How clean is the tube? We found out

Last week, we saw a YouTube video of a person in an undisclosed city bashing a bus seat with a hammer. The result? Dust billowing into the air as if someone had attacked a vacuum-cleaner bag. It was gross. [Take a look above.]

Rank, huh? It got us thinking, though: surely even London’s public transport can’t be that grubby? So to test it out, we went and bought this unnecessarily large rubber hammer (banana for scale – natch)

Sure enough, as we hammered, dust shot into the air. Though, admittedly, this wasn’t so surprising. After all, think how much dust accumulates in your living room. And millions of people don’t rub their bums on your living room every day. Well, at least, we hope not. Still, we were right overall. London’s tube upholstery isn’t as dusty as the examples in that disgusting YouTube video. So you’re fine to take a seat. Mostly.

Check out how dusty your tube-line is below [scroll to the bottom for the full-length video]:

1. Piccadilly

The dustiest line by far.

© Time Out London

2. Victoria

Not the dustiest, but definitely the most concerning. Mainly because the dust was brown. We’re really hoping this is something to do with chocolate. Please god, let it be chocolate.

© Time Out London

3. Jubilee

Only moderately dusty, but we sadly had to curtail our hammering due to an old dude pointing at his ear and barking: ‘THAT ANNOYS ME!’

© Time Out London

4. Bakerloo

Never mind that the Bakerloo line’s signature colour is the shade of a bum disaster. This was actually fairly clean.

© Time Out London

5. Central

Is it the worst? Is it the second-worst? Close call.

© Time Out London

6. Northern

This one was our bet for grossest. Surprisingly not, though.

© Time Out London

7. Circle/District

Really had to hammer hard for this one, with barely any result. Almost certainly the entire reason TfL bought those lovely new tubes.

© Time Out London

8. Metropolitan/Hammersmith and City

The cleanest of the lot. Deposit your cheeks on it with no hesitation.

© Time Out London

 See a full video of The Hammering below:

 Alexi Duggins and Kate Lloyd

Tags: alexi duggins, kate lloyd, London, london underground, public transport, tcl, the tube, tube