Boring

Delayed by three minutes on the train from Hersham to Waterloo this morning, all delay accrued beyond Surbiton (and therefore TfL's fault).  Had to get a later connecting tube to Paddington as a result, itself a further minute delayed, owing to overcrowding at Paddington.  And another two minutes for the Paddington penalty charge.  In all, I was therefore five minutes late for £12.50.

Other news is boring today.

Image management, by TfL

Good morning.

Yesterday's journey home featured an on time tube, but a connecting train to Hersham delayed by five minutes owing to overcrowding.  But overcrowding caused by a very special piece of incompetence.  You see, the train from Waterloo to Woking (Hersham is a stop on that line) is normally eight carriages long.  Last night, however, the decision was taken to disconnect half the carriages from the train while stationed at Waterloo, and send only four coaches forth on their usual journey.  Apparently, this is because the carriages were needed by another service.  And let's remember that the line I travel was recently shown to be the second busiest in the country.  Yeah, the carriages were needed elsewhere.  That makes sense. 

I was going to get me revenge by travelling first class this morning on a standard ticket, but the train was too full to make my way to the first class carriages.

Instead, this morning's standing-room-only journey into Waterloo was delayed by a minute, causing me to take a later connecting tube than planned, making me three minutes late overall.

That's eight minutes in total since yesterday morning, or £20.

And finally, TfL gives another good example of How Not To Do PR: embarrassingly, I missed the Cable Car satisfaction survey results announced earlier this week, but the summary is that a few cherry-picked results showed satisfaction scores of 93 out of 100.  Why do we think these results are cherry picked?  Because TfL is refusing to provide anyone with copies of the original report to check it out for themselves.

Now, releasing news from a research report or survey a bit at a time is hardly uncommon practice in PR - after all, you've paid good money to create some news hooks and you want to eke them out over time to maintain positive momentum.  But the thing is, that's something private companies can do with private funding.  This survey was paid for with public money and is being promoted with public money.  Forcing people to fill out Freedom of Information requests to get hold of it has got to call your motives into question.  And let's not forget TfL has a history of unreasonably withholding the most basic information about itself as long as it possibly can for no good discernible reason.  What is this organisation trying to hide?

B-I-N-G---no.

The Bakerloo Line was a treat this evening.  Got to the platform in time to catch the 18:07, but no train arrived until 18:15.  I was physically unable to board as it was so overcrowded.  Not to worry: the next train was up on the board as only a minute behind, though it turned out to be three minutes behind.  And almost as full.  A very sweaty and unpleasant journey, constantly off-balance and with people sticking their armpits in my face.

That earned me a 12 minute delay overall, but I wouldn't have been able to catch an earlier train anyway, so I won't count that beyond the reason, which earns me an extra tick on my Tube Bingo card (nearly a bingo, but not quite):

I will take £5 for the two-minute delay on the train to Hersham though.

Windfall for Signal Failure

What an exciting 24 hours!  Take a look at my Tube Bingo card for this week:

Looks promising, doesn't it?  Only one day to go, though, unless I elect to work from home on Friday, which I may well do as my in-laws are coming to stay (NB this is not because I'm trying to avoid my in-laws, but because I haven't set up the garden office yet, and I don't want to be underfoot for them on their first day with us after the long drive from Germany.)

So, what happened last night and this morning to bring us to this state of affairs?

1. The tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo was delayed by three minutes, due to 'operational issues'
2. This caused me to miss the connecting 19:02 from Waterloo to Hersham, so I had to get the 19:20, so although this was on time, I arrived 27 minutes later than I should have.  My daughter, who had during the course of yesterday taken ill, was in bed and asleep by this time, so I missed the chance to be with and comfort her - and apparently she'd been asking for me desperately.  Tempted as I am to impose a £1,000,000 spot fine for that, I'll stick by the rules I created and only charge for a 27-minute delay
3. This morning's 07:49 from Hersham to Waterloo arrived 11 minutes late.  Though this is outside the TfL network, I'm charging it because the problem lay with a 'faulty board' which stopped trains both leaving and entering Waterloo - or something like that, the announcement was mostly inaudible.  By the time we arrived at Waterloo, we were 23 minutes late
4. This caused me to take a later connecting tube than I otherwise would have, causing me to arrive at work, in the end, 54 minutes later than I should have.  This is because the Bakerloo Line was also delayed because of (announced) 'operational issues' and (witnessed) severe overcrowding (people were queueing from the platforms to the ticket gates) and broken escalators.

So, all in all that's a 27-minute delay yesterday and a 54-minute delay this morning.  Total: 81 minutes, £202.50

OK, can't resist sharing this little tidbit...

My morning train is the second-most overcrowded in the country, running at 164% capacity.  Nice.

Think I may have to change my commuting patterns next year...

Poor show, TfL!

 An interesting journey home tonight to say the least.  Somehow, I'm always buoyed up when TfL performs as it says it will or, like this morning, even better.  Probably because it's so rare.  And that's probably why I can't shake optimism that things might be about to get better.  But tat optimism is always ill-founded, and I'm glad I didn't make my briefly-considered pledge to forgive TfL any delays for the next 24 hours.

It's only Tuesday evening: surely this week's card will be a winner!

So, then, as you can see from the updated Tube Bingo card, it's been an eventful evening.  I took the District Line from Edgware Road to Wimbledon, which arrived with a delay of six minutes, owing to two excuses: the first was a slow moving train in front of us, the second its causing overcrowding of the platforms at Wimbledon.
This didn't matter, as I'd factored on getting the 18:52 train from there to Hampton Court, due to arrive at its final destination at 19:14 (which is what Journey Planner still tells me, insultingly enough).

I actually got to Hampton Court at 19:43 for a 29-minute delay and £72.50.  But this journey itself was exciting.  And by 'exciting', I mean infuriating.  After a good 15 minutes or so waiting on the platform at Wimbledon, TfL finally deemed it worth announcing that there weren't going to be any trains to Hampton Court for the foreseeable future, and that I should board the next train to Guildford, changing at Surbiton.  No explanation was offered for this turn of events.

On the train to Guildford, we were told there had been/were signalling problems at Waterloo, leading to fewer trains leaving there at the present time.  This meant that the trains that were running were heavily overcrowded.  And all we selfish sardines were leaning on the doors, causing further delays.  So, a couple more excuses for the card.  All I need now is the relatively common 'signal failure' excuse for which this blog is named, and I can scare my carriage by shouting 'BINGO!' at the top of my voice.  I realise this might compromise my identity if one of you happens to be on that carriage.  Don't be scared, though.

Another record-breaking score from TfL

TfL's really going for gold.  A bit late for the Olympics, but perhaps in keeping with the secret ideals of what I will laughingly refer to as their 'service'.

This morning, my train in was delayed by 10 minutes owing to congestion/overcrowding ahead of us.  I found out just before Vauxhall (when it was too late to do anything about it, like change at Wimbledon for the District Line) that the Bakerloo Line was suspended between Elephant & Castle and Piccadilly Circus (so including the bits of it I need) due to a person under a train.  Take a look at the Tube Bingo card now.

All this meant I had to take the next best route I could find (since I also discovered there were delays on the Victoria and Central Lines, for reasons that were completely inaudible): Northern Line to Euston, change there for King's Cross, and change again there for the Circle Line to Edgware Road.

I got to my final destination 39 minutes later than I should have, missing almost the entirety of a meeting with my boss.  This while I'm in my probationary period still.  Thanks TfL.  Thanks for nothing.  That'll be £97.50.  And I'll be blaming you if I don't pass my probation or receive a bonus and tardiness is in any way mentioned.  Oh, and charging you for it too.