Transport in London is shit

nauseating to think that tom d is out there diminishing the thoughtful kindness and politeness i've come to expect from london commuters

I'm touched that Tom was doing it for my benefit:

...deserved to have these facts pointed out to them so that maybe next time, maybe when you get on a bus to go to your work to pay your bills etc etc, he might act less like a cunt.

Turns out he was the Mother Theresa, after all - not me.

Mother Theresa is a name synonymous with villainy.

Tom D is a name synonymous with villainy. The Fantômas of the shadowy demi-monde of Shit Commuter.

http://www.toscanaviva.com/Lucca/mostra%20Fantomas.jpg

Tom D. yesterday.

Pursuing the noble villainous art of metaphorical cuffing around the ears cos cunts gotta be told for their own and everyone else's good mansplaining since 2002, I'll wager.

Why 2002?

not sure if I should be surprised you're using 'mansplaining' in its new, exciting, completely redundant context

as opposed to the old exciting completely redundant etc

something about 'derailing' here maybe

heh

Apologies - there's something about Transport in London which makes me IA and unreasonable. I'm taking myself off here for a bit.

Not at all, I'm the unreasonable one here, remember?

FYI I'm pretty sure that if Tom's bus dude were able to get the Tube yesterday he'd have been one of those fuckers who gets on a half-empty carriage and immediately stands right in front of the door.

These people are the worst fucking human beings in the world and I wish them nothing but unpleasantness.

Bet they also get to the top/bottom of an escalator, step off then DON'T FUCKING GO ANYWHERE.

Victoria line suspended between Walthamstow Central and Seven Sisters for 3 weeks, so the Overground is of course very crowded. So what do TFL do? Cancel trains on Tuesday and Wednesday, and this morning while it wasn't cancelled the train turned up with 4 carriages instead of 8 so I couldn't get on it anyway.

Can we get Abellio Greater Anglia back please?

I haven't travelled on it since the switchover but I keep reading about 8-car trains cut to 4 cars (due to train 'faults'). This seems to be happening every day and to quite a large proportion of the trains. I also keep reading about signal problems at Liverpool Street. Not sure what's going on exactly.

Yeah it has been... interesting this week. I've taken to getting a bus down to Leyton tube station early doors, which is the Central line and therefore awful but at least guarantees getting me in on time.

i get the district line from stepney green to westminster every day. best commute i've ever had apart from having to walk through the lake of souls on the westminster side.

The District Line is normally a shuffling beast of a transport option, you're the only person I know of who seems happy using it.

nah it really isn't anymore, or maybe it's the section i use. i expected it to be like this, the constant stopping and fucking up, but it's either improved or it functions on the fairly short stretch between stepney and westminster.

i've been getting it about a year and i'd say i could count massive stoppages on one hand. had my worst ever stoppage on the central line a few months back, about 15 minutes in the dark outside liverpool st, claustrophobia was mounting by the time we got moving.

Admittedly I don't commute on it, so I'm never in a hurry, but I always enjoy travelling on the District line. You get to see things out of the window (even, here and there, in central London). I prefer the rolling stock, as well -- more spacious.

the Circle and Metropolitan lines are also good in those respects.

it's a lot quieter and less aggro than the central line, which was my usual. i almost always get a seat on the way in and out. the design of the carriages that have two seats facing each other is total bullshit though, i shun them. the new trains are quite nice but feel busier.

district line's below ground in central london except briefly at whitechapel though not much to see but cables and building works but it's fine really it's the hammersmith & city that never seems to turn up when I need it and the circle can be a bit of a nightmare at times

yeah no good experiences on those. a short journey on the circle can go very wrong indeed.

problem with the Circle is that trains seem to be every 10mins or so, and then can be subject to all sorts of seemingly arbitrary signalling problems. It's great when it works properly though.

Not complaining as such, but the train in to Liverpool the other day from Stamford Hill just stopped before the platform but inside a tunnel, total dark for five minutes (slowly growing lighter as more people turned their phones on).

Bah, Liverpool Street there.

District has mostly been fine -- used to go a bit slowly in some sections. Can be v frustrating at w/ends.

