Sometimes I get caught out too ...

People often say too me "So tubegeek... you must really love the tube then huh?".

Well no actually - it pisses me off big time on the many occasions that it does break down.

Take today for example. I have a lunch hour. It should be perfectly possibly for me to travel from White City to Ealing Broadway, spend 20 minutes in Ealing and then come back again in time.

Not today ... apart from the fact that there were three out-of-their heads on god-knows-what chavscum in our carriage abusing everone (They were drunk, loud, abnoxious, and one of them REALLY DID have a fake burberry cap on) which made me change trains along with several other people - by the time I came back a 'signal failure at Stratford' was mucking up the whole of the central line.

I fail to see how a signal failure that far down the line can have an effect as far back as White City. Perhaps if the volume that the drivers PA was set to enabled you to HEAR what he was saying on the occasions that he did try to tell us, then everyone wouldn't have got so annoyed.

Instead, it took me 47 minutes to get back between Ealing Broadway and White City, 20 of those minutes were sat agonisingly outside White City station itself - and it drives me mad. So yes... even tubegeeks get affected sometimes.

I remember when Jack Welsby last got the tube record, the LU press office put a big positive spin on it saying "He was able to do this due to the improvements that we've made under PPP". This is bobbins! (That's a real word, btw)

If Guinness ratify us (any day now, surely?), then I can tell you now that I'm going to say "A lot it is just pure luck on the day that nothing breaks down on this ageing and underfunded system", because all too depressingly often something does break down almost every single day. Siiiiigh.

London Underground; Tube Posted by Anonymous Monday, September 06, 2004 Permalink COMMENT HERE
Tweet http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2004/09/sometimes-i-get-caught-out-too.html