A surprise Friday post!

I have eschewed my normal option of working from home on a Friday, since my office is near to Paddington rail station, and I want to catch a train to Reading later to attend my friend Noj's stag do.  Otherwise I'd have just had to come in past the office later anyway, so it seemed pointless to stay at home.  Especially since my daughter is at home all this week owing to the childminder's holiday, which means I would have gotten little work done in any event.

That said, I think I'll miss her like crazy: she was especially sweet and well behaved yesterday.  And, naturally, she's chosen this morning to re-enter a 'Daddy' phase, the morning when I'll be gone nearly the whole weekend.  Oh, well: good luck wife!

Now, on to the travel extravaganza: the 17:15 tube from Edgware Road was a minute late arriving yesterday afternoon, and two minutes late by the time it got to Waterloo.  However, I make no charge, since it did not cause me to miss my connecting train to Hersham.  That train, believe it or not, arrive a whole minute early, so I need to refund TfL £2.50.  I won't deny it's galling every time I have to do that, but I can always comfort myself in the knowledge that, while I've once or twice been deposited at my final destination one or two minutes early, I have never ended up there 10-15 minutes, or even one or two hours early.  Whereas when it comes to delays, this blog is a testament to the fact that, while that's not usual, it's far from unheard of.

This morning, the train from Hersham to Waterloo arrived a minute late, but since that minute's delay was incurred before the train even reached Hersham (i.e. outside of TfL's sphere of influence) I will not make a charge.  The connecting tube, however, was two minutes late, and the only reason I could deduce for this was a knock-on effect from the partially suspended, severely delayed Central Line, which was caused by a person under a train.

So altogether, Signal Failure's up another £2.50.

There's TfL-related news elsewhere in the world today but, frankly, it's boring.  So I won't reproduce or summarise it here.

Likely to be no more updates now till next week.  Have a good weekend everyone: enjoy the snow, and please don't speak too loudly to me on Monday morning, in case I'm still nursing a hangover...

Incomplete journeys, people under trains, and the crusade against pavement advertising

A minute's delay on the tube from Edgware Road to Waterloo didn't cause me to miss my connection to Hersham, which ran on time.  No score draw.  Interestingly, the delay on the Bakerloo Line was described as 'severe' and owing to a person under a train as reported here, but as regular readers will know, this length of delay or longer is pretty much the norm for my journey on this very line.  It's never even been mentioned before, which leads me to the conclusion that any kind of incident is automatically reported as a delay as some sort of self-protection mechanism, regardless of whether the service is actually affected or not.  By contrast, if there's no incident, delays of pretty much any length are pretended not to have happened.

What else have I got for you today?  Well, there's the news (to me at least) that more than 54,000 journeys a week on TfL's network are never resolved as incomplete, meaning that those journeys are charged the maximum fare.  Granted, some of them may be deliberate fare dodgers, but the majority are likely not to be.  TfL goes out of its way to protect this revenue stream, refusing to answer Freedom of Information requests on technicalities.  Eventually, last year, they did introduce a way for those who've registered their Oyster card details online to check for incomplete journeys, but they were careful not to publicise this, and the web site doesn't alert you to an incomplete journey - you have to go in regularly and check.  The good news is you can now sign up to ClaimMyRefund.co.uk and get those notifications: don't let TfL steal money to which it's not entitled!

On the other hand, TfL earns my appreciation for crusading against pavement billboards.  They're always in my way - and being a marketer by profession, I have a higher tolerance than most for intrusive advertising, so when they piss me off, it's time for them to go.  Of course, the 'health and safety' reason TfL's given for this crusade is bullshit, but that's by the by.  It would be nice to see them simply say they're fucking annoying and have to go, but that's political correctness for you.

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.