Gilligan and the Railways

Andrew Gilligan is a columnist with the London Evening Standard. He used to work for the BBC until he resigned over the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' / David Kelly affair.

Mr Gilligan is certainly opinionated- he is often like a dog with a bone. I don't think that Ken Livingstone likes him very much. I don't much care for many of his views.

Yesterday's Standard saw a piece on the railways. As I was reading it my blood pressure went up and my blood started to boil. The article appeared to be a rant against the entire public transport infrastructure in this country. I was getting cross and was about to spit feathers.

Then I came across this sentence:

"To avoid Virgin, take the excellent (and cheaper) Chiltern trains from Marylebone to Birmingham, or the even better Wrexham and Shropshire service from the same terminus."

Goodness me. At last I have found something on which I agree with Mr Gilligan.

To strike or not to strike?

Ok... the pressure is building.

A joint strike is planned on the London Underground from 1830 BST on 6 April to 9 April by the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA).

At this stage in the proceedings I suspect that there is more than a 50% probability that the industrial action will not happen. This is based on observation of many many disputes involving London Underground over the last two decades.

It has proven incredibly difficult to find any quality information about the dispute, so that I could present an informed view. Anyhow, here is what I have found:

• It seems to be about safety issues. Here are the blunt facts as presented by the RMT. It seems that 1,673 RMT union members voted for the action. This seems like a really low number of people across the whole of London Underground. This implies that either many people really couldn't be bothered to vote, or that this dispute doesn't involve all types of staff working on the underground.
• The TSSA have 3,000 members working on the underground. They had an 81.2% vote in favour of industrial action, but their media release does not say how many members actually voted.
• London Underground have responded to the strike announcement by saying "There is simply no reason for a strike, or even the threat of one, as all of the issues being raised can be resolved".

My personal views are:

1. Every station on the London Underground ought to have a physical ticket office that is open between, say, 6 am & 9 am and between 3 pm and 7pm every working weekday. The hours can be worked on, the concept is not negotiable. Bricking up a ticket office, such as happened at Regents Park during last year's refurbishment is a big no-no.
2. Health & Safety legislation in the country is very strong. If LUL decide they want to vary an aspect (S 4.2) of THEIR Congestion Control and Emergency Plan, then that is down to them. If the unions believe that a proposal is unsafe, they should challenge the matter through the courts, using injunctions if necessary. I suspect this is about job protection, not safety.
3. I agree with the unions that only directly employed LUL staff should be used for stations and ticketing operations, however I disagree with them about security staff being directly employed by London Underground.

Please note: I dislike Ken Livingstone, I am against the monolithic nature of 'Transport for London' and I have seen evidence that London Underground has bullied those with whom it deals.

Please also note: I view Bob Crow as a dinosaur and the way that the RMT behaves as belonging to another era.

We should not have to deal with incessant strikes or threats thereof. I really don't know what can be done about it, but I am fed up to the back teeth with a small number of people being able to hold London to ransom.

Neglected Central Line

I am conscious that I haven't been saying much about the Central Line recently. Here goes...

My new journey to work (when I am being lazy) involves changing from the Bakerloo Line to the Central Line at Oxford Circus.

So, this morning, I was grateful to the Bakerloo Line driver announcing at Baker Street that Oxford Circus was closed due to a fire alert. This gave me the opportunity to grab my stuff and nip over to the Jubilee line for one stop down to Bond Street. Probably made no difference to the journey time as my Red Line train was able to sail through Oxford Circus without the usual long dwell time.

This evening Uncle Ken (aka Transport for London) kindly sent me a text message to say that Central Line trains were now not stopping at Oxford Circus due to flooding. Mental images then followed of a station saturated with water from an over enthusiastic visit this morning from the London Fire Brigade, but that is probably me just being over excitable.

I then had a pleasant stroll up to the Euston Road with a short ride on a No18 Bendy Bus to get me to Marylebone for the train home to leafy Buckinghamshire.

Ho hum, another exciting evening as a London Commuter.

How to go to Greenford by bus from Hounslow?

Why would you want to?

Hounslow covers a fairly large area to the east of London's Heathrow Airport while Greenford appears to be a poorly defined area (based on state of the public transport infrastructure) in the London Borough of Ealing, neatly bi-sected by the A40 Western Avenue.

While I say 'Why would you want to?', I am not questioning anybody's desire to leave Hounslow, or their desire to get to Greenford. I am simply questioning the rationale for limiting the transport options to bus only as, so far as I can see, there is no direct bus link between the two towns.

While I am no fan of Uncle Ken, the Journey Planner on the TFL website is a useful tool to answer this sort of question.

Now, I am not going to start acting as a travel consultant to the rich & famous (or indeed to anyone else) but, to answer the question:

• Catch a 120 Bus towards Northolt and then, after about 40 minutes change onto an E6 to Greenford.
• Personally I would go at least part of the way by tube- I get really frustrated by the traffic snarl-ups in the Southall area (which is where the 120 bus usually gets stuck).