. The doors were about to close, so I jumped onto the platform, got the car number and went to find the station manager. I reported that I thought the woman might be dead and gave the car number so that she could call ahead and have metro security check at the next stop. Two hours later, I'm coming back to the metro just as the manager is going off duty and we see each other on the stairs. I was relieved and pleased to find out that she'd hadn't been dead. An ambulance was called and she was taken to the hospital for suspected combination of too much alcohol and too little food.
I'd rather not go extinct while riding on Thameslink. Nor should I like to pass away traveling on Docklands Light Railway. But my life being over on the Underground, or six feet under on the Overground, would be better than having a shrine up on the Emirates Air Line.
Let us privatise the railway and it will be much better and much cheaper and so they did and it turned out to be just what we could expect, another Tory lie!
One of my grandmothers died while riding a train. People die everywhere, so why not on a train? Falling asleep while riding a train and never waking up again is in my eyes the most convenient and comfortable way to go from this world. It is one of the best endings I can imagine.
@@SheeplessNW6 And brings to mind the old saying: "I want to go like my grandfather, in my sleep. Not screaming in fear and terror like his passengers."
I was working nights at a station in the late sixties. The last train came in at the terminus of what was called 'The New Line' (that is, 'new' in 1917). A colleague checked the almost empty train and prodded a remaining passenger... but he had departed this world.
I recommend watching Denholm Elliot in ‘The Signalman’ for railway-themed chills. Also don’t forget the London Underground scene in ‘An American Werewolf In London’. Audio-only it’s got to be Godley & Creme’s ‘Under Your Thumb’.
I love all your videos, this one stands out for the eeriness of there being no other passengers on any of the trains or platforms - so spooky! Keep up the good work! 😀👍🏻🚇
Back when the snow hill tunnel re opened passengers at farringdon station reported seeing a ghost 👻 an old lady, a few drivers refused to use smithfield sidings because of the ghost 👻 I even swapped turns with a fellow driver because he wouldn't go to smithfield. In the end it wasn't a ghost but an old lady who had lived on the old snow hill platform since the mid 1970's You hear plenty of squeaks and groans when you sit on your train in smithfield 😱😱😎
We had a similar incident here in Zurich in a tram (line 2) in summer of 2021. A man in his 60s was on his commute to work and passed away on the way there. His body remained on the tram for several hours before it was discovered that he was in fact dead.
Reminds me of a much funnier story from a train. A German, a Dutchman, a Frenchman, and an Englishwoman find themselves seated together in a crowded suburban service in Paris. The train goes into a short tunnel, all is dark, and suddenly there's the sound of a slap. When they come out into the light, the Dutchman is sitting there with a freshly-bruised cheek. The Frenchman thinks "That Dutchman must have tried to touch that woman, so she slapped him." The Dutchman thinks "That Frenchman must have tried to touch that woman, and she slapped me by mistake." The German thinks "I hope we get to another tunnel, so I can slap the Frenchman, too."
The title of this episode made me think of Thomas Briggs, robbed and bludgeoned to death by one Franz Müller - presumably the first person to join the choir invisible by being murdered on a train.
A colleague of mine was driving a bus (No. 575, if you must know, a Dennis Dart, at the St Albans depot when it was in the same building as the recycling station) doing the S1/S2 service and a passenger died on the bus. He was shaken up and refused to drive it after that. It was known as the death bus for a while.
There’s a Bakerloo Line version, the dead passenger goes into the Queen’s Park North Sheds, which is the normal reversing point. Queens Park is national Rail and the station staff don’t kick everyone off of Underground train services terminating there 😌
Night shift covering the Station Supervisor's job at Upminster (BR trains and Underground.) Attended an uproar on the island platform where a girl who had just got off was getting some stick from her supposed boyfriend who was staying on the train. Escorted her of the station when I got a call from the signalman that a man had just stepped off the train that had departed from the bay platform going to Ockendon. Went to the scene and there was a man lying on his back beside the track, snoring. An ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital. He died a week later without recovering consciousness. There was no sign of injury nor any other reason for his death. Was he a body on a train and just got off to make it easier for his case to be dealt with? Who knows?
The whole theme of horror stories on a tube train brings me back to that VR simulator ride in Chessington. Apocalypse takes place while you're taking a pleasant journey along the underground
The amount of people, including myself, that fall asleep on the tube its slightly surprising how few there is of people having a nap and not waking up.
Nice video :) You might also have noted that, as a literary setting, a train has the property of being a 'bottle' - isolated and enclosed (c.f. Murder on the Orient Express, etc.)
