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Join TV Presenter and Broadcaster Rylan on the ultimate Christmas commute! Tim Dunn gets special permission to take Rylan on a ride in the driver’s cab on a Central line Train, all the way from Oxford Circus to Epping. You may not know, but Rylan is a self-confessed Tube obsessive, and cannot hold back his excitement. He tells Tim about how he fell in love with the Tube in his childhood, the Tube station he's built in his garage, what the London Underground means to him and how it's shaped his life. Rylan and Tim get an incredible view of the tunnels and secrets you normally don't get to see from the driver's cab at the back of the train - and try not to push any buttons. The festive adventure, and Rylan's dream trip, continues when the pair board a vintage Routemaster bus, which takes them to a magical railway - and a very special Christmas steam train.
Thanks to the TfL staff, plus staff & volunteers of the Epping Ongar Railway - who helped us make this episode.
Follow presenter Tim Dunn
Mind The Gap is an official podcast from Transport for London (TfL).
An 18Sixty production. The producer is Marnie Woodmeade. Additional writing by Tim Dunn. The executive producer is Adrian Hieatt.
Join TV Presenter and Broadcaster Rylan on the ultimate Christmas commute! Tim Dunn gets special permission to take Rylan on a ride in the driver’s cab on a Central line Train, all the way from Oxford Circus to Epping. You may not know, but Rylan is a self-confessed Tube obsessive, and cannot hold back his excitement. He tells Tim about how he fell in love with the Tube in his childhood, the Tube station he's built in his garage, what the London Underground means to him and how it's shaped his life. Rylan and Tim get an incredible view of the tunnels and secrets you normally don't get to see from the driver's cab at the back of the train - and try not to push any buttons. The festive adventure, and Rylan's dream trip, continues when the pair board a vintage Routemaster bus, which takes them to a magical railway - and a very special Christmas steam train.
Thanks to the TfL staff, plus staff & volunteers of the Epping Ongar Railway - who helped us make this episode.
Follow presenter Tim Dunn
Mind The Gap is an official podcast from Transport for London (TfL).
An 18Sixty production. The producer is Marnie Woodmeade. Additional writing by Tim Dunn. The executive producer is Adrian Hieatt.
Discover the stories behind London’s iconic transport network. From the Tube to the Overground, climate action to international football and beyond, we speaks to guests who have personal connections with the system that keeps London moving - from engineers to celebrities, and musicians to designers.
The new series celebrates London Climate Action Week 2026, and features musician and zoologist Louis VI in conversation with the people making essential change happen in London, including Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy Mete Coban, and TfL's Chief Safety, Health and Environment Officer Lilli Matson.
Series three helped to mark the 25th anniversary of TfL, presenter Tim Dunn explains the incredible innovations, key moments, and behind-the-scenes stories with members of staff and guests including Heather Small, Olympian Pete Reed, Babatunde Aléshé, and DJ Jaguar.
Series two uncovered the significance of the new names for London’s Overground lines, and the incredible stories behind them, featuring guests including Lionesses Leah Williamson and Chloe Kelly, chef and entrepreneur Levi Roots, campaigner Helen Pankhurst and many more.
Series one celebrated the 160th anniversary of the Tube, going into deep underground in detail on design, history, legacy and future. Tim Dunn spoke to incredible guests including Amy Lame, Wayne Hemingway, and Rylan himself - who we drove home for Christmas in a private driver's cab on a Central line train - in a special bonus episode (Rylan described it as his 'best day ever').
An official podcast from Transport for London.
Hello there. I'm your host, Tim Dunn. Thanks for downloading this, our festive special of Mind the Gap, your all zones travel card to get behind the scenes of the incredible transport systems that are truly the beating heart of London. Please give them my Mine. Nose.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Gap. One thing I absolutely love at this time of year is watching people going home for Christmas. Over the course of a day or two, a jam packed London pretty much empties out. It's like the ultimate end of year commute.
Speaker 1:Off we go into holiday hibernation in our homes. Peak festive frenzy is best experienced probably at Oxford Circus in the heart of the West End Of London. So that's where we begin today's journey. Today, we're getting a very special guest home for Christmas. He's a self professed railway enthusiast and broadcaster extraordinaire.
