42 Hours: Moving Customers Over the Millennium

From the collection of

London’s Screen Archives
London’s Screen Archives is a network of over 50 organisations with a collective vision – to preserve and share London’s history on film. The network is managed by Film London and we work with our partners to digitise, preserve, and offer access to their moving image collections.

42 Hours: Moving Customers Over the Millennium

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London Underground ran its first non-stop, 42 hour service over the Millennium celebrations in 2000. This is how they did it.

Millennium Eve 1999 was a once in a century cause for celebration, and in the capital it was London Underground's responsibility to move the revellers. More than 7,000 staff and 500 trains moved over 3 million passengers during a continuous 42 hour period, carrying a normal day's traffic over 3.5 hours, and this video gives us an idea of how they did it. The viewer is given a glimpse behind the scenes at the London Underground command and control centres as they both plan and execute the mammoth task, including a war room style strategy map of the London Underground with Lego trains and signals. We also see the huge crowds bringing in the year 2000, mostly joyful but some a little worse for wear. As the clock strikes midnight, the staff pause to see if the millennium bug will derail their plans, but then it's back to stoically dealing with overcrowded stations and trains. The station staff are the real highlight of this video, larking around with party goers - including a pair of Chelsea Pensioners - and wearing comically large celebration hats while making serious phone calls.


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From the collection

Keeping London Moving

Go behind the scenes of 50 years of London transport with this selection from the London Transport Museum's video collection.
London's transport, from the bright red Routemaster to the futuristic Docklands Light Railway, is some of the most iconic in the world. But what was actually happening behind the scenes to make sure the buses, tubes, and trains got us to where we wanted to go? This collection of highlights from the London Transport Museum's video collection, which spans the 1970s to the mid-2000s, offers a peek into the operation rooms, underground tunnels, and bus garages that were 'Keeping London Moving', as the slogan of Transport for London proudly proclaims. In this selection, you can witness the birth of the Jubilee Line, or experience the frenzy of Millennium Eve on the Underground. Many of the videos in this collection were made by the London Buses' in-house video department, and show that staff training videos definitely don’t have to be dull. How better to train London Underground staff on good customer service than a version of the Wizard of Oz set on the Tube?

33 videos in this collection

1

Step Free Access On London Underground

2

Modernising the Underground

3

The Driverless Ghost Bus

4

London Underground Train Door Safety

5

Implementing London's Congestion Charge

6

London Transport: Routes Project

7

London Buses: Low Floor Bus

8

Chancery Lane Train Crash

9

It’ll Never Happen

10

New Years Eve 2000 on London Underground

11

London Buses: Clocking On with OPAL

12

Royal Visit to Willesden Garage

13

Starting on the Right Track

14

Station Assistance Support on the London Underground

15

Making Tracks Without Footprints

16

Simply the Best

17

Saints and Sinners

18

Putting You in the Picture

19

Ticket Gates at Victoria Station

20

Jubilee Line: Destination East

21

London Buses: Ticket To Ride

22

42 Hours: Moving Customers Over the Millennium

23

Crossrail: It’s About Time

24

What's Your Handicap?

25

Interview with Tom Eckersley

26

District Line: Fit for the Future

27

Farewell to Denis Tunnicliffe

28

Docklands Light Railway

29

London Buses: Farecard Trial

30

Safely There and Back

31

The Check Files

32

Audrey White Retirement Party

33

Above Us London: Northern Line Centenary

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