Saturday 23 May 2009

Whitsun madness UndergrounD

Telegrammed by our Independent Expert
With Liverpool Street closed for engineering work this weekend weary travellers are being fed onto the Central line at Stratford - like meat into a mincer.

With the Jubilee shut beyond London Bridge and no Loo Roll there is little choice of trains into the centre except via this sweating hell.

So which muppet in S&SD programmed the train announcement system to proclaim: "Thank you for choosing the Central line" at every swealtering station?

UPDATE: This from D-Notice who rather helpfully advises that...

The DLR is working fine for people who want to go from Stratford to central London.


Stuff Weary Travellers; count the money.

Telegrammed by The Master
One of the beauties of rail over air travel is that you don't have to turn up two hours ahead and queue for check-in.

Alas the modern railway is doing its best to bugger up this benefit.

Despite arriving 28 minutes early at Waterloo today all my time was spent queuing at the self-service machines to try and buy a ticket.


Fifteen machines are provided, but despite this chaos descends as soon as anyone unfamiliar with them joins the queue.

Each transaction takes an age - and it's not as if you can just walk on to the train and buy your ticket.

Of course Waterloo is now gated and SWT take great pleasure in administering a penalty fare to any passenger foolish enough to attempt buying a ticket on the train.

So much for a pleasurable travelling experience.

I made my train with only a few minutes to spare and sans any refreshments.

Thanks SWT.

UPDATE 26/05/09: This just in from 'Mike'...

Victoria on 19th May...

Despite the two companies operating services there both being owned by Govia, there are separate machines, with only two on the South Eastern side. Only one of which was working.


Off to the South Central side only to see a notice taped onto all machines "Due to a download problem, Southeastern destinations are not available from this machine".

If it wasn't for the barriers, Southeastern are pretty good at selling tickets on Ramsgate/Dover trains.

How un-joined up is that?