PR Fluff

Transport for London put out a Press Release yesterday titled "Customers benefit from new Piccadilly line timetable". What a load of Public Relations rubbish.

"The Piccadilly line is unique because it serves the heart of the West End's tourist and entertainment districts as well as Heathrow Airport."

• Yes..... and??? The Central Line is unique because it serves Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road. The Circle Line is unique because it goes round in a circle (for now). The Victoria Line is unique because.........
  

"Changes were made to the timetable in 2008"

• So why put a press release out in the middle of 2009?
  

"In recent years, rising passenger numbers have meant that trains have to stop at stations for longer while extra customers get on and off trains, leading to an increasing level of late running and delay."

• Doesn't this happen on every line?

Talk about useless piffle. I could go on, but I won't.

Christmas & New Year Travel Guide for London

Transport for London (aka tfl) have today published a Travel Guide to getting around London over Christmas and New year.

It weighs in at a hefty 2Mb and is in pdf format. For now the guide is available here, but if they move or change the file name, please let me know.

A summary is:

• Christmas Eve 2008: Most stuff finishes early
• Christmas Day 2008: London stops
• Boxing Day 2008: London starts to get going again, except for the Jubilee Line (no service Friday, Saturday or Sunday), the Metropolitan Line (no service) and the Waterloo & City Line. There are also other station closures on the Bakerloo, Central, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Northern Lines.

• There are also pages and pages of guidance should you be in London on New Year's Eve.

It isn't possible to summarise here all the travel changes detailed in a 25 page guide, so I recommend you obtain a copy if you intend to travel in London over the holiday period.

I note that there is no mention of a corporate sponsor for the free late night travel arrangements on 31st December. The economy really must be in a bad way.

Edit: 2 January 2009. Tfl have removed the guide from their website. At present I do not have any suitably anonymous webspace to host the document. If you can host, please let me know - if you want a copy emailed to you, please let me know. Thank you.

Work, sleep or blog?

To put it mildly, work is interesting at present. Very early starts, later than usual finishes and projects that have nothing to do with my usual job. All in some way connected to the unprecedented happenings in the financial services industry over the last few months.

My use of public transport has not diminished - the only problem is that I am generally dashing from A to B to C and using the down time to think, and plan how to move forward with the various projects. Usually such in-depth use of brain power isn't required. It's great fun, but something has to give.

Decent sleep is a necessity, I need to keep my job (and I enjoy it), so blogging has slipped down the to do list recently. Sorry.

The one thing I would say is that the Jubilee Line is beginning to seriously hack me off. The other day I was traveling from the West End to Canary Wharf when I had to get off the train somewhere South of The River to join a conference call, simply because the 'Good Service' Jubilee Line was actually crap. That is just one example.

Also it has been mentioned elsewhere that changing lines at Bank is not as bad or inconvenient as tfl would imply (though there are definite issues if you want to interchange at Bank Station with the District/ Circle Line platforms. On Thursday I was so hacked off with the silver line that I decided to use the DLR for the first time in months, it was mid afternoon. The interchange was so good (two upwards escalators from the DLR platforms towards the Central Line), that I shall certainly be traveling back to the West End that way for the foreseeable future.

If you have the willpower, please read Diamond Geezer's excellent 'transforming the truth' article.

Now some sleep...

Circle Line & Hammersmith & City Line both Suspended

This morning the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines are each totally suspended. In addition there is no service on the District Line between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road.

This blog is not constantly updated, so please visit the tfl website for up to date information.

The Real Time Map shows the huge impact of these suspensions.

It is apparantly all down to 'Health & Safety'. The BBC website states the issue as being around the "Traction Brake Controller". I don't work on the railway, so may be wrong, but I think this is (or is connected to) the "Deadman's Handle".

It looks as though I may be on the Central Line today!

A Fun Morning on the Underground

Large chunks of the underground were thrown into chaos this morning due to "Emergency Engineering Work" somewhere in the Whitechapel area.

The District Line had a chunk missing, the Hammersmith & City Line was suspended East of Moorgate, The Metropolitan Line was suspended East of Baker Street and the Circle Line was suspended.

I understand that there was a minor tunnel collapse before the trains started running (I mean MINOR) and the services were up and running by about Noon.

I diverted to the Bakerloo & Central Lines for the first time this week, only to find the both lines exceptionally busy (passengers have to go somewhere), not helped by a Bakerloo Line train being taken out of service at Regents Park.