London's most 'soiled' underground lines and bus routes exposed
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Hundreds of London underground tube trains are delayed every year because of “soiled” carriages, Transport for London (TfL) has revealed.
Last year, 800 trains were delayed because the carriages had become too dirty.
221 of those were on the Northern Line.
The Northern Line is responsible for over a quarter of too-dirty-to-run trains, but one cleaner on the District and Circle lines claimed the conditions on those aren’t much better.
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The cleaner, who wishes to remain anonymous said: “Sometimes it is very disgusting, especially on weekends and nights.”
“From my own experience, once I even found a poo on the train and you have to clean it properly.”
He said his colleagues face difficult working conditions and that some passengers “don’t care” about the cleaners.
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The Northern Line came in first place for most trains late due to “soiled” carriages by over 100 late trains.
The Jubilee line came in second place with 113 and the central line in third with 101.
The five lines with the Night Tube services were the ones that were worse affected.
TfL also reported that thousands of London buses were soiled with vomit, urine, blood or smashed glass in 2018.
Buses were reported to be “soiled” a total of 14,632 times in 2018. Some of the bus routes were affected more than twice a week.
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In October alone there were 1,351 incidents. This was closely followed by July, with 1,291 incidents. This could be put down to the heatwave and the World Cup bringing people out.
The worst affected route was the number 25 bus between Ilford, East London and Holborn in the city centre.
A spokesperson for TfL said: “We aim to deal with any incidents of this nature on our network as soon as possible once they are reported, with specialist staff available to undertake cleaning as required.
“We ask all customers to consider their fellow passengers and to help us to keep the network running safely and smoothly.”