A station assistant at Morden told me she found a dead body on her very first day in the job. It was such a hot day that he was still warm to the touch and she thought he had just dozed off. The best Halloween Tube movie is Gary Sherman's "Death Line" (aka "Raw Meat"). "Mind the Doors!" indeed.
Very enjoyable, as they all are, thank you. I've often thought you should do a video about the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Bruce Partington Plans', where a train running from Gloucester Road to Aldgate is a key part of the story. Would love to see the particular points and get your take on whether it was clockwise or anti-clockwise between the two stations.
I was going to suggest the same. And maybe something about how trains were used overall in the Sherlock stories. I'm guessing that Conan Doyle was pretty accurate in his description of public transport, but did he make any goofs?
@@matthewalker Yes, a few. There is a massive discussion in a thread on another Jago video about where the BPP body fell and whether the story could have been realistic, and a couple of other points were raised at the same time. Another interesting question was why Holmes, living in Baker Street, never seemed to have actually used the Underground, but went everywhere by horse cab.
Prince Bira of Siam died at Barons Court tube station 23rd December 1985, having suffered a heart attack. Unfortunately he'd been out of the public eye for quite some time and didn't have ID on him so it took a while to identify him. A very handy racing driver pre war and up in to the 1950's, including Formula 1 and Le Mans.
I've always found Essex Road station creepy and some what forgotten, the sort of place where a body wouldn't be found.... ever. Well chosen Sir so it wasn't just me then who feels this way about this station.
That whole section of Northern City Line is creepy (pre Covid I used it daily and it never stopped being creepy). Highbury and Islington and Moorgate aren’t too bad, H&I because it’s immediately adjacent to the Victoria Line, although it’s still a creepy interchange, and Moorgate because it’s been spruced up a lot and feels like the underground…but then you’ve got the awful history. Old Street and Essex Road though…*shivers*…both of those always freak me out.
@@trumptontally3383 It does seem a bit claustrophobic. I wonder if it's the relatively narrow platforms. The tiling and lights seem rather plain and gloomy too. No friendly adverts, low ceiling, pretty plain walls. The British Rail corporate image styling maybe doesn't work so well underground?
Loved it!!! Hauntingly Halloween tales 🎃 My Tube Horror film recommendation is: An American Werewolf in London for its great nostalgia, seeing Tottenham Court Road tube station in the early 80s with posters on the walls from that era. I used to love the vending machines back then where you could buy Cadbury’s chocolate bars on the platforms. Properly packaged in solver foil and a paper sleeve. And Polo mints. I vaguely remember seeing some vending machines where you could buy packets of Polos for 6d. It was still 10p but they had left the old price on the machine. Most of the time your money got stuck and you ended up with nothing anyway.
Note the prominent poster for the film ‘See You Next Wednesday’ in that scene! The little metal drawers would never slide out whenever I used those Cadbury machines and I always ended up losing my money.
I'm sure those vending machines were a scam, and never worked. Very few passengers would have the time or pen and paper to take down the address or telephone number of the complaints office; and the cost of postage or telephone call was also a disincentive. They could charge 6d for Polo mints because they'd get 6d for delivering nothing.
I loved this video. One like this I heard is one without the 'doctor' character and as the woman gets up to leave the 'corpse' tells her to mind the gap, and when she turns around to see who said it, the body is gone. Recently re-watched that Ghosts on the Underground documentary. I think more scary tales from the tube would be welcome...as you say its a compelling and great setting for it!
I remember reading stories from South America and Philippines about relatives transporting corpses in a bus or taxi to their home village pretending the cadaver is alive but severely drunk. The reasons were avoiding police intervention and costs of transport of a dead body. Also I can imagine someone passing away from medical causes while riding a public transport. Anyway the premise of a dead person riding the public transport among alive ones is an excellent thing and maybe this is why there still will be a lot of legends like that.
Spooky! I've never seen a dead person on the subway but I have seen people that looked not long for this world. If they manage to make it to the street it was a miracle.
I love 'urban myths', and this is a sinister classic. What was the station you show here that has all the advertising removed? That looked grim enough to be a cut scene from 'Death Line', or 'Creep'. - neither movie recommended to anyone who is even slightly nervous about using the tube (also: 'Quatermass And The Pit', and 'Skyfall').
The version of the story that came to mind for me, was the version from the movie Collateral. Where Tom Cruise's character mentions that it had happened on the LA Metro, riding back and forth, until the end of service.
So many tube stations, I would imagine, that would have a very spooky vibe.. even though it's not the Tube, the Northern City Line platforms at Moorgate, prior to the most recent modernisation, for a start, must have a very eerie feel in the quiet hours of the early morning or late at night...
