About two years ago, around the time of a bout of tube strikes, I wrote the the Mayor and TFL to ask them if they'd consider letting me and other people volunteer our time to keep the tube running during the strikes. I figured my employer might like to donate a few hours of my time to help my colleagues get to work, and I figured TFL could train me up appropriately in return for some sort of commitment to helping them out in the future.
At the time, they Mayor's office wrote back to say "we don't get involved in the running of the tube" (yeah right!). TFL got back to me to tell me that their website has a jobs section if I wanted to become a train driver.
Well, now they've thought of it themselves: TfL Ambassadors set to help Londoners beat totally unnecessary industrial action on the Tube.