Speaker 1:Rylan is coming on board with us today. You might know him from his smash hit podcast, How to Be a Man, or seen him on This Morning, Big Brother, or just generally anywhere on TV. We're so excited to have him here. We're gonna be getting him home in time for Christmas in the most stylish and efficient way possible on the central line. And maybe, just maybe, when we arrive, we'll be taking one final and one very special train ride, but you'll just have to come with us to find out.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. I can't believe this. We're standing here at New Broadcasting House, and there's a man standing a lot taller than me.
Speaker 2:Tim, I am so excited to meet you. I am fangirling. You are about to make a little two gig stream come true. And when you asked me to do this, I would have paid good money for this experience. Right.
Speaker 2:Should we go?
Speaker 1:Should we go? On. Let's come on. Let's let's let's walk and talk, shall we? Because I'm I'm excited to find out.
Speaker 1:Right? When was the last time you went down the tube?
Speaker 2:So actually, apart from last week by accident, literally eleven years ago now.
Speaker 1:What's changed in that time to make you come back to it?
Speaker 2:Nothing. I never went away from it. I mean, I built my own underground station at my house, which I've sent you many a picture of. So I never it never went away, but it's just one of those things. When I start talking about it, I think people people think I'm either joking or that I'm just not being honest.
Speaker 2:But Tim, I've got so many stories for you about the underground that you're gonna dine out on. I'm just excited to, like, smell the smell.
Speaker 1:I'm a little bit concerned though because I only realized, I think, about a month ago, after we talked about this briefly on text, that actually you weren't hugely keen on crowds. And I said, I've answered a bit more about what's happened over the last year or so. Yeah. I was more cognizant of that. And I I I probably wasn't aware of all of that going on in your life, so I read the books and listened more to it.
Speaker 1:And so I've got to worry. I'm worried about you being down there.
Speaker 2:You've got no worry with me. Listen. One, I can handle myself. And two, everyone's actually really lovely. Everyone's actually really lovely.
Speaker 2:I I am very much I know people probably think I love being center of attention because of my job. I I very much don't. I like being mister blend in, but it is quite difficult to blend in when you're never off the telly. Oh,
Speaker 3:look at all so excited. I can see the station.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited. I think you have have probably found something in this of your childhood. Is that right, Jericho?
Speaker 2:A 100%. I'm I'm, like, regressing at the moment. I can't believe I'm gonna walk down these steps into Oxford Circus Station. It's about to happen. I love the digital display boards as well.
Speaker 2:Where? The digital like station name. I love that. Right. So we're about to go to a central line train all the way home, but not just in the carriage.
Speaker 2:We are getting exclusive access to sit in the cab. So let's go and have a little look.
Speaker 3:Come on.
Speaker 2:I'll turn this inside. This
Speaker 1:is a central line train. Here we go. Right.
Speaker 4:It needs to be a little bit quick because the train needs to leave. So if you wanna set yourself down in there, that's the driver 's fun. Right. Just hold on to something because it's gonna move.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. We are in the cab.
Speaker 1:We're in the cab
Speaker 3:of the driver.
Speaker 1:I've never tried to see the bus.
Speaker 4:It is a bit strange going backwards if you
Speaker 3:it does sound a
Speaker 4:little bit
Speaker 2:weird. I love it. I've never seen anything
Speaker 1:like this.
Speaker 3:When it goes dark, it's gonna be
Speaker 4:so weird. So just quickly while you're in here. Yeah?
Speaker 1:What what's it we touch?
Speaker 4:Don't open this door at all. Obviously. Yeah? That's an emergency button.
Speaker 2:Don't touch that.
Speaker 4:That's an emergency stop button.
Speaker 3:Don't leave And on
Speaker 4:this and this is the TBC. So don't so don't knock that.
Speaker 3:If that
Speaker 4:comes out, yeah, the tray will stop.
Speaker 2:Okay. So don't touch anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So British museums this isn't this the sweat? There it is. Is. There it it Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that the tunnel. Oh, this is so bizarre. Oh my god. Look at that. I mean, right at the you you you you you're you're sort of touching the controls, but not.
