Bit of a late update, this one, but nonetheless, my trip home yesterday unfolded as follows: a five-minute delay on the tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo cause me to miss my connecting train, and the train I did take suffered a further three-minute delay: 29 minutes late home in total.
This morning, the train didn't quite make up for its three-minute delay last night, but arrived in Waterloo two minutes early. The tube was on time, so this saved me three minutes in total arriving at work. I make that 26 minutes and £65 to add to the tally in total.
In other news, more posturing and strike threats from Bob Crow as politicians dare to suggest reviewing a pensions system that sees the taxpayer contribute six times as much as the TfL employee. Said Crow:
"Try it and you'll see the biggest wave of industrial action on the London Underground in 30 years. I have a very small penis."
OK, fine: that's paraphrasing, not quoting. Seriously, though: I thought Thatcher had broken the trade unions? Looks like she missed one. Any politicians reading this care to pick up where she left off? Seriously, I doubt anyone (except TfL employees) will give you any flack for it. In fact, you wouldn't really be a new Thatcher, more a modern-day Robin Hood.
Where's Thatcher when you need her?
(Image credit: Billyfurious.com)
Just because it was a bank holiday this week. And because I appreciate you all reading my drivel. And because of the very late post the day before yesterday. Just because you didn't get to have lobster and I did.
Just because of those things, I'll break my usual habit and update yesterday's travel home on a Friday:
Tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo was three minutes late, causing me to miss my connecting train
The next connecting train from Waterloo to Hersham was five minutes late - nine in total, had I been able to catch my intended train.
Overall, this adds nine minutes and £22.50 to TfL's bill
In the meantime, the terrorist Bob Crow is organising more tube strikes. Enjoy.
Yesterday afternoon's tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo was a minute late, but this did not cause me to miss my connection to Hersham, which ran on time.
Train was two minutes late coming into Waterloo this morning, which made me miss my connecting tube. The tube I ended up taking was also a minute late by the time it arrived at Edgware Road, making me four minutes late overall: £12.
At Kensington Olympia, a rare show of TfL listening to common sense: TfL has backed down form plans to put up ticket gates to block a public right of way used by residents of the area as a shortcut to their homes. See, the bridge can apparently also be used as an entrance to the tube station, and 10% of people dodge fares here as opposed to the average 2% elsewhere. I don't know who gave TfL the right to arbitrarily block paths that are public rights of way if it feels like it, but he or she wants his or her head examined: this was always bound to be abused. Still, crisis averted for those of you who even know what I'm talking about. And for those who don't, this is an important victory: if they get away with it there, they could get away with it near you too. I'm reasonably confident without seeing any evidence whatsoever that TfL's eventual plan is to put up ticket barriers at your front door so you can't even use their streets and pavements without paying.
Somehow, George Harrison's song 'Taxman' springs to mind:
"If you drive a car I'll tax the street, and if you take a walk I'll tax your feet"
Wasn't about TfL originally, of course, but I'm also relatively certain that's what George really meant.
Elsewhere, conservatives in City Hall have called for a ban on strikes by tube staff, something Signal Failure wholeheartedly supports. Presumably this renewal of calls to crush the trade unions comes as a tribute to Margaret Thatcher's death. Instead, the Tories say, strikes should be replaced by 'compulsory independent meditation' - which I assume is a typo (read it now before it's corrected or else don't bother telling me later I can't read).
That's it for this morning, really: the rest of the TfL-related news is more about travel around Thatcher's funeral, and another article from the HuffPo which doesn't credit me as its source (which I'm pretty sure I am, at least in the same way I'm sure of George Harrison's mind and TfL's plans for personal house arrest).
Yesterday''s tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo arrived a minute early! Needless to say, that enabled me to get my connecting train to Norbiton to pick my daughter up from the childminder. That train was also a minute early arriving. Touché, TfL. Touché.
London Underground have also been fined £300,000 for trying to kill passengers. A 39-tonne maintenance waggon got out of control and smashed through seven stations, coming within yards of hitting a packed tube train.
Everyone thinks I'm exaggerating when I say TfL is evil. Will you listen now?
Thankfully - and I never thought I'd be thankful for TfL delays - just a six-minute delay coming into Waterloo this morning (though I did have a small heart attack on seeing the Overground was part suspended on the TfL homepage just before setting out; the usspension didn't apply to my route). Had to take a different connecting tube than planned, itself a minute late.
Ended up at my final destination seven minutes late for another £17.50, which seems quite paltry compared to yesterday's gains.
In other news, the Evening Standard tells me that if you were unlucky enough to need the Jubilee Line this morning during rush hour, a cracked rail combined with a strike by maintenance engineers meant delays for you when bosses insisted trains could only travel at 5mph. Bob Crow and his cronies up to money-grubbing tricks again, I've no doubt, but what was really interesting is that London Underground is insisting there were, in fact, no delays and that all services were running normally. Was that your experience? I'd be interested to hear from someone at LU quite how slowing trains down to 5mph has no effect on the service.
The Standard is also carrying a story about a junction in Islington that saw its traffic light phasing changed during the Olympics and Paralympics and resulting in 4,286 penalty notices being dished out by TfL for the period 27 July - 7 September, for which daylight robbery the organisation netted £557,180. The same period a year previously saw not a single penalty notice issued. Hmm.
Boris Johnson said during his election campaign that driverless tube trains would be operational within the decade. Oh ye of little faith: behold! it is such a threat that RMT is already preparing to strike.
Said Bob Crow RMT general secretary:
"RMT reiterates this union's complete opposition to driverless trains. Every train must have a driver to ensure the safe and effective running of the Underground."
He continued:
"Plans to scrap drivers or reduce their driving duties are risking safety, services and jobs and are motivated by saving money and undermining trade unionism."
Bob Crow, for anyone not familiar with him, is the fascist who has been responsible for greedy and unjustified money-grubbing on behalf of RMT's members for some time now. I'll translate those comments into English:
"RMT reiterates this union's complete opposition to driverless trains. Every train must have a driver to ensure we can continue to hold the capital to ransom for wholly unjustified pay rises and bonuses, yea even in the teeth of a global recession."
"Plans to scrap drivers or reduce their driving duties are risking my temporary position of influence, my own confidence of my manhood, and my ability to make money out of the searing misery of millions of honest citizens through their realisation that trained parrots could do the job our union members do, thus undermining my authority, such as it is."
Come one TfL, you have a chance to drastically improve the experiences of your customers whilst simultaneously extracting a poisonous thorn from the side of your organisation, the capital, and indeed the nation itself: take it!
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