Are these cleaning Tubes?

Big Yellow Duster or something else?

Frankie Roberto asked me a while back if anyone could throw any light as to what these yellow trains were


He said "This was spotted at Euston station. A few friends have seen these trains around too - kinda spooky when you're expecting a regular Tube to turn up..."

I did a bit of searching around and found some pictures of the Tunnel Cleaning Trains (or Big Yellow Dusters - as they're apparently known as) on District Dave's site and it looked similar to the above, (well it was yellow) but had enough differences for it not to be exactly the same!


If anyone could confirm what the first picture is that would be great.

Then with this talk of cleaning reminded me of the London Underground Fluffer. A band of night-time workers called Fluffers or Fluffies used to go into the tunnels and shift all of the hair and skin cells that we deposit on the Tube every day. They actually removed all of the dust, dirt and debris by hand with brushes and brooms.

There's a fascinating little film of their work on the ITN archives' website (you need to register to view the film). Thanks to Helena Wojtczak who wrote the fab book Railwaywomen for pointing this film out to me.

Although the film makes the women look as they had a fun time in their work, but that has to be quite simply one of the worst jobs in the world!

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, March 29, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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