Transport in London is shit

In five weeks time, the London Overground goes orbital. The South London link from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction opens on Sunday 9th December, and suddenly it'll be possible to ride round the capital via only orange trains.

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This creates the tantalising prospect of being able to ride the entire orbital route from Highbury and Islington to Highbury and Islington via Clapham Junction in only two trains. All the most hardcore London train geeks will be doing it, although the rest of you might give it a miss because it is essentially pointless.

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/outer-circle.html

ooh i had no idea about that! i keep ending up having to travel from hackney to clapham junction these days, will prob give the new route a try just for some variety...

The lack of a sensible or easy way to travel from SE to SW London has been a fucking nightmare for so long that I thoroughly approve of this. Shame I don't really have any reason to go to SW London.

There's been a pretty strong influx of 30-something hipsters and/or startup geeks moving to the Brockley-Honor Oak-Forest Hill axis since the orange line opened up, guess they'll start migrating west now as well.

This gives me an alternative route to work (I work nearish Clapham Junction) but this new train takes longer than just staying on the Victoria line to Vauxhall and getting a train to Clapham Junction from there unfortunately.

Alternatives are great news though, right?

This is good news for me in so far as it will enable easy getting back to Peckham when I'm coming back into London on the slow line from the South West.

A likely decrease in trains to Victoria (where I work these days) is probably bad news.

But alternatives! Good!

Dunno, they seem to love redirecting trains to Victoria and there'll probably be even more of that when the really hardcore work at London Bridge gets going.

Yer commute may be slower on the overground but it might be more bearable, although the great thing about alternative routes is that they take the pressure off the main one.

What will make a huge difference to my commute will be the extension of the Northern line to Battersea, but that's not going to be done for 4 years so I probably won't be working here then.

Commuting via Victoria line is totally fine for me cos I live at the end of it = virtually guaranteed seat unless I'm running v late.

This makes it a single train commute for me, which is great, but pisser about losing the direct Victoria trains (especially at weekends, when there seem to be none).

I had no idea that the inner loop (South London line) from Victoria to London Bridge was closing. Bit of a pain for regular users of Wandsworth Rd and Clapham High St. Also, the once-a-day parliamentary train that runs up to Kensington Olympia is finally being withdrawn from those stations too.

I've now downloaded a spreadsheet of station usage. Someone stop me.

Peckham Rye gets more than Aberdeen!

I'm assuming the closure of that inner loop means fewer trains from London Bridge down to Crystal Palace (and beyond) as well? That's going to fuck up my commute if so.

Not sure the inner loop closure will affect LB-CP, and there's no increased capacity on the stretch south of New Cross (as there was when the original extension came into service), so it should be OK. When Overground services first started between Palace/West Croydon and Dalston, there was a reduction of trains in/out of London Bridge along the Forest Hill/Sydenham line, leading to the dreaded 25min hole in southbound rush hour services from LB which I still occasionally find myself falling into.

Yeah I got my loops mixed up, this is the one that goes through South Bermondsey and Peckham Rye and places, right?

The wikipedia journey starting at Parliamentary trains is fab. Eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainsborough_Central_railway_station - managed to have fewer passengers than a station which was closed and had no tracks.

We followed the same route, Stet!

MDC: yep.

Anyone else get caught out by the arriva bus strike this morning?

the extension of the Northern line to Battersea

I had no idea this was even being considered

I thought I had escaped bus strike troubles, but then I waited 25 minutes for my bus only for it to drive past me. RIP evening plans.

Ah, this explains why somebody who was supposed to meet me this morning waited 50 minutes for a bus which never came. I thought he was exaggerating.

again with my annual commute i find myself asking how this shit is acceptable or even possible

clapham junction to high st kensington - FOUR stops - has just taken me 70 MINUTES

i stayed in battersea to make the commute easier and it would have taken less time to do it from hackney FFS

i've heard many reports that the new southern overground line is a bit of a shambles, journeys involving it invariably taking 30 mins longer than they should and such.

also, inexplicably doesn't allow you to indicate that you're avoiding zone 1 by using it.

oh you motherfucker

victoria station is where the party is right now

Overground has been punctual whenever I've used it, which has only been in extremis because the thousands of stops make it too damn slow and infrequent even if it's on time.

!!!!!!

- 24-hour tube at the weekends YAY
- every ticket office to shut and 750 jobs cut BOO

so sly to announce both in the same package

wtf

that is amazing news about the weekend. thought i would never see the day!

horrible news about the ticket windows though, fuck. this means that the lit-up "tickets and assistance" windows will be darkened forever??

i just had to use one this morning actually; i topped up online before i left the house and the turnstile said "PLEASE SEEK ASSISTANCE" so i went to the window and the guy asked when i did the online top-up; "a half hour ago, i guess?" i answered and he was like "oh mate, it takes like 24 hours to register the top-up, i don't know why there's no message on the website to that effect, we get tons of confusion about that"

i for one look forward to the tube being like the new year's eve tube every fucking weekend

also love the line "more tube station staff will be visible" when what it means is "tube staff will have to hang out in the ticket hall to run people through using the machines because somehow the human dignity of being allowed to sit at a desk behind a window is too much for them"

tube staff roaming randomly in stations is about the most idiotic idea i've ever heard

Had a discussion with a station attendant about this very subject early last summer. You think we're cross? How on Earth are they going to swing this at a busy interchange like Holborn, with all the gormless tourists and commuters pouring in all day, every day, I do not know - but I am so happy that I'll be able to go East without having Cinderella issues.

was in a station a few weeks back and all the ticket machines had crashed but friend needed to clear oyster card defecit to travel anywhere else. member of staff at kiosk meant this could be done quickly and easily and hard to see a good solution without one - just go to next station in the hope that their ticket machines were working? no mate

gormless tourists

This being a substantial spanner in the works

Suggest basic training as part of passport control entry to uk: standing on the right on escalators, spatial awareness reminders if you're wearing a backpack etc

There's no avoiding them at Holborn. Ever. Standing two abreast on the escalator, stopping dead in front of the barriers as if they're about to jump through the looking-glass, dithering in transfers so that I narrowly miss my own connections, asking directions to the British Museum when it is one block to the west....

xp ARRRRGH RUCKSACKS ON FUCKSTICKS

haha you london types

Yeah I use Holborn daily and it's a nightmare, people crowding out the entrance to the platform in a huge group or due to baggage is another classic. Some days you see it and think "oh shit, obv major delays" then five metres to the right or left the platform is totally clear, once you've fought your way out.

Suggest basic training as part of passport control entry to uk: standing on the right on escalators, spatial awareness reminders if you're wearing a backpack etc

"don't just stop walking the minute you get on the platform as if there aren't hundreds of people behind you" is a pretty major one imho

People stepping off an escalator and just standing there while dozens of people slam into the back of them.

Said this a million times but people who stop walking on the escalator when it goes flat... why? I just don't understand this widespread habit.

I can understand that people might want to step off the escalator with their dominant foot, especially on those escalators with the flat bit at the end, but why not learn to use your non-dominant foot?

Humans have bilateral symmetry, people, use it!

^^^ T shirt slogan for the taking there, to be sold in tourist shops on Oxford Street instead of those endless 'Keep Calm & Buy More Tourist Tat" things.

people stopping walking on the escalator as it starts to flatten generally happens because the people worry that they'll get the depth of the stair wrong as it narrows imo

hence they dither

I guess if someone is in heels or whatever, but I am sure men do this plenty too.

Also they kind of stop even after it's completely flat...

If I slow down near the top of the escalator, I always cut over to the right and join the folks in le standing.