What's the worst Tube line for summer heat? IME, the Central takes some beating. Oxford Circ to Bethnal Green last week around 7pm (when it was only 20C outside or so) was brutal.

the central is like the worst line in every respect apart from speed and frequency. most of the terrible things about the tube and people's rage etc is all confined to the central line in my experience.

tho isn't the victoria line really hot? i feel like i've noted that but i don't get it often enough to know.

the design of the carriages that have two seats facing each other is total bullshit though

The two seats facing each other is traditional and there used to be seats like that on the trains used on all the other lines. But I agree, if you don't have the seat to yourself it can feel awkward (assume that's what you meant). Maybe it depends on the amount of space between the seats. I remember feeling tense when forced to sit in those seats on the bendy buses. But on the Barking to Gospel Oak line I don't have a problem with it.

xp

I don't find the Victoria line that hot (and as various rants on British summer threads prove am particularly bad at dealing with heat), the Central line is clearly the worst but I also find the Northern line pretty bad.

it just feels like not enough room for knees etc - tho i've had 7 years of mostly central line, standing or in the usual lines of seats, i don't feel weird about facing the person, more just that there's not enough room.

xpost

isn't the victoria line really hot?

I remember it being incredibly hot 10-15 years ago. It's not as bad now. May be something to do with the newer trains.

I always avoid those kind of seats if I can (can't on the Overground I take because all the seats are like that), but I'm tall, so there really isn't enough room for knees

I get the Vic Line almost every day and it doesn't seem too bad; north from Brixton and south from Warren St, where usually I can get a seat. Even the threatened reduced frequency for this month (in association with nothing north of Seven Sisters) isn't having much of an impact that I can see at my end. Of course, the six months of escalator replacement at Brixton which immediately preceded this latest thing meant I didn't actually go near it for morning commuting Jan-Jul.

remove all seats facing each in order to stymie the scumbags (roughly 70% of the population) who insist upon putting their feet on the seat opposite

district line's below ground in central london except briefly at whitechapel

I couldn't remember if there were brief glimpses of daylight anywhere in the true centre. I was thinking of around Sloane Square and South Kensington. It comes up somewhere there and you see the Circle line branching off towards High Street Kensington.

Brixton > Oxford Circus > Ealing Broadway.

LG right about knee space on Central Line. Victoria line frequency is great - and I think there's been a lot investment on fans since the tube used to be at its worst.

District Line, when I used to travel on that, used to be my favourite. Wide, cut-and-cover gauge, airy, light and reliable, though multiple branch destinations meant you could be unlucky if travelling to places beyond Earl's Court.

Earl's Court level crossing responsible for an awful lot of delays on both District and Circle.

An as-always fairly interesting blog post on Victoria line work at London Reconnections.

Almost never use the District going East - I think the last trip I took was Mile End -> Upton Park ARGH the WAITING - but it's a fucking nightmare trying to get to someplace like Chiswick, especially on the weekend.

I'm OK with the Central line (and had better be, with Holborn station on my doorstep) because it gets me to Notting Hill Gate in under 15 minutes.

Northern Line in the '90s still haunts my dreams, it's all CORRECTION CORRECTION CORRECTION to the point where flatmates back then called it the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.

As someone who lives near Seven Sisters, and whose interests bring me to King's Cross, Oxford Circus, Victoria and Brixton, the Victoria line is basically perfect. It even regularly punishes those who live in Walthamstow!

I also live halfway to Manor House, and was excited upon moving in at the idea of having access to the Picadilly as well - needless to say rarely use it unless I'm heading to Leicester Square - and even then it might be better going down to Green Park and changing. I used to change at King's Cross but as far as I can tell that's just a massive pain wheel these days, generating industrial quantities of frustration and tedium for some infernal purpose.

Ooh, I discovered London Reconnections when Googling for information on the makeshift replacement bridge they built at Lewisham St John's after the fatal crash in the late 1940s - and which is still somehow there, almost as a monument to past calamity

It's a great website and I kept the link - here, if you'd like to take things overground and read about a strange and unfashionable little station that most people regard as an inconvenience: http://www.londonreconnections.com/2013/st-johns-part-2-world-war-ii-to-the-current-day/

Changing at Finsbury Park takes almost no effort, but the Piccadilly is slow, so that's a dilemma. I'd change at Warren Street if I were you (three stops on the CORRECTION line is not so bad).

The Victoria line has always been quickest; my friend C who was brought up in Turnpike Lane imparted this to me as SCIENCE FACT.

but the Piccadilly is slow ... The Victoria line has always been quickest

The Piccadilly is noticeably slow. When travelling from Heathrow or environs to Manor House/Turnpike Lane (where I live/drink) I have often wondered if it would be quicker to get off at Green Park, switch to the Victoria, and rejoin the Piccadilly at Finsbury Park. I'll have to time it some day. I know it's quite a long walk changing lines at Green Park, which is a drawback.

thanks, Fizzles, for that excellent article!

There must be some sort of lifehack to make a transfer at Green Park quicker.

like the shortcut to the central line at oxford circus