On the underground going home recently I looked up and down the train to see that I could see all the way down the train almost to the wall that separated the driver's carriage from the train. I have often wondered about the designs of underground carriages and in this case, they had obviously decided to put all the seats down the side of the train to leave a big long space in the middle. It is probably a very effective way of getting more people in the trains, but it made me feel decidedly strange. For as I looked forward, I realised that I could see the actual way that the rails the train was on twisted and turned, went round corners and then straight on reflected in the way this tube twisted and turned. It was like being inside a very long worm which is sliding along through the earth and you can see the way its body bends, because you are inside.
I did not like this sensation. It made the whole experience feel much more alien and unnatural than otherwise. Which made me reflect: Do the designers of tube trains talk to the people who travel in them and how it feels to sit in the trains when they are actually moving?