Speaker 2:I would never touch the control. It's not what I'm worried about.
Speaker 3:How how
Speaker 1:does it feel being in the back here?
Speaker 2:This is so surreal because I I've always wanted to get inside a train cab. And granted, we're going backwards which is probably even more exciting because we're actually getting the full like back view of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I can see.
Speaker 2:And we just drove past British Museum, which would have been the British Museum off branch. So I'm very very excited that I got to see that.
Speaker 1:So when when you were quite young, what's your memory of oh, where are now? For a whole band.
Speaker 2:Just like, you know what's crazy about this? Is that I've done this route and been on the underground for what feels like a million years. And I I like I'd like to think I know the underground well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But
Speaker 2:never have I ever had the opportunity to see the underground like this. So it's just so exact. And the fact now we are pulling into what? Chancery Lane?
Speaker 1:Chancery Lane in here.
Speaker 2:And I can still see the light of Holborn Station in the distance. That is crazy. And
Speaker 1:they don't even know we're there. They don't know that Rylan is zooming back from from here. This is so oh,
Speaker 3:I'm gonna get so many good videos.
Speaker 1:This is TikTok goals, right? Mate, this is
Speaker 2:this is this is my dream job right now. Being a big YouTuber. I tell you what, when I so I grew up in Stepney Green. It's a district line, Humsickers Inn. And I remember the day that I was moving to Essex as a child, I used to get the train to school every day.
Speaker 2:So I knew every morning, every night. So I knew all the staff at the station. And my mom had arranged it on my last day. She met me at the station even though we only lived over the road. And a guy came out of the office and he gave me a massive laminated tube map from one of the frames and it was like the best gift I ever got as a kid.
Speaker 1:Is that because you made it known that you love the underground when you were a kid?
Speaker 2:I used to get off the train and then just I was that weirdo that used to hang about. I like I like to off the train. Most people like rushing to get out the tube and I'd like sit on the bench and be like, oh, is the Hammersmith and City coming along in a minute? Because I always found it fascinating that at Stepney Green, a district and Hammersmith and City Line train would stop on the same two platforms Yeah. And then branch off, obviously, after all Gate East.
Speaker 1:What was it about the underground that fascinated you as a kid? What what kind of made you go you were drawn to it?
Speaker 2:Well, I've always like been obsessed with technology. And the underground to me felt like it should never have been there. It's like it's before our time. I don't know why, but when I was a kid, I was so obsessed with that you could go in one archway and there's a vehicle waiting that will transport you to another archway basically. And as a Londoner, the underground's always been in my DNA.
Speaker 2:So it's just I've always been fascinated with it. I've always been fascinated with elevators, automatic doors, things like that, like push buttons. And I remember like back on the district line in the day, you used to have to press the button to open the door. Oh, wow. And it was them old orange lit square rounded edge buttons that you used to press.
Speaker 2:And Yeah. Really clunky. And all I all I always wanted was a tube door button. It's just crazy and I wanted it outside my bedroom door. My god, we're already at bank.
Speaker 2:It's so efficient. The curvature of bank station is great.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's where have to mine the gap.
Speaker 2:Right? That is crazy.
Speaker 1:Weirdo. Do you you joke. You say you're a weirdo. As as as Ross, when you were a kid, was it a place of of safety for you? Or was it a a thing that you were were were public about?
Speaker 1:Did you tell people at school that you you like the underground? Or was did it you you kept that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. It was it was never something I kept secret. And weirdly, you just used the word safety. I always felt safe on the underground because I knew the underground.
Speaker 2:So you could put me anywhere on the map. Even as a child, I'd always know how to get home. And I know that sounds really, really strange, but there's something that's safe about the underground where you haven't got to go out into the big bad world where you can get from a to b. And as a kid, that always has stuck with me. So whether I'm in London, Central London, North London, West or South, wherever I am, I know, right.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm on the northern line. Let's get up to blah blah blah, and we'll change onto the district and we're home.
Speaker 1:Car for you these days. Isn't it right? It's it's a car or a helicopter or hovercraft?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah. I've done well for myself, but you can't I don't think you can beat the train. Boy. Is there a sighting at Liverpool Street?
