LONDON – When London came to a stop as a nationwide coronavirus lockdown was imposed a year ago, the Underground kept running as an essential service.
But it was a strange and unnerving experience for its workers. Joseph Cocks, a driver on the subway’s Circle Line that loops around the city center, said he could “count the number of people who got on the train on one hand.” “To see it on a Monday morning peak, to see hardly anyone about, was shocking and surprising,” he said of the system that opened in 1863 and is known colloquially as the Tube.
Its continued operation was a sign that even in a pandemic, London's heart was still beating. —- Plagues, fires, war — London has survived them all.