A grim but weirdly enjoyable tale :) It sounds like the inspiration of a local 2006 movie made here in Western Australia called "Last Train to Freo", a brief synopsis: "When a young woman boards the last train to Fremantle two thugs become interested in her. It soon becomes apparent when two other passengers board the train that no one is who they appear to be". The movie in fact was based on a 2001 play called "The Return" by Reg Cribb, it has even grimmer story line: "A thug and his junior partner in crime take a late night train from Perth to Fremantle, menacing passengers along the way. For an hour they own the train. Riding the uneasy line between comedy and terror, The Return is a tautly written study in peer pressure, anxiety and suppressed violence in a social class which is often silenced" . ....Well now I've brightened up everyone's day I'm done .... Drew
I was on a bus trip to Adelaide a couple of years ago and one of the passengers passed away, likely from a heart attack. Trying to do CPR in a bus isle is difficult.
Given the number of passenger journeys on the tube, it is inevitable that quite a large number of them have died whist travelling. It is much less likely that foul play has been involved in all but a few cases.
Yes absolutely, During my days on the Railways a number of colleges had the unfortunate experience of finding dead passengers on trains they were working, of course the Police attended,and investigated but all were put down to Natural causes, no suspicious circumstances foul play etc.
The Chicago Transit Authority had a death train service from in the city of Chicago out to a Catholic cemetery in the suburbs with an elevator for the one way casket ride and the family / mourners all went out and back.
To be fair, there used to be LOADS of dead bodies on one certain train, back in the day of the Necropolis Railway. (Hope I didn't 'Cheese Salad' your next video, Jago).
I remember a scene from a film or a TV programme where a man on a train, reading a newspaper lowers the paper to reveal that his eyes have been removed. I've no idea where or when I saw it. I saw it as a kid.
The social dynamics of tube travel are indeed curious. As if being propelled through the bowels of the earth is an unwholesome activity, and human interaction would only compound the experience.
A chilling Halloween tale Jago. I used to travel to work on the Picadilly line and I remember one morning heading to Picadilly Circus. There was a massive large lady who's head wasn't visible as she was just like a massive mound of fat and the whole body just wobbled like a giant jelly. This was indeed a terrifying ordeal for me and the other fellow passengers and it wasn't Halloween.
Reminds me Department S, "Last Train to Redbridge" (again). For downright spooky versions, you can listen to "The Phantom Coach" or The Four Fifteen Express" by Amelia B. Edwards here on YT.
Hi Jago, once again a very interesting Tale from the Tube. As previously mentioned in the comments, I immediately thought of the Sherlock Holmes story “the Bruce Partington Plan.”
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was also inspired by him having to identify the mangled body of an adulterous woman who had jumped in front of a train. Happy Halloween!
3:54 Another of those unwritten rules is: DON'T make eye contact with the person sitting opposite you. It's one I try to hold myself to every time I use the bus, train, subway (Glasgow Subway for me lol) etc. I prefer not to have a conversation with anyone and everyone that early or late in the day; just not enough caffine in my system for it lol As for the body on the train story, there have been horror movies that have been at least partially filmed on the real Underground that sort of play into the core idea of the story; 2004's Creep* springs to mind (the posters/trailers for that one creeped 8 year old me right the hell out) in that respect. I believe the old Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross were used for filming scenes for that one, don't quote me on that though lol *: Not a patch of Kubrick's The Shining, my all-time fave horror movie; but I digress lol
Long before your time there was a film whose title I know not but it was a Victorian family trapped during the Underground works by a fall and they lived by cannibalization - the only words they could speak generations later were 'Mind the Doors' learned as they waited for a lonely passenger. Had a sad end.
I remember seeing a guy I thought might have been dead on the Red Line in Boston once. He turned out to be so monumentally drunk that, when the train reached the end of the line at Alewife Station in Cambridge, it took him four tries to exit the train, by way of ricochets off the upright handrails on either side of the door he was trying to leave by, the side of the door, and the conductor who came to see if there was anyone left aboard.
There was a story about students who dressed a plastic skeleton as a passenger and sat it on the Circle Line whilst watching people's reactions. Again probably an urban myth but the tube in London does lend itself to this sort of mystery
True stories now Jago. Once in the 1950s a train arrives at Victoria. Suddenly screaming women fainting. There was a head stuck on the front coupling. The driver thought he had hit a pigeon. Now. 2000 I was on the ticket barrier at Wimbledon. Word came they had found a headless body up by Earlsfield. I of course imagined a train running around with the head stuck on the front. Turns out he had been killed somewhere else and dumped by the lineside. Gruesome stuff.