Speaker 1:It must be. The crossing or something like that, right? Who knew? Who knew that?
Speaker 2:Well, I know now. This is exciting. It's really I mean, we're going
Speaker 3:Coming outside, darling.
Speaker 2:There it is. Oh, look at that. Wow.
Speaker 1:What is special about this station and the escalator?
Speaker 2:Shortest escalator on the network.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's got it. He's convinced. He's online. No.
Speaker 2:I went to the opening door, the Jubilee Line extension here because I just wanted to see the safety doors, and I didn't realize they weren't being put in at Stratford. So then we had to get on the train and go to North Greenwich.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, that's a bonus. Right? Yeah. For that yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the architecture. I wanted to be an architect as a kid.
Speaker 1:So I mean, you have you texted me once on day or you DM me on Twitter. I'm after you crashed into my Twitter world, bringing with all your all your fans with you. Yeah. You know, I'm just dropped it to cash into conversation because I hadn't I hadn't realized it. You've been building a tube station for years.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I
Speaker 2:built my own underground station at my house. Was I lucky enough to have like a bit of land and I was like, well, I miss the underground. Mhmm. So I'm gonna build my own one. So I've got the Rylan line.
Speaker 2:I've got my digital display boards. I've got my escalators that go down, all of that.
Speaker 1:So you you got display boards, but they've been customized. Right?
Speaker 2:They have been customized.
Speaker 1:Can we talk about that?
Speaker 2:We can. So obviously, I wanted it to say any, like, train geek can buy a digital display board and, like, link it to an existing station. But me being extra, I wanted to go that one bit further. I wanted all of my destinations of the trains to be the future and all of the stops on my line to be shows that I've done. So I created the Rylan Line, and I had to then get on to someone who works in the systems for digital display boards and managed to get the Rylan line added as an official line that no one else can obviously use other than me.
Speaker 2:However, sometimes if I get in at three in the morning, if I've been working late or I've been out, normally at that time when my display board normally says my station name, which is my house name, and then Rylan Line not in service or and then the clock. And sometimes I'll get notifications for the next train is to Epping, the next train is to West for Islip. So somehow I'm linked with the central line and I'm not sure how.
Speaker 1:Who made all this stuff for you? Did you make it yourself or you got did you go down to the Isle Of Wight? Have these signs made for
Speaker 2:you? No. So I have my signs all my signage. So I was gonna go to the Isle Of Wight and it was just too much drama of me having to go there, get all this done, obviously with my schedule. What I did is when Upminster Bridge Station was having a refurb, someone had obviously chored the big enamel Upminster Bridge signs.
Speaker 2:So I had vinyls made to cover Upminster Bridge and got the TFL Rail blue color, the text, and had my station name put their vinyl over on the original signs from Upminster Bridge. A couple of way out signs and stuff that I found on eBay from collectors. And, yeah, I then got a designer. I designed the Rylan Line. So I've gone for the TFL Elizabeth Line Purple for the Rylan Line.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:Because I'm close to Brentwood, and I thought it's only fair. And, yeah, so I've had the Rylan Line roundel made. I've had the underground roundel made. It all illuminates
Speaker 1:and It's great. Just think about
Speaker 2:it. Make me if I'm unwell. But I just say I'm single with a passion. I'm single with a passion.
Speaker 1:So You're about loads of passions. How do you fit that in there? How does that sit with your other passions in life?
Speaker 2:Listen, we don't have to stay in our lane, guys. Like, oh, yeah. I can be a TV presenter and a premier this night and, you know, hosting the most watched show in the world tonight or performing on stage with whoever. And then I can go home and I can sit there and look at like a hidden London dodgy website and have a good old look at the Bull And Bush.
