A witch's hat brought part of London's Underground to a standstill on Halloween when it was thrown on to a track.
Tube
passengers had to walk through
tunnels in the early hours of Sunday morning after the hat, which contained metal, was thrown on to the
line at Chalk Farm, in North London. A passenger is thought to have thrown the hat which cut out the power, halting four
trains.
Hundreds of
passengers were stuck on the trains for more than an hour before they were allowed to walk along tunnels to the nearest
stations,
London Underground said.
The four trains, three heading north between Camden and Belsize Park, and one northbound between Camden and Kentish Town, were stopped at 0040 BST. London Underground estimated that there were up to 90
passengers on each train.
"We apologise to
passengers who were inconvenienced as a result of this incident, and would urge customers to take care and not to discard items on
the railway," a spokesman for the company said. "The metal part of a hat thrown on to the
rails at Chalk Farm caused power interruption," London Underground said.
1 Look at the following words in the text. They are all in italics. Put each word next to the correct definition/synonym.
a)
Tube is another, informal way of naming the ……………………………… .
b) People who travel in a vehicle (but are not the driver), are ………….…………………
c) There are four ways of referring to the metal strips where the train runs. What are they?
2 Find words in the text that mean:
a) To stop (paragraph 1) ……………………………..….
b) Trapped (paragraph 2) ……………………………..….
c) Travelling northwards (paragraph 2) …...……………………………….. or ....……………………………..
d) To say sorry (paragraph 3) ……………………………..….
e) Someone who represents a company in an interview ……………………………..….
Links to materials of interest:
Worksheet on vocabulary and some listening activities.click
hereKey
1 a) London Underground
b) passengers
c) track, line, railway, rails
2 a) halt
b) stuck
c) heading north / northbound
d) apologise
e) spokesman
