Revealed: Hundreds of stuffed Night Tube owls sold despite delayed start date

Night Tube mascot: Tooting Bec
Transport for London / PA Wire
Hatty Collier17 April 2016

Hundreds of stuffed owl toys have been sold to celebrate London’s night Tube – despite the service having no start date.

Tooting the Night Tube Owl began appearing on signs at London Underground stations shortly before the 24 hour service was due to start last September.

Transport for London (TfL) also ordered more than 2,000 of the cuddly toys – named after the Tooting Bec stop on the Northern line - to mark the occassion.

The £9.99 mascot is for sale on the London Transport Museum website with a description stating: "Are you a night owl?

"Meet Tooting, our night owl, a character created to celebrate the extension of the tube running hours at the weekends - coming soon! What a hoot!"

A long-running dispute over pay and conditions between drivers and TfL has led to several strikes and the start date of the service being pushed back.

Recent agreements with unions led London mayor Boris Johnson to state he believes night services will begin in July, with TfL noting it is working towards a "summer" start date.

Passengers will be able to travel through the night on Fridays and Saturdays on the Victoria, Jubilee, Central, Northern and Piccadilly lines.

A freedom of information (FOI) request from the Press Association, showed that 2,002 owl toys, which were designed by TfL’s in-house design team, had been produced by the start of 2016 and 297 sold by April 15.

It is believed that Tooting is known as Becky internally within TfL.

A London Transport Museum spokeswoman said: "A small number of the toys had already been ordered when the time-frame for night Tube negotiations increased, so we chose to still make them available to customers in the London Transport Museum shop.

"Given TfL is focused on delivering the night Tube for London as quickly as possible, it is only right for us to continue selling the mascot."

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