One of the side benefits of being the friend of Tim O’Toole, 
most especially when you are writing an article about CCTV, is that as Managing Director of the London Underground, Tim runs one the largest CCTV systems in the country. Presently he has nearly 10,000 cameras, and soon he will have 12,000. On Monday he turned me over to his CCTV team, which spent the entire afternoon showing me the system in operation. First, Geoff Dunmore (right, top) , the Operational Security Manager, gave me an overview of 
the system, and then Security Development Manager Kevin Clack (right, bottom) took me around to a few stations and showed me the system in action and introduced me to some of the people who use the cameras everyday, including Whitehall Duty Station Manager Pete Bashford. Later I met Andy Barr, the Network Coordination Manager, in his state of the art operations center, which was reminiscent of the control center we saw Walter Matthau use in The Taking of Pelham 123, but, like, light years better. (By the way, a remake starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta will soon be released.) All gave me insights into how CCTV functioned in practice, dramatically informed by their experiences during the London bombings of July 7 and July 21, 2005. Pictured above, the operation center in Whitehall Station.
