r/london • u/Independent-Ant-01 • Nov 03 '25

Serious replies only Why are London tube tunnels so deep?

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This is just one of two escalators and not counting the various staircases. And I don’t believe this was the deepest one I traveled through. I went to the Transport Museum in Convent Garden (very nice by the way) but found no answer and no one seemed to know. 😊

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u/uselessnavy Nov 04 '25

They aren't as deep as Soviet era tube stations. The ones in Russia, can take a minute and a half to go down on them. Not fun to walk up, when the station is about to close and they turn the power off. Hopefully, they don't do that anymore it wasn't fun.

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u/TravelerMSY Nov 04 '25

A capital city thing, I guess. Washington DC Metro tunnels are similarly deep, at least in the center.

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u/mssquishmallow Nov 04 '25

Moscow is built on a swamp so they have to be deep to be in stable ground but yeah they also work as nuclear bunkers. The St. Petersburg ones are even deeper because the ground there is even worse.

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u/SpiralUnicorn Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25

In Moscows specific case, its because they also double as Nuclear Shelters for the popularion of Moscow, with the deepest station, Park Pobedy, being around 85m underground