Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

I've just checked the TFL website to see how the Tube is running tonight.

Imagine my joy to find that my branch of the Northern Line is suspended because they managed to derail a (happily empty) train at Archway. So, Victoria Line to Finsbury for me, followed by the overland to Oakleigh Park and a bracing walk laden with bags.

Fan-friggin-tastic.

Or I could spend a couple of hours crushed in an 82 to North Finchley.

West Finchley tube station, just two stops down the line from Totteridge and Whetstone, where I embark upon my daily journey into the surreal is one of those quiet little stations on the London Underground system that is far enough out from the centre for the line to have emerged from the depths and run like any self-respecting train along the surface. If it wasn’t for the tell-tale station signs and the fact that only tube trains run through it, you wouldn’t think you were in London at all, much less on the Underground system. It’s a sleepy, leafy little hideaway suburban station that could be anywhere in England; it comes alive for about 90 minutes in the morning and again in the evening before being left to the squirrels, starlings, finches and the occasional flasher.

So quite why the place was the centre of a security alert responsible for the suspension of the Northern Line between High Barnet and Finchley Central this morning is entirely beyond me. Some absent-minded cretin must have left his or her bag sitting on the platform and scared the willies out of the bloke in the ticket office.

Now I know that we have to be careful in these days of heightened lunacy, but really: West Finchley. Somewhere in the centre or on the route out to one of the airports, I could understand. Finsbury Park perhaps, about the same distance out as West Finchley, but the site of a rail intersection; but West Finchley?

Having texted the office to warn them I might be late, the system reopened and I got into work at the same time as usual, despite it all. The relevant idiot just managed to raise my blood pressure for a few minutes, is all. I daresay it was all a little more inconvenient for several thousand other commuters though.

I mean really, West Finchley?

NB: The hassle was not enough to warrant the relevant icon.

The Transport for London website tells me there are 'minor delays' on the Northern Line, due to an earlier signal failure at Finchley Central.

Frankly this tells me nothing; I might get a train as if nothing had happened, or I might get to spend an additional half hour crammed underground with my nose stuffed in someone's armpit.

One day there will be no need to use the Northern Line, and I shan't know what to do with myself.

Other than rejoice heartily, that is.

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?