Happy 150th birthday to the London Underground

Eliza is very nearly the grand old age of one, but everyone’s subterranean soul sister the Tube is much, much older; happy 150th birthday to the London Underground!

Like most Londoners I have a love / hate relationship with it which is often hate / hate when you just want to get home from work, there are delays galore and you end up wedged under someone’s armpit. And it’s a nightmare to navigate all those steps with a pram. But to celebrate, here’s some random facts about the tube:

• This blog was half named after the ‘baby on board’ badges given out to pregnant women to use on the tube…
• …but I never actually had one of the badges myself!
• When I first moved to London I had a temp job at TFL’s head office and they let me drive the tube train simulator, which was great fun
• When Alex and I first got together and I would stay at his house, I used to conveniently blame ‘delays on the Northern Line’ as the reason I was always late to work in the morning (not true)
• Eliza’s first tube journey was also the Northern Line, Balham to Angel. We met some friends for lunch in Islington

Here are my tips for using London’s public transport with a baby, fourteen alternative tube maps, and a great iPhone app you should get to make your life easier if you’re using the tube with a pram.