Speaker 1:What do you do though with the tube station? Do you go and sit down in the evening and relax with the heater? What do you do with the I've actually
Speaker 2:adapted it. So if I want, I can park my cars in the underground station. Mhmm. So it can double up as like, oh, bad weather. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It could it could be a garage. So I can put my car under there and stuff. But I just like knocking about in it. And I remember, like, as a kid, I I told you about when I got given that life the big tube map from the the laminated version from the stepmigraine station guys. And I used to have that on my wall as a kid and I'd draw like train buttons and stick them to my wall and like just to try and feel like I had my own station.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, it's that sort of childhood implant in my head, that sort of urge to be that kid again just went, well, go on then. Do it for real this time. I really, really, really want a carriage because I'm trying to buy the spice bus from the film. Supposed to got a bus stop, a TFL bus stop. So if I can have the spice bus there and the tube carriage at my underground station, then I'm the Union Jack spice bus from the film.
Speaker 1:Axelman jumped over the Axel Real Bridge, the real one.
Speaker 4:He really
Speaker 2:jumped over to our bridge. Yeah. Snaresbrook, by the way, if anyone's interested. Snaresbrook.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite tube stop?
Speaker 2:My favorite tube stop. That's really hard. Stepney Green to me because of so many childhood memories. Canary Wolf as an architecture fan to me, love. But, yeah, I'd say from an architecture point of view, I know everyone raves about Westminster, and I think Westminster is an amazing station, like, the everything.
Speaker 2:But for me, I think as a kid, Canary Wolf, I used to play out over Canary Wolf. I was 13 and no. I was 11. I was 13, but I'm gonna say I was 11. I filmed my own pop video at Canary Wolf Train Station.
Speaker 2:So Me and my friend with a video camera. Song? It was a steps album track that H sung called Learn to Love Again. And that was the one thing I was so upset about moving is that I won't be getting on the underground every day, which seems really sad. I missed it.
Speaker 2:Where I live now is officially part of the TFL network now because the Elizabeth line. So
Speaker 1:It's it's taking it off you.
Speaker 2:It's it's I'm I'm I'm back in it. I'm back in the fold, guys.
Speaker 1:Why now? I mean, you're back.
Speaker 3:You're back. You're back in
Speaker 1:the game. You're back in the game. So, my buddy and Clark is sitting here in the back of the tube train talking about your favorite tube stations. Did you think she'd be doing this a few weeks ago?
Speaker 2:No. I dreamed about it. I didn't think I'd be doing it. I dreamed about it. But it's this is just amazing.
Speaker 2:Like, we're at Woodford now. I can't believe how quick it's been.
Speaker 1:You are
Speaker 2:In the distance, I can still see Canary Wall Flat. It's there's a train going on the South Westbound, down next to us to White City. She's great. I love it. But I just I love the underground.
Speaker 3:I love the underground.
Speaker 1:What have you missed about being on trains? Anything?
Speaker 2:The time, the the quickness of it all. I I missed the sort of easy a to b of no traffic. And I know this is gonna sound really dodgy, but the smell of the underground, I love the smell of the underground. And the underground, I just there's no other smell like it. I love it.
Speaker 1:What gives you the courage though? Because people can be quite snobby about it. Right? Like, they come back by trains and what's giving you the courage to just stand there? Oh, hang on.
Speaker 1:He's he's arm. He's he's touching on the bottom. Yeah. What's giving you the courage to go back and go, I love this, and and and stand there and stand up for things that you do love?
Speaker 2:Do you know what? The the honest truth is it never left me. Just life gets in the way of things. And sort of now, you know, sort of like the last couple of years, I've gone through like a massive life change. I've been through a divorce.
Speaker 2:I've got quite ill. And then sort of bouncing back, I've realized, look, if I if something don't make me happy, don't do it. And granted, I'm in a very lucky position that I can afford to live my life like that. I know not everyone is, but it doesn't always come down to money. And if something that you're doing doesn't make you happy and you can change it, then change it and don't do it.
Speaker 2:And I'm just in that position now where unless I want to do it, I won't do it. And the things I wanna do, I will do. And what would have made me happy? I know. Build an underground station at my house.
Speaker 2:That's gonna make me happy. And every single time I drive into my house and I see the station there and I I even though it's my house and I see it every day, but digital display board will always say something different. I I just love it. Like, I just I love it and it makes me happy. So why not do it?
Speaker 1:It's a lovely thing you carried on doing it. And and did what did your mama think about this?
