Tube Disruptions

I’m not sure what to make of this. I’m just throwing it out there as a data point.

Everyday we get tube disruptions in London (just look at Stef’s tube map). Some days are better than others.

Today was a really bad day. And I’m not talking about this afternoon when incompetent bombers shut down large parts of the tube system. I’m talking about this morning.

I needed to travel from White City to Chancery Lane to get to a meeting this morning. As we pulled out of Tottenham Court Road the driver said that he’d just heard that the next station (Holborn) was closed. So we just passed through it without stopping. Chancery Lane was the next stop so I got off. By the time I left the tube station the tannoy was announcing that services were being withdrawn from large sections of the Central Line. Judging by how late other people were to the meeting, that problem took about half an hour to clear.

Then I had to get back to White City after the meeting. I got on the tube at about 11:45. The journey should take about twenty minutes. It was about forty-five minutes later that we got to White City. I wasn’t really listening to the announcements (too deep in conversation) but I’m sure they were saying something about problems at Shepherd’s Bush.

But we travelled through the other Shepherd’s Bush station[1] to the one where the bomb was.

I’m just saying that there were a lot of disruptions on the Circle Line today – even before the major disruptions started. And I’m wondering if someone (whether that’s the Police or London Underground or someone else) had a hint that something was going to happen.

[1] Shepherd’s Bush station is one of a very small number of places which has two completely different tube stations in different locations that share the same name. I swear we do it to confuse the tourists.