There are only three tube lines where seats get washed (Picture: Getty – Graphic: Myles Goode)

Most of us have wondered just how clean the Tube is.

With around 5 million journeys every day, that’s a lot of people walking in dirt from the road, sneezing on poles or putting their feet on the seats.

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Now Transport for London has released details of how often they clean trains on each of the lines.

Responding to a Freedom of Information request, they told us that seats on the District, Jubilee, Northern, Circle, Piccadilly, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City lines are never shampooed.


The only lines where seats get a wash are the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central (and even then it only happens every six months to a year).



Don’t panic, as the carriages do get a basic clean every night when they go back to the depot.

The seats are hoovered regularly, and covers are removed and replaced if they are soiled.

How often are we talking? The Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, Metropolitan, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City: Seats are brushed every night on the underground sections of the network. They are vacuumed on a 21 day rotation during a longer clean, when train poles and floors also get a going over. On the Victoria Line, seats are washed every 24 weeks. On the Bakerloo line they are washed every 36 weeks. On the Central line they are washed at least once a year. The Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines: Seats are vacuumed every night. Floors are given a general mopping every night and get a proper polish every 17 to 23 days. Litter will be removed every night on all lines.

Floors across the network are swept every night, and are mopped every two to three days.

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Poles on the network are spot cleaned nightly and are wiped down every two to three days, so you might want to hang on to your hand sanitiser.

While it’s not advisable to hang off the outside of a train James Bond style, those who do will be pleased to know that train exteriors are cleaned every three days, provided it isn’t too cold outside. Trains on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly get put through a ‘train wash’.

Train floors get a proper polish every few weeks (Picture: Getty. Graphic: Myles Goode)

Time Out took a rubber mallet out on to the network a few years ago to see exactly how dirty things could get.

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Their unscientific experiment involved bashing seats on all the different lines to see which one threw up the most dust.

The cloud billowing up from the Jubilee line shows what years of no shampooing really looks like:

A TfL spokesperson said: ‘We’re committed to providing the best possible service on London’s transport network.

‘Although cleaning regimes vary across the Underground, each line has a rigorous cleaning schedule in place, for both the interior and exterior of the trains, to provide a pleasant environment for our customers.’

They did not provide details for the Waterloo line.

Additional reporting by Dianne Apen-Sadler.