Speaker 2:She's literally just rung me as she said that. Oh, really? So yeah. I mean, she knows, like, if you were to say to her, what's Ross like with Train? She'd go, oh, we've talked to her about for ages about Train.
Speaker 2:Because my nan, god rest her soul, she was the one that, like, on a weekend would always take me on the trains because my mom wasn't always well enough. So so she wasn't always well enough. And, yeah, my mom would just thank me so like when the Jubilee line opened, we we went on the new extension and it was exciting. And the fact that you could go extended and went under Island Gardens to cut Isark was like, oh my god. It's kinda under the river, guys.
Speaker 3:Over there.
Speaker 5:This station is airping. This is a central line service to Ealing Broadway. This station is airing. A central line service to Ealing Broadway.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. So on a route master bus now. What's special route master bus? What's different about it?
Speaker 2:Did you know what? The route master bus to me I I mean, personally, I've just seen something that has given me the biggest childhood flashback of my life. And it's the old circular bells that used to be on the high level.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's the push button.
Speaker 2:With the push button. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like them bells.
Speaker 2:I do remember the fifth thing down Commercial Road like this where there's no door no door on the bus. You used to come upstairs and it was like the wooden slatted steps. I remember. I remember that bus very well. Just hang off the pole, thinking it's all large.
Speaker 2:I mean, now it is major health and safety, Marx.
Speaker 1:A difficult problem. Right? Yeah. So we're heading up up up the road now.
Speaker 3:We're heading towards We're heading
Speaker 2:off from Effingham. We're gonna go down the High Road, chuck a right, then we're gonna head up to Northfield Station.
Speaker 1:And do you know what's happening at Northfield Station?
Speaker 2:I do know what's happening at Northfield because we are gonna be picking up the steam train, which is part of the old underground network because, obviously, Line used to run to Ongar. And as a kid, I never went to Ongar on the Central Line, so I never got to experience North Wild and Ongar under CFL.
Speaker 1:So have you ever been on this railway before?
Speaker 2:I've never been on this railway. I have drunkenly attempted to buy this railway. Yes. Do you remember? Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was me. Sorry. But yeah, like, I I just love it. Like, it's just so exciting. Like, dreams can come true as Gabrielle once said.
Speaker 1:She did. She said, is your dream coming
Speaker 2:true now? I'm going home for Christmas. Dream has already come true by doing what I'm doing. And now I'm going on this. It's like, this is just the best end to the best year.
Speaker 2:Like, you know, I've said said before, you know, I I I had a bit of a rough rough time a couple of years ago. And this year, I've really felt in good in a good way. I've you know, I'm doing the things that I love to do. And, you know, to finish my year off by getting a private ride on the central line, getting off at F'in, getting on a route master, and now getting on the F'in Onga Railway all the way back home is so exciting.
Speaker 1:Oh, look at the old trains. Look. Right. Okay.
Speaker 4:You see the signal box Oh,
Speaker 3:it's so exciting. Look. Wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I'll be a funny time guy left.
Speaker 1:We are we're now walking along the path. Rylan's running ahead. In a child a childlike excitement. He's running off outside the platform. We're going up the footbridge now of this little country station, and the whole station is decked out in fairy lights.
Speaker 1:And we're gonna pick up here a steam train, which is gonna take us all the way up on the last part of our journey tonight in a slightly chilly slightly chilly December air. We're gonna head off up to Ongar. So this is this is
Speaker 2:a map of North Wales Station.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So And
Speaker 2:then you've got so two Ongur and two Obas Efins. Now
Speaker 1:we're now in the signal box. Right? Yeah. So you've been in someone like this before? This is
Speaker 2:first I've I've never been in a signal box actually, especially one like this. Hang on. Press the button.
Speaker 1:What you doing?
Speaker 2:There we go. Just alert the station. So we're just alerting the station that the train is about to pull in. This is literally Stefan Instapart. This is crazy when you're sitting there looking at all of this.
Speaker 2:This is essentially, not to dumb it down, a wooden shack with steel levers. Victorian. Victorian Mechanism. Mech that's just all there. And that, just that little thing.
Speaker 2:You think what we've got now, all the technology, all the people, all the automation and just yeah. And and just now, you look at this and you think this is how it all used to run.
