London Underground Trivia
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48 free London Underground trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Tube has been carrying Londoners since the 1860s, and in that time it has collected more stories than any other railway: a line named by squashing two words together, stations that were built and never opened, a bunker where a prime minister sat out the bombs, and a platform announcement so old that a widow asked for it back. These 48 questions dig beneath the headline facts. Expect line colours and nicknames, the people behind the roundel and the typeface, the deepest platforms and the longest escalators, wartime shelters, the map edition that dropped a landmark, and the Underground's cameos in film, radio and song. Made for commuters, pub-quiz teams and anyone who has ever stared at the map on a stalled train. Play it in ten-question rounds, or print it for your next trivia night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which insect got its Underground name by biting Londoners sheltering in Tube stations in the Blitz?
Mosquito
The London Underground mosquito, a form of Culex pipiens, bit shelterers during the Blitz and became a textbook example of rapid evolution. Its Tube origin is now thought to be a myth, since the same form turns up worldwide.
Q 02At which station did an old 'Mind the gap' recording return in 2013 so the announcer's widow could hear his voice?
Embankment
Embankment was the last station still playing actor Oswald Laurence's warning, and his widow, Margaret McCollum, would sit on the platform to hear it; when it vanished she asked TfL for a copy, and staff brought the announcement back.
Q 03What was cut from the Tube map in 2009, then put back three months later after a public outcry?
The River Thames
The River Thames vanished from the September 2009 map, its first absence since a 1926 pocket map, and Mayor Boris Johnson joined the chorus of disapproval. The December 2009 edition quietly put the river back.
Q 04Which Chelsea station has the River Westbourne flowing over its platforms in a large iron pipe?
Sloane Square
Sloane Square was built where the Westbourne, one of London's lost rivers, crossed the line, so engineers slung the river above the tracks in an iron conduit that is still in place today. Passengers can spot it from the platforms.
Q 05Which station beside Lord's cricket ground is the only one sharing no letters with the word 'mackerel'?
St John's Wood
St John's Wood contains none of the letters A, C, E, K, L, M or R. The puzzle nearly never existed: Tube maps printed just before it opened in 1939 show the station was to be called Acacia Road.
Q 06Where did 1938-built Tube trains keep running as Britain's oldest passenger stock until January 2021?
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight's Island Line needs small trains because the roof of Ryde Tunnel is too low for full-size ones, so it ran 1938 Tube cars from 1989 to January 2021, replacing even older ex-Tube trains.
Q 07Which computing pioneer lent her name to a Crossrail tunnel borer, twinned with one called Phyllis?
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace shared the honour with Phyllis Pearsall, creator of the London A-Z, after a public vote on names for the tunnel borers; another pair honoured athletes Jessica Ennis and Ellie Simmonds.
Q 08Which station, Gillespie Road until 1932, is the only Tube stop named directly after a football club?
Arsenal
Arsenal got its name on 31 October 1932 after the club moved from Woolwich to Highbury and campaigned for the change; it was first styled Arsenal (Highbury Hill). West Ham and Wimbledon merely share a name with their local clubs.
Q 09Which smartcard have Londoners tapped on Tube ticket gates since its launch in 2003?
Oyster
Oyster was picked by brand consultant Andrew McCrum for 'the metaphorical implications of security and value in the hard bivalve shell and the concealed pearl'. The card was first issued to the public on 30 June 2003.
Q 10Which Mayfair station, shut in 1932, became a wartime bunker that Churchill nicknamed 'The Barn'?
Down Street
Down Street housed the Railway Executive Committee during the Second World War, and Winston Churchill and his war cabinet sheltered there until the Cabinet War Rooms were ready. It had closed to passengers on 21 May 1932.
Q 11Which Tube line, opened in 1906, had its catchy nickname adopted as its official name within months?
Bakerloo
Bakerloo squeezes together the two stations in the old company's name, and when the railway made the newspaper nickname official in July 1906, The Railway Magazine complained that it had stooped to adopting its 'gutter title'.
Q 12Which north London hilltop station has the network's deepest platforms, 58.5 metres below ground?
Hampstead
Hampstead's platforms lie 58.5 metres (192 ft) down because the station sits high on a hill, and the tiles on the platform walls still spell out Heath Street, the name planned for it before it opened.
Q 13Which Islington station has the Underground's longest escalators, a 61-metre climb rising 27 metres?
Angel
Q 21Which woven pile fabric with a wool face and cotton backing has upholstered Tube seats for a century?
Moquette
Moquette, a French-named weave of cut or looped pile, has covered the seats of Tube trains for a century, its busy patterns disguising wear. Modern versions use a wool-nylon face on a cotton backing.