I work on the tram in Stockholm sweden, and it was a couple of years ago where one driver came to the end station, saw a man sleeping tried to wake him only to discover that he was dead he had gotten on the tram then died.
I was once woken up on a terminated SkyTrain (Vancouver public transit) by a police officer yelling loudly in my face. When I asked why he had to yell, he said 'You could have been dead!' I am amazed at his belief he can wake the dead with his voice.
Closest I've seen to a corpse on the tube is a drunk sleeping between the tracks in Hammersmith (gave up getting the tube home that night) and a zombie on the Northern Line.
Heard this a few times, including a night bus version. Usually in those first few years of living in London someone will tell you this. Filed alongside the one about your friends brother’s mate driving the wrong way around a roundabout late at night, gets hit by another car, driver of which is found to be over the limit. Often with a supplementary flourish of the policeman coming over and telling your mate’s, brother’s, friend “this bloke reckons you were driving the wrong way around this roundabout. Lol, he’s well pissed”
I used to work as a bus driver in London. One of my mates was driving his bus one day and a passenger got on. He said `good morning` to my mate, sat down and dropped dead.
Actually, in the recent few years, there are several passengers in Beijing subway passed away due to heart attack. Causing Beijing subway decide to deploy AED in some stations from 2020. And just recently, two passengers got heartattack in the subway, and luckily in the stations with AED. And they were saved by it. These events directly cause Beijing subway to deploy AEDs to all stations by the end of 2021!
If you ever do have to remove a body from the Underground don't forget to tap out their Oyster card as you leave the station. If that was someone's last ever journey, it's rubbing salt in the wound for them to be overcharged for it.
most will be riding with a over60s card
Well I would, but they've already tapped out. Seems redundant.
Is this a procedure with supernatural reasons?
@@monotonehell Tapped Out is a euphemism for death I have never thought of using, sounds great. Wonder if the gates of hades require one for entry
@@highpath4776 It's a single paper ticket with a magnetic strip and is retained by the gateline equipment. Different colours for different religions so the bearer can be directed to the correct line; not sure whether priests, cardinals etc. have special fast-track 'diplomatic' ones.
Approximately three years ago on the DC metro, I found myself alone in the car with just one other passenger. As I got to my station, she fell to the left in her seat. I couldn't see breathing, but I called to her, and, as we were alone in the car, yelled "are you all right? Can I help?" There was no response. I didn't want to touch her; if she were awake, I didn't want to seem like a threat.
The doors were about to close, so I jumped onto the platform, got the car number and went to find the station manager. I reported that I thought the woman might be dead and gave the car number so that she could call ahead and have metro security check at the next stop.
Two hours later, I'm coming back to the metro just as the manager is going off duty and we see each other on the stairs. I was relieved and pleased to find out that she'd hadn't been dead. An ambulance was called and she was taken to the hospital for suspected combination of too much alcohol and too little food.
So just dead drunk rather than dead.
@Ian Kemp yes, much to my relief.
I'd rather not go extinct
while riding on Thameslink.
Nor should I like to pass away
traveling on Docklands Light Railway.
But my life being over on the Underground,
or six feet under on the Overground,
would be better than having a shrine
up on the Emirates Air Line.
Nice one!
So cool!!!
She was just shocked at the cost of travelling to Zone 5 on a daily basis...
Let us privatise the railway and it will be much better and much cheaper and so they did and it turned out to be just what we could expect, another Tory lie!
" ... he is an ex-passenger, he has ceased to be!" 😂
vis a vis the metabolic processes he's had his lot
Beautiful plumage though....
Nailed to his perch. . . .
Just resting
never gets old 😄
One of my grandmothers died while riding a train. People die everywhere, so why not on a train? Falling asleep while riding a train and never waking up again is in my eyes the most convenient and comfortable way to go from this world. It is one of the best endings I can imagine.
Unless it's the driver
@@SheeplessNW6 And brings to mind the old saying: "I want to go like my grandfather, in my sleep. Not screaming in fear and terror like his passengers."
I was working nights at a station in the late sixties. The last train came in at the terminus of what was called 'The New Line' (that is, 'new' in 1917). A colleague checked the almost empty train and prodded a remaining passenger... but he had departed this world.
@@johnjephcote7636 I guess that passenger had reached the end of the line
It would be creepy AF for the other passengers, though.
"A man came up to her and started talking to her" I instantly think "Ah a fellow Northerner !"
A bar fly was just about to jump into your beer. Another great contribution.
I was wondering if anyone else spotted that...
Beautifully presented, in just the right tone of voice. ‘Mind the doors!’ Great fun.
Yeah, great job. I am now afraid of doors 😂
@@bentilbury2002 I remember the Doors, great band.
