![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Going Underground
Severe Delays
When I am dead, that can be inscribed on my tombstone. There was a signalling failure at Kennington on the Northern Line last Wednesday morning. There is still a signalling failure on the Northern Line at Kennington this morning. It has been the same every day in between times, and the advice is to use alternative methods of transport.
Well, I suppose I could take the bus. That takes a mere hour and a half to cover the 15 miles in to work, even outside the rush hour, and involves changing at North Finchley. It does, however, drop me off directly at Victoria Station.
There is the overland from Oakleigh Park. If it turns up. I have been informed that it used to be an excellent fall back, if the tube was out, but since the Hatfield crash, it is often delayed, cancelled, or simply just intermittent. Whichever mood it is in, it seems that it is only to be used in extremis. Happily, the severe delays of the Northern Line have not yet acquired such a status.
The thing about the phrase severe delays on the London Underground, is that it can mean that your journey takes between 10 and 20 minutes longer than it should, so it’s hardly earth shattering for most of the time. Where the problem lies of course, is the fact that it is an extra 10 to 20 minutes stuck in an over-stuffed, cramped carriage 200 feet underground, with your nose pushed into someone else’s arm pit, and with inadequate ventilation.
Nice.
There is a £100,000 prize offered by the Mayor of London for anyone who can devise an efficient and cost effective cooling and ventilation system for the network. I’m no engineer, but why hasn’t one of you buggers out there won it, yet?
When I am dead, that can be inscribed on my tombstone. There was a signalling failure at Kennington on the Northern Line last Wednesday morning. There is still a signalling failure on the Northern Line at Kennington this morning. It has been the same every day in between times, and the advice is to use alternative methods of transport.
Well, I suppose I could take the bus. That takes a mere hour and a half to cover the 15 miles in to work, even outside the rush hour, and involves changing at North Finchley. It does, however, drop me off directly at Victoria Station.
There is the overland from Oakleigh Park. If it turns up. I have been informed that it used to be an excellent fall back, if the tube was out, but since the Hatfield crash, it is often delayed, cancelled, or simply just intermittent. Whichever mood it is in, it seems that it is only to be used in extremis. Happily, the severe delays of the Northern Line have not yet acquired such a status.
The thing about the phrase severe delays on the London Underground, is that it can mean that your journey takes between 10 and 20 minutes longer than it should, so it’s hardly earth shattering for most of the time. Where the problem lies of course, is the fact that it is an extra 10 to 20 minutes stuck in an over-stuffed, cramped carriage 200 feet underground, with your nose pushed into someone else’s arm pit, and with inadequate ventilation.
Nice.
There is a £100,000 prize offered by the Mayor of London for anyone who can devise an efficient and cost effective cooling and ventilation system for the network. I’m no engineer, but why hasn’t one of you buggers out there won it, yet?
no subject