I won’t bore you with a full history of the line’s construction, that other website covers this in full and to be honest it’s not all that interesting. The above writeups will tell you most of what you need to know. However, if you will permit me to elaborate, there are a few details that are worth mentioning.
Built for the silver jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1979, and expanded across the river at the millennium, the Jubilee Line is one of the newest on the Underground network (the oldest date back to the middle of the nineteenth century). As with many new works of civil engineering, when it is up and running properly, it is fast, efficient, and even on occasion, a comfortable ride. However, its relative youth and lack of experience do tend to mean that it is less prepared than other lines to deal with surprises such as bad weather, technical faults, or indeed “passenger action” which I am informed by Tiefling can mean anything from someone being sick, to a suicide, to a train being held hostage by subterranean pirates. As such, it is a slightly unreliable means of transport.
Despite the morning sloth and weekend unpredictability, the Jubilee Line has recently become something of a fixture in my life. Every morning at around 8am, I can be found slumped against one of the remarkably uncomfortable floor-to-ceiling polls that are provided for the convenience of passengers who are unable to find anywhere to sit. I can never find somewhere to sit.
The reason for the crowding in the morning is that the next stop down from where I get on is Canary Wharf, home to the Canada One Tower – the tallest building in the UK, and the second of London’s two main financial centres. The Jubilee line is therefore popular with the besuited sometime masters of the universe who make lots of money in the markets without, as it turns out, understanding how the economy actually works. By a mere glance at the faces of the passengers on the Jubilee line, one can get a good idea of how the markets are doing.
Notably, the stop at which I board is one that serves the ill-fated Millenium Dome (now the O2, an entertainment centre apparently filled with bars, clubs and cinemas, though I confess I have never been). As a consequence of the supposedly forward-looking attitude taken by the builders of this extension, all the new stations have a slightly disconcerting glass wall protecting the track, presumably to stop those who visited the Dome from committing suicide afterwards. The wall is inset with doors that open in tandem with the train doors. I have yet to see this go wrong, but such is my faith in London transport that it does not seem unlikely that passengers may occasionally find themselves trapped.
There is little else I can add other than the advice that if you intend to disembark at North Greenwich for the O2, it is worth travelling at either end of the train because this is where the exits are located.