Mizter T wrote:

I do demur from using the term "tube" when I'm specifically talking
about the sub-surface lines (District, Met etc) as the line neither
uses a tube tunnel nor are the trains tube shaped. LU/TfL freely uses
the term "Tube", with a capital 'T', as a shorthand way of describing
the whole Underground system - a convention that I follow when posting
here.



Of course an Underground train that would have travelled from London to
Southend wouldn't have spent a lot of the journey underground, so even
the usage of that term can be criticised.


The Metropolitan District Railway may not have been very much
underground (small u) but was definitely Underground with a capital U,
since it was a company belonging to the Underground Electric Railways
Company of London Limited, having been purchased by that company in
1903.

Those Southend trains were composed of full sized slam-door compartment
stock hauled by two electric locos as far as Barking, and stopped
before World War 2. They were as much "underground" trains as the
similar Metropolitan trains of the era. The District also had the
Underground's only named train: in the 1910s a morning express from
South Harrow to Barking was officially "The Harrovarian" Through City
Express.

Anyway, point being that you can wish as much as you want the people
wouldn't call the trains "tubes", but they will certainly continue to
do so - it is absolutely ingrained in the language!

Only since the 1980s or so.