| Escalator Renovations |
[Nov. 23rd, 2005|01:32 pm] |
If this hoarding outside Green Park tube station is true, then why did it take them a whopping seventy-two weeks to fix the escalators at Baker St? Did they do them one at a time? Is there actually only one escalator renovator in the whole of old London town, dashing between underground stations, fixing escalators with a wave of his magic screwdriver?
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| Yahoo not too bright |
[Aug. 16th, 2004|06:03 pm] |
Another one I've been meaning to upload for a while...
This "Found" ad campaign from Yahoo has a fairly good concept. Make the adverts actually relevant to their placement.
They're totally let down by their poor choice of hypothetical searches, however. Declaring there to be "Cumulonimbus" where actually there is a beautifully clear blue sky is understandable, given the typical British summer, but this one in Southwark tube station - pointing exactly to the opposite of the direction you'd have to take to get to Waterloo, only one stop along the Jubilee line - is just woefully inept. |
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| The Mass Transit System That Cried Wolf |
[Oct. 8th, 2003|06:08 pm] |
Twice in the past seven days, I have arrived at Baker Street tube station on my way home, to find the noticeboards warning of delays on the Jubilee line (signal failures, natch). Both times, I approached a member of staff and asked whether I'd be better off taking the Bakerloo line south, with the slight extra walk that entails. They said, "Oh, the delays aren't that bad. Nothing to worry about," and so I continued along the detoured route down the escalators to the Jubilee line (2 yrs of repairs and counting) where I had to wait one and three minutes for a train, respectively.
Trains on the Jubilee line are supposed to come at intervals of "between 3 and 5 minutes".
So this morning, when I arrived at Southwark tube station, I was only a little perturbed to see that there were delays.
"How bad are the delays on the Jubilee line?" I asked the station attendant loitering by the ticket gates.
"Oh, not too bad. Nothing to worry about."
"I'm going to Baker Street, would I be better off walking to Waterloo and catching the Bakerloo line?"
"No, no, get the Jubilee line."
So I went down the escalators into the award winning architecture of Southwark station and waited on the platform.
The first train took five minutes to arrive. It was so full no-one could get on.
The second train took a further seven minutes to arrive. It was also so full no-one could get on.
The third train took another six or so minutes to arrive and was, unsurprisingly, so full no-one could get on.
At this point I was a broken man, and so I waited the remaining four minutes for the next train to come.
It was so full no-one could get on.
At this point, I decided that enough was enough and went back upstairs to the ticket gates.
The station attendant let me out, but did not apologise or even look particularly surprised that I was still there, and then I walked to Waterloo, where I caught the Bakerloo line with nary a hitch.
Interesting side note:
Today is Wednesday. It is also the second day this week I have been late to work due to the crumbling nature of Britain's transport infrastructure.
Tune in same time, same place tomorrow for the next exciting installment of c-dub's public transport children's stories, The Little Tube Train That Could!
Just kidding. Of course it couldn't. |
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| Richard Herring discovers what powers the London Underground |
[Sep. 16th, 2003|06:08 pm] |
I don't usually base entire entries in this journal on links, but today I'm making an exception basically because I really wish I'd written the linked article and I'm hoping that by linking to it I will fool you, dear reader, into thinking that I did.
Go read this, and then read the rest of his Warming Up journal. He really is a very funny man. |
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| Yet More Public Transport Shenanigans |
[Jul. 7th, 2003|04:48 pm] |
Last Friday evening, I had the misfortune to be attempting to travel north from Kings Cross on the ironically named "Northern line".
Service was, of course, suspended due to the infamous "signal failure" and the tannoy was advising the use of "alternative routes". As I've experienced this kind of thing once or twice before, I knew of such an alternative, and went to ask one of the staff members milling about in the ticket hall if my ticket to Archway would be valid on buses.
"I think so," he said, and then helpfully added, "or you could go to Euston and take the other branch of the Northern Line from there."