Speaker 1:Was there a train coming?
Speaker 2:Oh, here it
Speaker 3:The train's coming. Oh, look. It's all lit. Oh, I've gotta
Speaker 1:take a video. Yeah. So before
Speaker 2:they all
Speaker 1:get off. Alright. Sorry. Before they Do want you Sandra over the fucking house? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Please.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'll I'll just Okay.
Speaker 1:Is completely bonkers. Oh, my god. Look at the steam. Look at the steam. Oh,
Speaker 2:that smell. I just love it.
Speaker 1:It's it's a disco train.
Speaker 2:This is done. Wow.
Speaker 1:Look at that. The actual fire. Actual fire. Oh, there's there's a trap.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're lucky I ain't raining, Tim.
Speaker 1:Oh, the moon's out.
Speaker 2:This is so special.
Speaker 1:Oh, man. This is the countryside.
Speaker 2:This is all the countryside. So this is where I'm used to. Right. Because I drive around here all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:All these lanes, all these like little quick waves. And you would just never believe that.
Speaker 1:You do a disco train. I'm on
Speaker 2:a disco train. Look at that view though.
Speaker 1:We've got the Christmas lights.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's just so beautiful. So beautiful.
Speaker 1:Is Christmas at home for you normally?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Christmas at home for me normally. But I mean, what an amazing way to start Christmas.
Speaker 1:It's it's the word and to finish off this year. Right?
Speaker 2:It's crazy. It has been a strange old year, but what a way to finish it and start with my lovely new best friend, Tim. Incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1:How was that?
Speaker 2:That was so incredible. I cannot believe not only have I gotten on the central line at Oxford Circus, had a private cab ride to Epping, jumped on a Routemaster, and then got my own private steam train home. I adore you.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a pleasure. It's all ours.
Speaker 2:And how beautiful was that?
Speaker 1:That was that that was a thing of true beauty. Because you know what? We could see in you. We could see the happiness that brought you.
Speaker 2:It really did.
Speaker 1:And that's why we do it all right. That's why we do this because it makes people happy.
Speaker 2:It really does. And you know what? Some people might be like, you're such a geek, like geeking out on trains.
Speaker 1:Does that matter?
Speaker 2:Not in the slightest. You know why? Because it makes me happy.
Speaker 1:And do you know what? What was so lovely about this? This has brought us back a hundred and sixty years right to where the tube all began.
Speaker 2:The beginning, we are at naught point naught on the
Speaker 1:marker. Kilometers on a steam train hearing the same sounds
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:On the same kind of steam engine that was back in 1864.
Speaker 2:It all began. This is where all distance on the underground is marked from, and we're here right now at this point. Not only are we here, we've got a VIP carriage ride the whole
Speaker 1:way here. Rylan, happy Christmas.
Speaker 2:Happy Christmas, Tim.
Speaker 1:And happy birthday to the Tube.
Speaker 2:And happy birthday to the Tube. We love you.
Speaker 1:What a trip we've had tonight. We've journeyed through all the things we've talked about for the rest of the series. We've gone through amazing architecture. We've gentlemen trains that are genuinely innovative now as they're being refitted for the central line improvement project. And of course, we've connected people and places too.
Speaker 1:But what's so beautiful about the whole thing is that there with Rylan, we arrived at Ongar Station aboard an old steam engine, hearing just the same things those passengers would have heard a hundred and sixty years ago right back at the very start of all this. What a lovely way to finish the year. This series of Mind the Gap has almost reached its final destination. All change, please. We do hope you enjoyed the series.
Speaker 1:And if you have, do leave a review. Tell a friend or indeed a fellow passenger. Remember, you can go back and listen to past episodes wherever you get your podcasts and keep up to date with TFL on all social media platforms. This has been Tim Dunn, and remember, please always Mind the Gap. Mind the Gap is an 1860 production for Transport for London.
Speaker 1:The producer was Marnie Woodmead with some additional writing by Tim Dunn. The executive producer was Adrian Hyatt. And special thanks must go to the staff of TFL and staff and volunteers of the Epping Ongall Railway who helped make this podcast.