Loved it Jago. See you again soon for ‘Another Tale From The Tube’.
i gotta love a halloween tale from the tube, as it's my fave holiday of the year
I recommend watching Denholm Elliot in ‘The Signalman’ for railway-themed chills. Also don’t forget the London Underground scene in ‘An American Werewolf In London’.
Audio-only it’s got to be Godley & Creme’s ‘Under Your Thumb’.
I love all your videos, this one stands out for the eeriness of there being no other passengers on any of the trains or platforms - so spooky! Keep up the good work! 😀👍🏻🚇
I hadn't noticed that!
Ironically a fly actually lands on your beer as you're taking a swig in the pub 😅
Back when the snow hill tunnel re opened passengers at farringdon station reported seeing a ghost 👻 an old lady, a few drivers refused to use smithfield sidings because of the ghost 👻 I even swapped turns with a fellow driver because he wouldn't go to smithfield. In the end it wasn't a ghost but an old lady who had lived on the old snow hill platform since the mid 1970's
You hear plenty of squeaks and groans when you sit on your train in smithfield 😱😱😎
We had a similar incident here in Zurich in a tram (line 2) in summer of 2021. A man in his 60s was on his commute to work and passed away on the way there. His body remained on the tram for several hours before it was discovered that he was in fact dead.
Reminds me of a much funnier story from a train.
A German, a Dutchman, a Frenchman, and an Englishwoman find themselves seated together in a crowded suburban service in Paris. The train goes into a short tunnel, all is dark, and suddenly there's the sound of a slap. When they come out into the light, the Dutchman is sitting there with a freshly-bruised cheek.
The Frenchman thinks "That Dutchman must have tried to touch that woman, so she slapped him."
The Dutchman thinks "That Frenchman must have tried to touch that woman, and she slapped me by mistake."
The German thinks "I hope we get to another tunnel, so I can slap the Frenchman, too."
I don't know whether I love or hate that story! XD
Thanks
The title of this episode made me think of Thomas Briggs, robbed and bludgeoned to death by one Franz Müller - presumably the first person to join the choir invisible by being murdered on a train.
North London Line ?
Interesting tale Jags. I look forward to the next episode !
Loved the emptiness; such a contrast with what 'the Tube' normally is.
A colleague of mine was driving a bus (No. 575, if you must know, a Dennis Dart, at the St Albans depot when it was in the same building as the recycling station) doing the S1/S2 service and a passenger died on the bus. He was shaken up and refused to drive it after that. It was known as the death bus for a while.
Love the cinema verite setting of this tale!
I thought I’d play around with the format, just for funsies.
Sounds like a story that was inspiration for Godley and Creme's "Under your thumb" song.
‘So I picked up an old newspaper, to read....’
damn it now i need to listen to "Under Your Thumb" by hit beat combo Godley and Creme
“…and screamed…” gives me chills when I listen to that song.
There’s a Bakerloo Line version, the dead passenger goes into the Queen’s Park North Sheds, which is the normal reversing point. Queens Park is national Rail and the station staff don’t kick everyone off of Underground train services terminating there 😌
Night shift covering the Station Supervisor's job at Upminster (BR trains and Underground.) Attended an uproar on the island platform where a girl who had just got off was getting some stick from her supposed boyfriend who was staying on the train. Escorted her of the station when I got a call from the signalman that a man had just stepped off the train that had departed from the bay platform going to Ockendon. Went to the scene and there was a man lying on his back beside the track, snoring. An ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital. He died a week later without recovering consciousness. There was no sign of injury nor any other reason for his death. Was he a body on a train and just got off to make it easier for his case to be dealt with? Who knows?
My local station... has a bleak history. You've inspired me to go and film it.
Where?
The whole theme of horror stories on a tube train brings me back to that VR simulator ride in Chessington. Apocalypse takes place while you're taking a pleasant journey along the underground
The amount of people, including myself, that fall asleep on the tube its slightly surprising how few there is of people having a nap and not waking up.
I thought this was going to be a video talking about the chassis frame body on a train engine.
Nice video :) You might also have noted that, as a literary setting, a train has the property of being a 'bottle' - isolated and enclosed (c.f. Murder on the Orient Express, etc.)
A station assistant at Morden told me she found a dead body on her very first day in the job. It was such a hot day that he was still warm to the touch and she thought he had just dozed off.
The best Halloween Tube movie is Gary Sherman's "Death Line" (aka "Raw Meat"). "Mind the Doors!" indeed.
Very enjoyable, as they all are, thank you. I've often thought you should do a video about the Sherlock Holmes story 'The Bruce Partington Plans', where a train running from Gloucester Road to Aldgate is a key part of the story. Would love to see the particular points and get your take on whether it was clockwise or anti-clockwise between the two stations.
