Defective trains and signal failures

Despite being a minute late leaving Paddington, my Bakerloo Line tube last night arrived at Waterloo a minute early, so I managed to catch my train.  That was a minute late, but only outside of TfL's sphere of influence, so it doesn't count.

The train in from Hersham to Waterloo this morning was on time, but the connecting tube to Paddington a different story.  I ended up waiting for nearly 15 minutes on a hot and overcrowded platform owing to, if I understod the announcements correctly, both an earlier signal failure and a defective train.  In the end, this delayed my journey by 16 minutes for £40.  Plus another £5 for the Paddington penalty.

Finally, I also realized I forgot the two-minute Paddington penalty in yesterday's calculations.  Another £5, bringing the total to 20 minutes at £50.

We haven't had one in a while, so here's my current Tube Bingo card for the week.

Perfect score and perfectly pathetic

A one minute-delay on yesterday's tube journey from Edgware Road to Waterloo did not make me miss my train, which was three minutes late (£7.50).

This morning was another matter altogether.  After dropping my daughter off at day care, I took the train from Hampton Court to Waterloo.  For the first time I can remember, it arrived exactly on time.  But the trouble began after that.  I went down to the Bakerloo Line, in order to catch the 09:34 to Edgware Road.

After sitting on the aforementioned train on the platform for nine minutes, trying to make out a series of inaudible excuses from the driver, I eventually did hear the platform announcer telling us the entire line was now suspended, owing to a passenger action at Charing Cross.

I managed to jump on the 09:48 Northern Line north-bound, thinking to change at Euston to get to King's Cross, and thence via the Circle, Metropolitan, or Hammersmith & City Lines to Edgware Road/Paddington, from where I can walk to work.  This tube train was on time.  The next (the Northern Line south-bound to King's Cross) was one minute late because we were 'being held at a red signal in order to regulate the service'.

Changed to Circle (etc.) Line platforms.  Nope: no service from those platforms owing to signal failure.  Left station, and took two buses to get to work - finally - at 10:51.  That's one hour, four minutes later than should be the case.  £160.  And a terrific Tube Bingo card with two days to run!

Take 5 - no, make that 12

UPDATE: went to a meeting this afternoon in the City.  I took the 13:44 from Paddington, which was meant to arrive at Farringdon at 14:00.  Instead, it arrived three minutes late and was subsequently held in a tunnel between stations at a red signal.  After that, they decided to terminate the tube at the very next stop, Edgware Road.  Not only was no explanation given for this, it was in no way intimated that this hadn't always been the plan.  The next train along to Farringdon should have been the 13:52, which was a minute late.  I arrived at Farringdon four minutes late in the end.

Heading straight home from this meeting, rather than back to the office, my train from Chancery Lane to Waterloo was delayed, but not enough to make me miss my connecting overground, so it doesn't count.  The three minute delay of that train, however, does.  So that's another £17.50 for today.


Traffic caused me to miss my train this morning - irritatingly, I arrived in the car park in time to seem the train pulling away.  That doesn't count, though (I'd be considerably theoretically richer if it did).  What does count is the two-minute delay on the next train in I caught (no explanation offered), and the subsequent three-minute delay on the Bakerloo Line train I was forced to catch following that (again, no explanation offered).

Five minutes in total: £12.50.

In other news, Brixton's underground station was temporarily closed this morning, apparently due to an earlier signal failure at Vauxhall.  Quite how this causes a station elsewhere to close, I don't know, but TfL (according to information at the time of writing) couldn't be bothered to report the closure and pretended the Victoria Line was suffering from only 'minor delays', while allowing regular commuters to queue outside on the streets on this particularly brisk October morning.

When is a delay not a delay?

Quite an adventure this morning: traffic problems made me miss my original train from Hampton Court, so I had to wait half an hour for another.  In the absence of any advice to the contrary from my previous post, I'm going to continue not charging for this form of delay.

However, I am going to charge for the three minutes' delay arriving in Waterloo on the train I did take, which was due to being held at a red signal outside Vauxhall because of overcrowding.

I'm also going to charge for the reasons behind this, which were chaos caused by the suspension of the Victoria Line (irrelevant to me) and an earlier signal failure on the Bakerloo Line (which I needed to take), the latter causing a further minute of delay.  I suspect that these delays worked in my favour, because given TfL was advertising 'severe' delays on the Bakerloo Line this morning, I think the 09:37 I caught was probably a very delayed earlier tube - and it's only my final delay that counts.  You lucked out, TfL!

Or did it?  I make this three new strikes for this week's Tube Bingo card: overcrowding, red signal, and signal failure, to be added to yesterday's sitting in a tunnel for no reason.  My card for the week is below, and I'll add another 4 minutes and £10 to the tally.

Finally, I note at Hampton Court station, South West Trains has removed its poster asking you to vote for their employees in National Customer Service Week.  Do we think this is:

1. Because of reading my earlier post?
2. Because they realised the absurdity of the proposition?
3. Because they decided they were too cheap after all to offer those first class tickets?
4. Because they'd already received so much abuse from passengers instead of nominations?

UPDATE: total of five minutes' delay on the way home.  No reasons given.  £12.50.