London Underground Webcam

Steam locomotives pulling gas-lit wooden carriages carried the first passengers under London on January 10, 1863, between Paddington and Farringdon on the Metropolitan Railway. More than 160 years later, this London Underground live stream rides the same network from a passenger’s point of view: a first-person journey through platforms, escalators, carriages and tunnels of the Tube, running 24/7 from London, England. It sits with the other London live cams on the site, and it is the only one that goes underground.

From the Metropolitan Railway to 272 stations

The Underground grew in two very different ways. The early lines were dug as shallow cut-and-cover trenches just below the streets; then, in 1890, the City and South London Railway opened as the first deep-level electric line, bored through round tunnels that gave the whole system its nickname, the Tube. Today there are 11 lines and 272 stations, drawn on the diagram that Harry Beck designed in 1933, with straight lines and 45-degree angles in place of real distances. That is why two stations that look far apart on the map can be a short walk apart above ground.

The numbers behind the stream are large. Transport for London’s facts and figures put the network at 402 km, only 45% of it in tunnels, with 1.35 billion passenger journeys a year. Waterloo is the busiest station, at 100.3 million passengers, and the longest continuous tunnel runs 27.8 km from East Finchley to Morden via Bank. Trains average about 33 km/h once station stops are counted.

Some records are easy to spot on a first-person ride. Angel has the longest escalator on the network, at 60 m, and Hampstead the deepest lift shaft, at 55.2 m. Leicester Square and Covent Garden, on the Piccadilly line, are just 0.3 km apart, the shortest hop between any two stations, while the longest direct journey, Epping to West Ruislip on the Central line, covers 54.9 km.

What the London Underground cam shows

Unlike most of our live webcams from around the world, which watch one fixed spot, this London Underground cam follows the journey itself. Depending on the ride on screen, you see trains pulling into curved platforms, the crush on the stairs at interchange stations, the view through the carriage windows as the train leaves daylight and dives into the tunnel, and the roundel signs that tell you where you are.

Listen for the warnings. “Mind the gap” became a recorded announcement around 1968, because curved platforms leave a dangerous space between the platform edge and the straight carriages. At Embankment, on the Northern line’s Charing Cross branch, an old recording by the actor Oswald Laurence was restored to the northbound platform in 2013 so his widow could hear his voice again.

The network is still growing. The Northern line extension to Battersea Power Station opened in September 2021, and the Elizabeth line, which opened in May 2022, connects with many Tube stations even though it is not officially part of the Underground. For the trains that run outdoors in other cities, the site’s train cams cover stations and railways around the world.

Riding the Tube after you watch

The Piccadilly line is the one most visitors meet first, because it runs straight into Heathrow. If you are landing there, the Heathrow airport webcam shows the runways you will arrive on, and the Tube station below Terminals 2 and 3 is part of the same network you see on this live stream.

Above ground, the city looks very different. The London bus tour cam rides a sightseeing route past Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, a useful companion to a stream that spends most of its time below the streets.