Another breakdown at Stratford

by Nik on February 22, 2010

in Trains

Evening Standard headline about transport in London

For the second time in two months I’ve found myself turfed off the train at Stratford. What the problem is, of course, they don’t actually tell you, but you can tell it’s coming when it takes you close to 20 minutes to crawl that far from Liverpool Street. It should take about five minutes at the most.

This time we had the added bonus of a fitter travelling out to fix us, but it seems the problem was more serious than expected, and so after another 20 minutes of waiting we were turned out onto the frigid platform to wait for the full-to-capacity replacement trains to roll in.

No chance of getting on one.

Of course, I’d learnt my lesson last time not to try and get on one of the all stations stoppers that pulls up – it takes a couple of hours to get home that way as you roll to a halt at every station down the line. The only alternative was to ride back to Liverpool Street and start again.

It’s galling, and ironic, to be turfed out at Stratford, the station that serves the 2012 Olympic site, from whose platforms you can see the quickly growing stadium and swimming arena.

Will it ever be able to cope with the sudden influx of millions of spectators and competitors from right around the world? I doubt it. Not if tonight is any indication.

But then, it isn’t only this line that needs improvement. Tonight’s Evening Standard reports on a Europe-wide survey that puts the London fourth (out of 23) from bottom in public transport provision. Only Budapest, Zagreb and Ljubljana came out worse.

I’ve been to all of those cities, and frankly they have excuses. London does not. All are found in ex-Soviet states, none can boast the riches of London, pretty little Ljubljana is so small it really doesn’t need much in the way of public transport, and Zagreb has excellent buses and trams.

Admittedly Budapest could do better, and I got horribly ripped off by a taxi driver acting out an apparently common scam that I won’t fall for again, but let’s not forget that it is two cities united by a a river and doesn’t profess to be the world’s financial capital.

Transport into and out of London – on this line at least – is really rather shocking.

It isn’t the first time this has happened. Neither will it be the last, I’m sure.

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Sir Nicholas Winterton

How out of touch are our MPs? Sir Nicholas Winterton, a Tory MP for Macclesfield, and standing down at the next election, argues that MPs should still be allowed to travel in first class because the rest of us, who travel in ’standard’ class, are a ‘totally different type of people’.

Really?

Talking on Radio 5 Live today he said:

If I was in standard class I would not do work because people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction… There’s lots of children, there’s noise, there’s activity. I like to have peace and quiet when I’m travelling. (source: BBC News)

Well don’t we all, Nicholas. Lots of us – myself included – work when we’re travelling. Lots of us would like peace and quiet and no distractions, but we have to make do with plugging into an iPod to block out everyone else.

MPs are the only people in any position to really do anything about the state of the railways in this country, and they should be forced to travel like the vast majority of us – in so-called ’standard’ class. Perhaps then they’ll see how most of their constituents (a ‘totally different type of people’) live their lives.

I want to be represented by someone who is the same ‘type’ of person as me. How else could they ever fight for those things that interest and concern me?

Like seats on trains, quiet coaches and a service that runs on time.

Image courtesy of M. Holland

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