Mistake Number 1
I should have said, "HAHAHA YOU CANNOT FOOL ME WITH YOUR FOUL LIES!" but what I in fact said was "Oh, is that branch still running?"
"Yes," he replied, it's only this branch that is suspended."
"Ok, thanks," I said, and made my way to the Victoria line. I then travelled one stop in basically the wrong direction and arrived at Euston, where a tannoy was announcing the suspension of the Northern line due to signal failure.
Resisting the urge to get right back on the Victoria line, return to Kings Cross and strangle the lying-son-of-a-bitch station attendant that had sent me on such a wild goose chase, I instead left the station to continue my original Plan B of getting the bus.
As luck would have it, my girlfriend, whom I had been planning to meet in Archway, had also been delayed by the mysterious signal failure and making contact via mobile phone, we decided to go for a meal and attempt to continue north-wards after.
We had delicious Thai food.
After the meal, my girlfriend suggested that instead of getting the hot, uncomfortable tube, we get the bus back to hers, which had the added advantage of dropping us off at the end of her street, instead of five minute's walk away.
Mistake Number 2
This sounded like a good idea, even though it negated the possibility that I'd get to have an argument with a station attendant about whether I could use my original ticket to get to Archway, and so we made our way to a nearby bus stop.
There we waited for about twenty minutes for a number 43 bus.
Mistake Number 3
Eventually, tired of waiting, we settled for a number 4 bus which would take us to Holloway Road where we could change and get the first bus that arrived up the hill.
It soon became clear that the bus driver had only learned to drive that very day, as his idea of driving was to alternate between slamming his foot on the accelerator, and occasionally, at apparently random intervals, slamming his foot on the brake.
Mistake Number 4
I had originally chosen to stand, to avoid having to lug my bag up and down the aisle, but after being nearly thrown off my feet for the fourth or so time in the first couple of hundred yards, I decided to go sit in the one remaining available seat on the bus, the seat behind my girlfriend's.
I lurched and stumbled up the aisle, and got to the seat at the same time the driver took the racing line around a sharp corner. I was tossed into the seat and for a moment felt relief that I'd got there in time. Then I felt something else. More a sort of damp feeling. In the arse area.
It was as I leapt up that I was hit by the smell of tramp piss, and as I stared at my soaked bottom in horror a Good Samaritan sitting across the aisle leaned over and said helpfully, "Oh... I think that seat's wet."
Resisting the urge to strangle her like I strangled that bastard station attendant, I stood for the rest of the journey (which was heavily detoured for some unexplained reason), until the bus driver eventually dropped us off at Holloway Road, and we decided to walk home after all. This walk was roughly three times the length of the walk from the tube station we had caught the bus to avoid. It was also uphill.
Finally home, I put my trousers in the washing machine, had a shower, and felt much happier.
Good times. |
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| Escalator Rant |
[May. 19th, 2003|01:47 pm] |
My girlfriend and I went to Brussels for the weekend a short while ago, and made an interesting discovery.
In Brussels, the escalators don't go until you within a couple of feet of them. They then start, and continue until a few seconds after you've stepped off.
It's very nifty, but a little bit disconcerting if you're used to escalators that move all the time.
I'd imagine.
I say, "I'd imagine," because one of these magical psychic escalators did not start up when we stood at the base of it, and we had to walk up. This brought home to me the fact that during my life, I've visited approaching twenty countries in four continents and yet the only places I've ever seen an escalator that's out of order are:
- Stations of the London Underground,
- This single, dormant escalator in Brussels.
In fact, I have walked up and down (or been detoured around) considerably more stationary escalators on the London Underground than I have visited countries. The escalators at Baker Street Station have been out of order for nigh on eighteen months now.
I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make here.
