LONDON – ONE UNDERS

I once saw a woman throw herself under a train. I noticed her sitting on a bench at the platform. As a train approached and the wind picked up, she jumped down to the rails and ran towards the tunnel. People screamed and the train braked hard, but nothing could prevent two hundred tons of metal from mashing her into track pizza. Over 100 people die this way every year. Tube drivers refer to them as “one unders.” With the whole hullabaloo brewing about a new film that pokes fun at subway suicides, we talked to a London Underground tube driver about one unders. Here’s what he had to say…

“I don’t know if it’s bravado or what, but some tube drivers are like, ‘Oh, I can’t wait until I get a one under,’ because you can get sick leave for six months on full pay. These people aren’t fussed: There’s blood all over the front of the train, the person underneath is screaming, the police and ambulance are there, and the driver will just be sitting there reading the paper and eating their sandwiches. It doesn’t seem to have any affect.

“But I’ve heard a few stories about people who were giving a lot of loud about it, then when it actually happened they had to be carried off the train. It can really break you. A fellow I know well, he had a one under and was off sick for a long time. He was going towards the platform at 40, 45. There was a bloke getting in at the arrival end of the platform, about a hundred yards away. The bloke climbed down—he didn’t jumped—he climbed down and just stood there. The driver tried to brake but there was absolutely no chance of stopping in time. A lot of people say you should look away or look down, but this fella didn’t. He was looking directly at the bloke on the tracks. He was literally eye-to-eye with the guy for a good three seconds before he hit him. The thought that he was the last living thing that this bloke saw really freaked my friend out. Some people just can’t get back into trains after that.

“The worst one under story I’ve ever heard is not embellished, because I know the bloke who was on the train. He was an instructor—my instructor when I started actually—and was in the train, but he wasn’t driving it. He was just riding in the front. A lot of the time, if the trains are packed, you’ll ride in front with the driver. He said they were on the Northern Line, going quite fast, and he’s chatting to the driver. As they come into the platform there’s a woman, stark naked, standing in front of them in a crucifix pose. Obviously, they hit her and killed her. At the inquest it turned out she was a schizophrenic. She’d gone to the station, stripped off, folded up all her clothes really neatly, wandered into the tunnel, and just stood there, waiting.

“I’ve never had a one under myself, but I nearly had one about six weeks ago. It was about 11 PM and I was coming in from Heathrow at 45 miles per hour. I was sort of half asleep because every day’s the same, but all of a sudden I became dimly aware that in the distance there was some sort of movement. I’m getting closer and closer and closer and I realise that it’s a fucking bloke staggering about. I put it into full brake, but it takes a long time to stop when you’re going fast. He stood right on the track, walking directly towards me. I was thinking, “This isn’t good, I’m gonna bloody hit him.” Then, at the last minute, he sidestepped my train and jumped into the adjacent track. I missed him, but you better believe I was shaking.

“You get tested for drugs and alcohol if a one under happens with you driving. You have to take off three days. If you’re some kind of jobsworth, you’ll go straight back to work, but most people take a bit of extra time off.

“The Northern Line’s always the worst for it, and after that I think it’s the Piccadilly Line. King’s Cross and Victoria have got the most, but they’re massive stations with ten different lines going through them so it makes sense. On an individual line there’s one particular station—Tooting Bec, I believe—that always has the most. Apparently there’s a big mental hospital near there. Aldgate East gets a lot too.

“According to legend, there’s a driver on the Northern line who’s had seven one unders. I know someone who’s had three, but apparently this bloke has had seven. I feel like at that point you’d start to think fate was trying telling you something, you know?

“One of the things with one unders is, when people get hit, one would assume they’d die instantly, but about half the time they don’t. People sometimes mis-time their jumps and end up in that gap under the rails. Some folks call them suicide pits because the body falls in there, but other people say that’s complete rubbish and the gap is for waste paper and litter.

A couple of nights ago an instructor told me about a one under at Heathrow. It was packed with tourists and some bloke got down and lay across the rails. He wasn’t electrocuted because his clothing probably insulated him. As you can imagine, there was absolute pandemonium. Then the train came into the station, not particularly fast, and hit the bloke. The driver is really shook up. All of a sudden, he starts hearing noises coming from underneath and the bloke comes walking out. What had happened was the train had hit him and knocked him into the suicide pit. There’s not a mark on him. There’s always lots of police about at Heathrow and they asked him, “What are you doing?” He almost seemed embarrassed. “Oh, I’m really sorry. I’ll go home now.” They couldn’t believe it.

As told to HARPER SMALL