I've been commuting on the London Underground for 17 months now, and I have never seen it fail as much as it has in the last two weeks. It's gotten to the point where I consider it a minor miracle if I'm able to get in or out of work without there being major or minor delays or some kind of line suspension. I've practically forgotten what it's like to have two such commutes in a day!
The following is a list of stations that have managed to have signal failures since the 'snow day' (last Monday) that have resulted in some sort of delays or partial suspensions of the district line:
Putney Bridge
Earls Court
High St Kensington
Notting Hill Gate
Baker Street
Moorgate
Aldgate
Barking
South Kensington
That's nine stations in essentially 7 working days (there wasn't one this morning!), although to be fair last Monday wasn't really a working day as the lines were just down due to 'adverse weather conditions'. So really that's 9 signal failures in 6 working days, or 9 out of 12 commutes. Some have just been minor, such as the ones at Moorgate and Aldgate and such, but others have resulted in complete nightmares. For example, yesterday morning I spent 10 minutes standing in a Circle line train at High St Ken that didn't have any power, and it then took 15 minutes to get to the next station once power to the lines was restored. One day last week I had to travel to work via Piccadilly Circus. Piccadilly Circus is, I assure you, nowhere near my work or my house.
In addition to signal failures and 'adverse weather conditions', we've had some other great excuses for delays in the last few weeks: an earlier 'trespasser' on the line (to be fair this was for the central line), 'equipment' failure, a person taken seriously ill on a train, and my personal favorite was when we had delays coming home Monday evening because trains couldn't stop at Fulham Broadway because of an unsafe structure. This involved everyone peering out the window as we passed the station to try and figure out what was going on. Aside from some water from the ongoing downpour, nothing appeared to be out of order and there were no workmen on the scene.
I've been told that all these shortcomings meant that there would be 'no trains for the foreseeable future'. The general party line from the driver is 'we hope to be on our way shortly', although I've recently determined that they literally are just hoping and in reality have no idea. I've been 'advised' a multitude of times to do things I don't really want to do, such as 'seek alternate routes' and that my 'tickets will be accepted on local bus routes'.
Needless to say, I find the whole situation unacceptable. If they don't get the whole things sorted out soon, well, I guess there's not much I can do about that...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I've heard that one reason people move from London (sometimes they are seen running down streets, screaming, clutching nothing but the bare essentials) to points where getting to work, etc, doesn't involve public transport is because of the tube system. I guess if one can't live within walking distance of work (which can be a futile attempt if work keeps moving) they need outlets for their frustrations. Isn't that one reason there are so many pubs?
The interesting ones are Baker Street, Moorgate and Aldgate which managed to cause disaster on the District line even though those stations are not on the District line (though they are on interconnecting lines which is guess was the reason for the catastrophe).
My favourite was the suspension of the Metropolitan line (my line) on the snow day and the ever helpful advice to "seek alternative routes" when there were no surface rail, the other tube was suspended, the other surface rail was suspended and all the buses had been withdrawn. A 9 mile walk to work was not going to happen.
There has also been a spate of "late finish to engineering works" on my line of late. Impressed I am not.
Tonight there was a problem whereby "the signal is working but it is identifying trains wrongly and sending them off on the wrong track" and thus an associated major delay. Personally I don't think that would come under the dictionary definition of working, but from an organisation where sitting in the middle of nowhere for ten minutes constitutes a "good service" I'm frankly not surprised.
Oh dear you've got me started now...
but its a lot cheaper than a car and the insurance, mot, services, and parking!
plus i think id rather have train issues than sit in a jam! mainly because i feel that a train delay is a good excuse for arriving late to work but a traffic jam is not as there is not much you can do to make the train move!
the biggest plus though is you can have a drink after work and still get home
Some more to stations to add to the list from this morning:
Bayswater - minor delays on District line due to equipment failure
East Putney - District line suspended from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon because of a faulty train.
Luckily I avoided the East Putney situation, but one of my coworkers was stuck on a train outside of East Putney for over an hour this morning. She got to work over two hours late as a result.
Post a Comment