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.

Train Shortage on the Central Line

I have just received a text message advising that there are minor delays on the Central Line due to a lack of available trains.

Is it just me, or is what work Metronet are/ were doing deteriorating? There seem to have been an increasing number of infrastructure breakdowns over the last few weeks.

Lack of trains on a frosty morning? Looks to me as though the trains feel like me today - cold and tired. Still, at least when it rains, I don't leak.

Observations in West London

• On two mornings last week there was a Chiltern Railways cleaner cleaning and tidying the platforms at South Ruislip. I have been traveling from South Ruislip railway station for over 10 years, and this is the first time I have seen a cleaner there.
• Sat on a First Great Western train at West Ealing, waiting to depart onto the Greenford branch, the driver apologised for the delay over the public address system. The first announcement I have ever heard by a driver on this line.
  
• The refurbishment by Metronet at Northolt underground station on the Central Line appears to be almost complete. However the waiting room on the platform remains resolutely locked. Also, despite them being locked for several years, all public literature has continued to state that public toilets are available at Northolt. Hopefully they will be unlocked sometime soon- everyone has to pee sometime. I am sure the neighbours would rather the proper facilities were available, gardens can only take so much urine. Ugh.

Refurbishment Contracts?

It will come as no surprise to many to hear that there is a massive refurbishment programme underway, at present, at many London Underground stations. I frequently travel through South Ruislip and Northolt stations at the west end of the Central Line, both of which have been receiving the Metronet treatment for a significant number of months.

As part of the refurbishments, both stations have had new waiting rooms installed. This are glass enclosures (a bit like rectangular goldfish bowls) with draught holes at the bottom, no ceilings, lockable doors, seats and infra-red heaters.

These waiting rooms/ shelters appear to have been finished for at least two months. Indeed at Northolt back in February I saw the heating belting out heat one cold day. Maybe it was for a squirrel party, or something, because the door was locked. The doors have always been locked. That is, until this week when I saw people in the waiting room at South Ruislip. Just as the cold weather seems to have gone.

I have yet to see the doors to the waiting room at Northolt actually unlocked. Perhaps by the time the temperature reaches tropical numbers in August someone will decide that toasted passengers are preferable to mildly defrosted ones.

Hmmm... I bet it's all down to the contracts.

Strange place to nest at South Ruislip

South Ruislip station, at the West end of the Central Line, has been going through the process known by some people as refurbishment.

Refurbishment involves the installation of various vertical poles for (among other things) platform lights, loudspeakers, Help Points and signs to be attached to.

Now, and you'll have to use your imagination here, the other day I saw a pair of blue tits attempt to start building a nest in a hole drilled in one of the lamp posts. The birds could barely fit through the hole and there cannot be much space inside.

A subsequent visit by me made me think that the birds had obviously continued their work as there was a slight lip of mud starting to protrude over the bottom of the hole.

I do hope that Metronet, the refurbishment contractors, have no plans for the hole. Somehow I don't think the 'Blue Tit Nest' was on the plans.