I was going to suggest the same. And maybe something about how trains were used overall in the Sherlock stories.
I'm guessing that Conan Doyle was pretty accurate in his description of public transport, but did he make any goofs?
@@matthewalker Much ink has been spilled over his usage of Bradshaw...
Well, Jago promised us an imminent new video about a corpse on a train at the end .. so maybe this will be it?
@@matthewalker Yes, a few. There is a massive discussion in a thread on another Jago video about where the BPP body fell and whether the story could have been realistic, and a couple of other points were raised at the same time. Another interesting question was why Holmes, living in Baker Street, never seemed to have actually used the Underground, but went everywhere by horse cab.
@@iankemp1131 you can observe a lot more from above ground
What a brilliant story and analysis
I once corpsed all the way to Epping. It was the night of the living dead getting back from there at midnight :-)
Prince Bira of Siam died at Barons Court tube station 23rd December 1985, having suffered a heart attack. Unfortunately he'd been out of the public eye for quite some time and didn't have ID on him so it took a while to identify him.
A very handy racing driver pre war and up in to the 1950's, including Formula 1 and Le Mans.
I've always found Essex Road station creepy and some what forgotten, the sort of place where a body wouldn't be found.... ever. Well chosen Sir so it wasn't just me then who feels this way about this station.
That whole section of Northern City Line is creepy (pre Covid I used it daily and it never stopped being creepy). Highbury and Islington and Moorgate aren’t too bad, H&I because it’s immediately adjacent to the Victoria Line, although it’s still a creepy interchange, and Moorgate because it’s been spruced up a lot and feels like the underground…but then you’ve got the awful history. Old Street and Essex Road though…*shivers*…both of those always freak me out.
@@trumptontally3383 It does seem a bit claustrophobic. I wonder if it's the relatively narrow platforms. The tiling and lights seem rather plain and gloomy too. No friendly adverts, low ceiling, pretty plain walls. The British Rail corporate image styling maybe doesn't work so well underground?
@@iankemp1131 Its the cold walks along the pedestrian tunnels for ever to the wide steps finding ones way to lifts or escalators to the exit,
Loved it!!! Hauntingly Halloween tales 🎃 My Tube Horror film recommendation is: An American Werewolf in London for its great nostalgia, seeing Tottenham Court Road tube station in the early 80s with posters on the walls from that era. I used to love the vending machines back then where you could buy Cadbury’s chocolate bars on the platforms. Properly packaged in solver foil and a paper sleeve. And Polo mints. I vaguely remember seeing some vending machines where you could buy packets of Polos for 6d. It was still 10p but they had left the old price on the machine. Most of the time your money got stuck and you ended up with nothing anyway.
Note the prominent poster for the film ‘See You Next Wednesday’ in that scene!
The little metal drawers would never slide out whenever I used those Cadbury machines and I always ended up losing my money.
I'm sure those vending machines were a scam, and never worked. Very few passengers would have the time or pen and paper to take down the address or telephone number of the complaints office; and the cost of postage or telephone call was also a disincentive. They could charge 6d for Polo mints because they'd get 6d for delivering nothing.
@@aljol54 I suppose that instead of a mint with a hole in the middle, they just received the hole in the middle
I loved this video. One like this I heard is one without the 'doctor' character and as the woman gets up to leave the 'corpse' tells her to mind the gap, and when she turns around to see who said it, the body is gone. Recently re-watched that Ghosts on the Underground documentary. I think more scary tales from the tube would be welcome...as you say its a compelling and great setting for it!
In my head, the ghost says "MIND... the GAP" in the voice of the late Oswald Lawrence.
I remember reading stories from South America and Philippines about relatives transporting corpses in a bus or taxi to their home village pretending the cadaver is alive but severely drunk. The reasons were avoiding police intervention and costs of transport of a dead body. Also I can imagine someone passing away from medical causes while riding a public transport. Anyway the premise of a dead person riding the public transport among alive ones is an excellent thing and maybe this is why there still will be a lot of legends like that.
you might say the ex-passenger went underground on their own accord.
You killed this 1, Jago! Dieing to hear what the next 1's about!
Can we have a follow up about The fly on the Pint? 😉
Indeed! The real star of this video - and not even a credit!
That made me laugh 😄
For sheer terror, the tale of Mr. Green, who mistakenly alighted at South Kentish Town station, blows this one out of the water.
Spooky! I've never seen a dead person on the subway but I have seen people that looked not long for this world. If they manage to make it to the street it was a miracle.