Please feel free to add your own broken escalator sightings in the Comments Section. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 30th, 2003|09:53 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | tube | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  worried | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | John Coltrane - My Favourite Things | ] |
I was on the Jubilee Line on my way home from work yesterday, when a tall young black man got onto the train and sat a little down the carriage from me. He wearing a black baseball cap on top of a blue bandana, a big, puffy, cream jacket, baggy black jeans with white stitching, khaki Caterpiller boots and a pair of shiny silver Sony headphones. To top it all off, he had a chunky platinum chain around his neck.
He looked, in short, like the sort of person the police like to stop-and-search.
After settling himself, he got out a book, and began to read
The book was titled:
easy guide
to the
Nimzo-Indian
So there you go.
I need not to stereotype so much. |
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| HAHAHAHA! |
[Jan. 28th, 2003|10:56 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | tube | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | SimplyRadio.com | ] |
In the six months or so since the Jubilee line stopped stopping at Baker Street - where I need to get off - due to the eighteen (18) month escalator repair plan, I have been held up, evacuated, detoured or otherwise generally delayed by, variously:
- broken down train
- signal failure
- tube drivers' strike
- firemen's strike
- fire alert
- suspicious package
- train after train that is so crowded that it is not physically possible to cram any more people into it
- passenger illness
- passenger illness due to excessive heat
- train derailment
- [new! 30th Jan] under an inch of snow (yes! it's an underground train line!)
- [new! 11th Feb] unspecified "emergency"
- [new! 12th Feb] suspicious car outside station
- [new! 1st May] London Fire Brigade investigation
- general shoddiness
(With the notable exceptions of fire alert and train derailment, all of these have occurred more than once.)
Pardon me if I express great enthusiasm at the prospect of an estimated 20,000 more commuters per day attempting to forcibly ram themselves into London's already groaning public transport system when Mr Livingstone's Congestion Charging scheme kicks in on the 17th February.
"Hello... Mr. Camelsback? Pleased to meet you. I'm Straw." |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 28th, 2002|09:24 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | tube | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  weird | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | mos def and talib kweli ARE black star | ] |
ok... i have this brand spanking new lj, but i have nothing to say.
so! i will cut & paste this somewhat old anecdote instead.
...
had our second band practice after work today, and we finished just too late for me to catch the 9:45 train to london, so simon and i pop into the pub for a quick drink, before simon drives me to the station just in time to catch the 10:25. he pulls off, tires screeching, and i hop on the train.
pull into marylebone at around 11, and i amble to baker street and get on the jubilee line home. the train is by no means full, but most of the seats are taken, and there's a couple of people standing, so i stand at the end of the carriage, leaning on the cushion rest.
at bond street, this guy gets on. mid-twenties, quite skinny. he sits down just in front of me, and gets out a cigarette paper, placing it on his lap, carefully tucking the near edge underneath his black leather bum-bag (that's what us brits call a fanny pack, you yankee-types ;) )
just as i'm thinking "that's a kingsize skin" to myself, he produces a half cigarette from somewhere, and balances it on his left knee.
then, he slowly and deliberately unzips his bumbag (fanny pack) and gets out a small plastic bag. opening this, he pulls out a fair sized lump of weed, (leaving plenty left) and after replacing the bag in his bumbag, he begins to break it up in his hand. he does this so openly, so brazenly, that i find it impossible not to smile. the girl opposite him also notices, and catching his eye, makes some comment. they grin at each other, and exchange a few words.
at the next station, he begins to crumble in the half cigarette into the weed in his hand, and the two people getting on also notice, and they too have a quick chat with him.
by now, half the carriage is smirking to themselves, if not grinning widely like me, as he pops the contents of his hand into the cigareete paper, plucks a ready-made roach from its position, tangled somehow in his headphone cord and skillfully rolls a fat joint.
i'm grinning like a loon, and... just before the train pulls into southwark tube station, my gaze happens to fall downwards, and i realise, that the shoelace on the left of his pair of white reeboks, is green, yellow and red.
fucking fantastic.
made my evening. |
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