Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Get your bearings by studying a map of the system. At the front of this topic, you'll
find a Tube map of the city center, with color-coded lines and names. You can also pick
up a free, more extensive Tube map at any station.
Each line has a name (such as Circle, Northern, or Bakerloo) and two directions (in-
dicated by the end-of-the-line stops). Find the line that will take you to your destination,
and figure out roughly which direction (north, south, east, or west) you'll need to go to get
there.
You can use a Travelcard, Oyster card, or individual tickets (all explained earlier) to
pay for your journey. At the Tube station, feed your Travelcard or regular paper ticket into
the turnstile, reclaim it, and hang on to it—you'll need it later. If you have an Oyster card,
touch it flat against the turnstile's yellow card reader, both when you enter and exit the
station.
Find your train by following signs to your line and the (general) direction it's headed
(such as Central Line: east). Since some tracks are shared by several lines, double-check
before boarding a train: First, make sure your destination is one of the stops listed on the
sign at the platform. Also, check the electronic signboards that announce which train is
next, and make sure the destination (the end-of-the-line stop) is the direction you want.
Some trains, particularly on the Circle and District lines, split off for other directions, but
each train has its final destination marked above its windshield.