Q 22Which band's 1978 single 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight' describes a late-night mugging by a gang?
The Jam
The Jam's single reached No. 15 in October 1978, though Paul Weller had wanted to leave the song off the album All Mod Cons until producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven talked him round.
Q 23Which Camden station lends its name to a Radio 4 panel-show game whose rules are never explained?
Mornington Crescent
Angel's escalators, 200 ft long with a 90 ft vertical rise, are the longest on the Underground. They arrived with a rebuild that replaced the station's lifts and its notoriously narrow island platform.
Q 14Which station is only 260 metres from Leicester Square, the shortest gap between Tube neighbours?
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is so close to Leicester Square that the ride is only 260 metres, yet its platforms are reached only by lift or a 193-step spiral staircase, with posters warning passengers off the climb.
Q 15Which station has more Underground platforms than any other on the network, ten in all?
Baker Street
Baker Street's ten platforms are the most of any station on the network, and its 1980s refurbishment replaced the old tiling with silhouettes of Sherlock Holmes, who lived at 221B. Five lines call there.
Q 16Which disused station hid the Elgin Marbles in wartime and later doubled as a film set for Atonement?
Aldwych
Aldwych closed on 30 September 1994 when new lifts could not be justified for so few passengers, and it has since appeared in V for Vendetta, Atonement and Fast & Furious 6. Its tunnels sheltered British Museum treasures during the war.
Q 17A 1987 fire that killed 31 people and doomed the Tube's wooden escalators broke out at which station?
King's Cross
King's Cross St Pancras's fire began under a wooden escalator on 18 November 1987 and erupted into the ticket hall in a flashover, killing 31. Wooden escalators were phased out afterwards, the last going at Greenford in 2014.
Q 18Which service opened from Paddington to Abbey Wood in 2022, yet is not officially part of the Underground?
Elizabeth line
The Elizabeth line was opened by the Queen it honours on 17 May 2022, a week before passengers boarded, in her Platinum Jubilee year. TfL runs it as a separate service with its own purple roundel.
Q 19Which Berkshire town marks the western end of the Crossrail route that tunnelled through central London?
Reading
Reading was confirmed as the western terminus only in March 2014; earlier plans had the route stopping short at Maidenhead. At the eastern end the line splits for Shenfield and Abbey Wood.
Q 20Which of the Underground's 11 lines is printed in yellow on the Tube map?
Circle line
The Circle line is the yellow one, and since 2009 it has not been a circle at all: the loop was broken at Edgware Road and the route extended west to Hammersmith as a spiral.
Mornington Crescent, the game on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, first aired on 22 August 1978 and consists of panellists naming stations while solemnly inventing rules and strategies, every one of them fictional.
Q 24What opened in 1900 with a flat 2d fare that earned it the nickname 'Twopenny Tube'?
Central line
The Central line's uniform 2d fare earned it the 'Twopenny Tube' nickname when it opened in 1900, but the flat fare lasted only until 1907, when longer rides went up to 3d. It is now the network's longest line.
Q 25Which of the Tube's lines, opened in stages from 1968, was the world's first full-scale automatic railway?
Victoria line
The Victoria line's trains have driven themselves since it opened, yet each still carries an operator, who shuts the doors and presses the start buttons. It is one of only two lines that run entirely underground.
Q 26Which line, nicknamed 'the Drain', was sold to London Underground for a nominal £1 in 1994?
Waterloo & City line
The Waterloo & City line, opened on 8 August 1898, runs between Waterloo and Bank with no stops in between and belonged to the main-line railway until British Rail handed it over for a nominal £1 on 1 April 1994. It is printed turquoise.
Q 27Which company opened the world's first underground railway, from Paddington to Farringdon, in 1863?
Metropolitan Railway
The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, and carried 38,000 passengers on its first day by borrowing extra trains from another company.
Q 28Which calligrapher designed the Underground's sans-serif typeface from 1913 and then redrew its roundel?
Edward Johnston
Edward Johnston's typeface, first used in 1916, gave the Underground a single lettering style across every sign and poster, and it is still in use more than a century later. His redrawn roundel is the one still seen today.
Q 29Which architect designed 55 Broadway, the 1929 headquarters straddling St James's Park station?
Charles Holden
Charles Holden's 55 Broadway was London's tallest office block when finished, and Jacob Epstein's nude sculptures on its walls caused such outrage that he agreed to trim one figure's anatomy.
Q 30Who ran the Underground's design programme so well that Pevsner called him 'the ideal patron of our age'?
Frank Pick
Frank Pick, who ran the London Passenger Transport Board from 1933 to 1940, commissioned the Tube's typeface, roundel, posters and modernist stations; Pevsner in 1968 judged him England's greatest patron of the arts that century.