I love 'urban myths', and this is a sinister classic. What was the station you show here that has all the advertising removed? That looked grim enough to be a cut scene from 'Death Line', or 'Creep'. - neither movie recommended to anyone who is even slightly nervous about using the tube (also: 'Quatermass And The Pit', and 'Skyfall').
I recognised the fly on your pint in the opening scene, it was my friend Colin, he lives in East Camden
I had a friend once. Happy Halloween Jago.
The version of the story that came to mind for me, was the version from the movie Collateral. Where Tom Cruise's character mentions that it had happened on the LA Metro, riding back and forth, until the end of service.
Awesome to hear some transit stories from New York City along with the usual London stories.
So many tube stations, I would imagine, that would have a very spooky vibe.. even though it's not the Tube, the Northern City Line platforms at Moorgate, prior to the most recent modernisation, for a start, must have a very eerie feel in the quiet hours of the early morning or late at night...
A grim but weirdly enjoyable tale :) It sounds like the inspiration of a local 2006 movie made here in Western Australia called "Last Train to Freo", a brief synopsis: "When a young woman boards the last train to Fremantle two thugs become interested in her. It soon becomes apparent when two other passengers board the train that no one is who they appear to be". The movie in fact was based on a 2001 play called "The Return" by Reg Cribb, it has even grimmer story line: "A thug and his junior partner in crime take a late night train from Perth to Fremantle, menacing passengers along the way. For an hour they own the train. Riding the uneasy line between comedy and terror, The Return is a tautly written study in peer pressure, anxiety and suppressed violence in a social class which is often silenced" . ....Well now I've brightened up everyone's day I'm done .... Drew
I was on a bus trip to Adelaide a couple of years ago and one of the passengers passed away, likely from a heart attack. Trying to do CPR in a bus isle is difficult.
Just the right kind of a video to watch before going to bed.
You have added a new dimension to your videos! Congrats! Incidentally, I wonder how many of your subscribers ypu ever stood next to on a train...
An intriguing and suitably spooky video Jago! In a similar vein, I know a cabbie who had a passenger die in the back of his taxi some years ago… 😬
I'm addicted to these kind of stories but I'm trying to give them up, be (hallo)"ween"ed off of them 😄
Given the number of passenger journeys on the tube, it is inevitable that quite a large number of them have died whist travelling. It is much less likely that foul play has been involved in all but a few cases.
Yes absolutely, During my days on the Railways a number of colleges had the unfortunate experience of finding dead passengers on trains they were working, of course the Police attended,and investigated but all were put down to Natural causes, no suspicious circumstances foul play etc.
The Chicago Transit Authority had a death train service from in the city of Chicago out to a Catholic cemetery in the suburbs with an elevator for the one way casket ride and the family / mourners all went out and back.
To be fair, there used to be LOADS of dead bodies on one certain train, back in the day of the Necropolis Railway. (Hope I didn't 'Cheese Salad' your next video, Jago).
0:00 There was a little fly on the right, amazed at the life-time supply of beer... Then lo and behold it was picked up by a 'giant'...
I remember a scene from a film or a TV programme where a man on a train, reading a newspaper lowers the paper to reveal that his eyes have been removed. I've no idea where or when I saw it. I saw it as a kid.
Lovely departure from your usual style.
Beautifully done sir. Very good
The social dynamics of tube travel are indeed curious. As if being propelled through the bowels of the earth is an unwholesome activity, and human interaction would only compound the experience.
A chilling Halloween tale Jago. I used to travel to work on the Picadilly line and I remember one morning heading to Picadilly Circus. There was a massive large lady who's head wasn't visible as she was just like a massive mound of fat and the whole body just wobbled like a giant jelly.
This was indeed a terrifying ordeal for me and the other fellow passengers and it wasn't Halloween.
There is only one thing worse than a spooky empty tube carriage late at night.... A nearly empty one.
Reminds me Department S, "Last Train to Redbridge" (again).
For downright spooky versions, you can listen to "The Phantom Coach" or The Four Fifteen Express" by Amelia B. Edwards here on YT.
Ah, good reference. I think I'll be watching some Dept. S this evening. Thanks for that.
Hi Jago, once again a very interesting Tale from the Tube. As previously mentioned in the comments, I immediately thought of the Sherlock Holmes story “the Bruce Partington Plan.”
I’m pretty old and this ‘urban legend’ has been going around since forever….
I guess you have tons of spooky footage from the Tube. Great way to use it!
I really enjoyed this one. You are a very talented storyteller.
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was also inspired by him having to identify the mangled body of an adulterous woman who had jumped in front of a train. Happy Halloween!
