[HN Gopher] Identify a London Underground Line just by listening...
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Identify a London Underground Line just by listening to it
Author : nelson687
Score : 168 points
Date : 2026-04-07 10:08 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tubesoundquiz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tubesoundquiz.com)
| bb123 wrote:
| 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.
| walthamstow wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| And, fortunately, the sheer temperature of it...
| doublesocket wrote:
| Given their username I would raise you that they're on the
| victoria line :-)
| OPBoot wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I got 6/9 and I've never been there.
| MrsPeaches wrote:
| 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.
| ssss11 wrote:
| Jubilee I found pretty easy too
| OPBoot wrote:
| And yet for me Northern was the only one I hit the answer on
| way before the clip had finished - instant recognition
| Reason077 wrote:
| 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.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Don't they use the same rolling stock and cover very similar
| stations?
|
| Same stock, yes.
|
| But stations different. Circle is Zone 1 and so almost
| entierely covered except for very short sections. But District
| has a lot of open track sections.
| ssss11 wrote:
| I got 6 out of 9 and haven't lived there in 10 years. Felt some
| nostalgia hearing some of them though!!!
| calpaterson wrote:
| 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.
| graemep wrote:
| I got five and I have not lived there for over 20 years.
| gamerDude wrote:
| I got 5 out of 9 and have never used the london underground.
| The repeat multiple choice, a good memory, and me reading that
| the jubilee line makes a screech in the comments pushed me over
| that 50% mark!
| manojlds wrote:
| Elizabeth is the only one I use frequently so I got them mostly
| wrong.
| maleldil wrote:
| Technically, not an underground line.
| walthamstow wrote:
| And if it was, it'd be the Elizabeth Line line.
| maleldil wrote:
| Nice name ;)
| mpascale00 wrote:
| 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.
| spuz wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| And yet I could tell them apart with pretty good confidence.
| Why?
| IshKebab wrote:
| You got lucky and thought it was skill?
| agile-gift0262 wrote:
| I couldn't tell them apart
| dudefeliciano wrote:
| 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
| jeffwass wrote:
| 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.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| are you aware that the Metro in Paris has trains with rubber
| wheels?
| IshKebab wrote:
| 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.
| personalityson wrote:
| Never been to London, 3 out of 9 correct.
| Markoff wrote:
| I'd like this for subway escalator sounds, I loved one somewhere
| in Prague city center which made exactly Sicario soundtrack
| rhytm.
| dole wrote:
| As a Yank, first thought that came to mind was using geolocation
| by mains hum because you can.
| jdsnape wrote:
| You can...but, won't the frequency will be stable across the UK
| grid and these are all in London. Secondly, pretty sure they
| all use DC motors, so no hum
| CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
| 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.
| vishkk wrote:
| Pretty cool --- should do it for NYC subways!
| abrugsch wrote:
| Doesn't NYC mostly (mostly) use the same trains across the
| network? on the tube, each line was (historically) operated by
| a different train company, so most lines have a (somewhat)
| different profile but dedicated rolling stock to each line,
| along with different aged stock dependent on the procurement
| cycle or even age of the line itself.
|
| Boston T would be a better one as each of the colour lines are
| significantly different from each other, especially concerning
| green line trolleys. Even having not lived there for a number
| of decades I could probably still pick out at least red and
| green line. I might struggle to pick apart orange and blue line
| from each other as they are pretty similar trains, but I never
| spent significant time on that line... (My dad was a complete
| train nut and spent much of his spare time audio recording
| train rides around the world and when we lived in Boston, the
| local subway got the bulk of his attention. Here in the UK his
| hobby even got picked up by various TV companies and he got
| brought onto various talk shows to demonstrate his "Blind
| trainspotting" prowess by identifying various trains from their
| sound. All a ruse of course but it was a fun gimmick for a
| couple of years.)
| tialaramex wrote:
| Not _that_ many different stocks now. The 4 sub-surface lines
| were given S7 or S8 stock according to platform length, and
| while it 's entirely possible an S7 does sound different from
| an S8 I wouldn't count on it because these are basically the
| same train.
|
| So that's a change from 5 stocks (two A variants, two C
| variants and a D) across four lines to two (S7 and S8) in
| terms of the rolling stock. The deep tube lines will all get
| variations on the 2024 stock, likely in 2027 although I
| believe the announced date still clings to "late 2026" but
| for now are all distinct.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The NYC subway (and elevated) trains were also originally
| operated by several different private companies, and there
| are still at least two major types of rolling stock (used
| separately on "A" division and "B" division lines). Maybe
| less variation than London, but I really couldn't say having
| never been to London.
|
| Chicago's "El" and subway system AFAIK, uses the same rolling
| stock on all lines though there may be a couple of different
| generations of cars in service.
| hobofan wrote:
| From the title I had assumed this would be about the "old"
| classic "Conductor" Google Experiment by Alexander Chen[0] or a
| recreation of it.
|
| [0]: http://mta.me
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Hah, I just thought of this randomly the other day that London
| metro lines have such distinct soundscapes.
| player_piano wrote:
| Oh Northern line, I would recognize that ear-splitting screech
| anywhere.
| totalmarkdown wrote:
| haha - brilliant. did you use elevenlabs to generate the sounds?
| joshuafuller wrote:
| I spent a single day in the London tube about 3 weeks ago on
| travel. Have never been on the tube before. Was a cool
| experience. Somehow I got 7/9 on the quiz.
| tgulacsi wrote:
| 5/9 - I've never been in London and never heard these sounds
| before :)
| tremarley wrote:
| I got 7/9
| dmd wrote:
| Never been to London, got 6/9. Presumably anyone who did this and
| got a poor score isn't posting, so only people like me who got
| good scores by chance are represented.
| Havoc wrote:
| Got 3/9 and live in London. Really only a single one of which I
| both had confidence in and got right.
|
| Most people on the tube have headphones in anyway tbh.
| allegretto wrote:
| Got the Northern line wrong despite doing this quiz on a Northern
| line train. :(
|
| <<The screeches in the audio are not that bad, it can't be the
| Northern>> was my thinking.
| basisword wrote:
| The ones I knew I got instantly. I think it's a mix of the speed
| + frequency that gives it away (rather than the various screeches
| people associate with various lines).
| virtyaluk wrote:
| Got the Northern and Jubilee right as I use them the most.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| 7/9, Met because I don't ever use it, and confused the circle for
| northern, which when I heard the northern line was a rookie
| mistake.
| iam-TJ wrote:
| This should become a new round to compliment Mornington Crescent
| [0] on the BBC Radio programme I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Sorry_I_Haven%27t_a_Clue
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(page generated 2026-04-07 23:01 UTC)