Identify a London Underground Line just by listening to it

(tubesoundquiz.com)

92 points | by nelson687 3 hours ago

16 comments

  • CamouflagedKiwi 5 minutes ago
    5 / 9

    Found much of it pretty hard - I'd be confident of telling a modern subsurface line from a deep one, or the Jubilee (which to me at least has a very distinct motor sound), but for lots of the others I was guessing - sometimes with luck though, apparently.

  • walthamstow 2 hours ago
    Incredible fun. I got every one wrong except the line I live on and use all the time. I couldn't tell any of the others apart much, but I knew my line instantly, without any doubt. Fascinating.
    • sumo89 15 minutes ago
      I'd put bets on yours being the Jubilee line then, that loud whine is etched into my soul. One thing this couldn't capture for the Central line is the sheer volume of it.
      • CamouflagedKiwi 5 minutes ago
        And, fortunately, the sheer temperature of it...
  • spuz 2 hours ago
    It seems a little unfair to include the circle and metropolitan lines as they use the same rolling stock and run on the same tracks in the centre of the city.
    • calpaterson 1 hour ago
      And yet I could tell them apart with pretty good confidence. Why?
      • IshKebab 38 minutes ago
        You got lucky and thought it was skill?
  • dole 14 minutes ago
    As a Yank, first thought that came to mind was using geolocation by mains hum because you can.
  • ssss11 2 hours ago
    I got 6 out of 9 and haven’t lived there in 10 years. Felt some nostalgia hearing some of them though!!!
    • calpaterson 1 hour ago
      I got 8/9. Been away 2 years. The ones I rarely used or which don't have obvious "tells" that are hardest. For me, Jubilee is the most obvious - very distinctive sound.
  • jeffwass 1 hour ago
    Somehow I got a 7 out of 9, even though I felt like I was mostly guessing. Surface vs deep lines have more rumble but that’s about it that I consciously knew of.
  • dudefeliciano 2 hours ago
    love this kind of games, if we ever get consumer grade smell-o-vision i will make the same to identify berlin underground lines by smell
  • MrsPeaches 2 hours ago
    Loved this!

    A bit deep to put district and circle as options on the same question. Don’t they use the same rolling stock and cover very similar stations?

    I found Bakerloo was the easiest to identify.

    • Reason077 2 hours ago
      The Bakerloo sounds are indeed pretty distinctive (I lived near Kilburn Park for a while and knew it well!). But I think the easiest of all is the Jubilee line. Those melodic sounds from the traction motors that rapidly change pitch when accelerating/decelerating are so distinctive and unique.
    • ssss11 2 hours ago
      Jubilee I found pretty easy too
  • personalityson 33 minutes ago
    Never been to London, 3 out of 9 correct.
  • bb123 2 hours ago
    Nice! It would be fun to include some of the other sounds on the tube like the door closing chimes or the sounds the doors make when opening and closing.
  • mpascale00 2 hours ago
    It was fun to guess these without being familiar. I sort of guessed based on vague knowledge of age and name familiarity. Maybe I was lucky.
  • OPBoot 2 hours ago
    Enjoyed that. Not lived in London for 30 years, but some sounds never leave you...

    I got 5/9 on the Tube Sound Quiz!

    (better than random!)

    • jojobas 2 hours ago
      I got 6/9 and I've never been there.
  • Markoff 32 minutes ago
    I'd like this for subway escalator sounds, I loved one somewhere in Prague city center which made exactly Sicario soundtrack rhytm.
  • manojlds 2 hours ago
    Elizabeth is the only one I use frequently so I got them mostly wrong.
    • maleldil 1 hour ago
      Technically, not an underground line.
  • IshKebab 37 minutes ago
    Quite fun. It doesn't make sense to have it as a list of multiple choice questions though since by the end you know the answers by a process of elimination. I'd change it so you see all the sounds and lines and have to match them up.
  • fennecfoxy 59 minutes ago
    Eh they all sound like SCREEEEEHEEEEECHCCCCHEEEEEE now anyway because TFL are incapable of doing basic maintenance overnight (such as grinding the rails) without using expensive contractors that eat money up.

    After being in Paris over the weekend the state of the underground cleanliness/noise is just absolutely shameful.

    • reifiedgent 10 minutes ago
      are you aware that the Metro in Paris has trains with rubber wheels?