3:54 Another of those unwritten rules is: DON'T make eye contact with the person sitting opposite you. It's one I try to hold myself to every time I use the bus, train, subway (Glasgow Subway for me lol) etc. I prefer not to have a conversation with anyone and everyone that early or late in the day; just not enough caffine in my system for it lol
As for the body on the train story, there have been horror movies that have been at least partially filmed on the real Underground that sort of play into the core idea of the story; 2004's Creep* springs to mind (the posters/trailers for that one creeped 8 year old me right the hell out) in that respect. I believe the old Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross were used for filming scenes for that one, don't quote me on that though lol
*: Not a patch of Kubrick's The Shining, my all-time fave horror movie; but I digress lol
Don’t say hello to people in London.
@@thomasawl it’s the law!
Long before your time there was a film whose title I know not but it was a Victorian family trapped during the Underground works by a fall and they lived by cannibalization - the only words they could speak generations later were 'Mind the Doors' learned as they waited for a lonely passenger. Had a sad end.
the fly on the glass at the beginning 😂
I remember seeing a guy I thought might have been dead on the Red Line in Boston once. He turned out to be so monumentally drunk that, when the train reached the end of the line at Alewife Station in Cambridge, it took him four tries to exit the train, by way of ricochets off the upright handrails on either side of the door he was trying to leave by, the side of the door, and the conductor who came to see if there was anyone left aboard.
Ah yes, nothing better than a good urban myth... There's always just enough verisimilitude for them to stick.
More please, Jago! 😘
I'm glad that whenever I travel on the tube, I always mind the doors.
As always thought provoking and also as always well researched and presented. Well done. Keep em coming!
Ghost tube stories for Halloween! Thanks, Jago!
Ohhhh spooky! Love the Monty Python reference ;)
I wish to say,
I am sooo glad I subscribed to your channel!
One of the incidents in Dorothy Sayres novel Murder Must Advertise involves a murder in a tube station
Kenny Everett once went round the Circle Line twice after too much wacky baccy, people were scared to go.near "the laughing loony".
Very interesting and scary story. So scary on how you explained the story. Plus is that Guinness you were drinking at a pub. I do like Guinness.
There was a story about students who dressed a plastic skeleton as a passenger and sat it on the Circle Line whilst watching people's reactions. Again probably an urban myth but the tube in London does lend itself to this sort of mystery
Heard this for years, and my sister believed it
True stories now Jago. Once in the 1950s a train arrives at Victoria. Suddenly screaming women fainting. There was a head stuck on the front coupling. The driver thought he had hit a pigeon.
Now. 2000 I was on the ticket barrier at Wimbledon. Word came they had found a headless body up by Earlsfield. I of course imagined a train running around with the head stuck on the front. Turns out he had been killed somewhere else and dumped by the lineside. Gruesome stuff.
Appreciate the footage of Essex Road, definitely one of the creepier stations on the network
wow, not one single human seen, beautiful shooting and editing
I work on the tram in Stockholm sweden, and it was a couple of years ago where one driver came to the end station, saw a man sleeping tried to wake him only to discover that he was dead he had gotten on the tram then died.
I was once woken up on a terminated SkyTrain (Vancouver public transit) by a police officer yelling loudly in my face. When I asked why he had to yell, he said 'You could have been dead!'
I am amazed at his belief he can wake the dead with his voice.
😂
I'm sure RSM Britain could, who would dare to stay dead in front of him?😉
Enjoyed this very much.
Thank you 😊.
Closest I've seen to a corpse on the tube is a drunk sleeping between the tracks in Hammersmith (gave up getting the tube home that night) and a zombie on the Northern Line.
Heard this a few times, including a night bus version. Usually in those first few years of living in London someone will tell you this.
Filed alongside the one about your friends brother’s mate driving the wrong way around a roundabout late at night, gets hit by another car, driver of which is found to be over the limit. Often with a supplementary flourish of the policeman coming over and telling your mate’s, brother’s, friend “this bloke reckons you were driving the wrong way around this roundabout. Lol, he’s well pissed”
Time for the creepy stories since it's scary season.
I used to work as a bus driver in London. One of my mates was driving his bus one day and a passenger got on. He said `good morning` to my mate, sat down and dropped dead.
Actually, in the recent few years, there are several passengers in Beijing subway passed away due to heart attack. Causing Beijing subway decide to deploy AED in some stations from 2020. And just recently, two passengers got heartattack in the subway, and luckily in the stations with AED. And they were saved by it. These events directly cause Beijing subway to deploy AEDs to all stations by the end of 2021!
I've heard of versions of this on Bangkok's Sky Train (BTS) and the Metropolitan Railway Tunnel (MRT)!