jonnhrr wrote:Does anyone know of any active forums on the London Underground?
Other than Tube Prune (mentioned above, but with no recent forum postings) I've yet to find any good active forums with detailed news from the London Underground.
I may be able to guess at a reason for this. In "normal" times (when there isn't an event like the present tragedy) there is only a broad general interest amongst the international railfan/enthusiast community. Those railfans that are keenly interested in the long term are members of traditional (ie pre-internet) specialist Societies and Clubs who exchange their information and news by monthly magazines and regular meetings.
In the case of the London Underground there is LURS - The London Underground Railway Society.
http://www.lurs.org.uk/
Their monthly "Underground News" publishes a wide range of facts and news in great detail. Most of the long term keen railfans of the London Underground are members and so concentrate their efforts into communicating by traditional means.
In the wider view beyond just the London Underground, I can see this as a problem of the digital age. How do you balance the flow of news items between forums that are open to all and can contain rumour and speculation with the traditional membership organisations or subscription publications.
One topic whose fans seem to be trying to balance this is London Buses. The London Omnibus Traction Society (LOTS) continues to publish every event and news item in their membership monthy but also has a website
http://www.lots.org.uk/
which gives the last few weeks of news followed by a note saying that to see more news join the Society. There is also a very active moderated forum for London Buses which specialises in "hot news" and again leaves all the routine details to the LOTS magazine.
(I should add that as a member of both LURS and LOTS, the views expressed here are my own and do not represent the opinion of LURS or LOTS).