NOG reversers

I do see the odd North Greenwich reverser on the departure boards. In fact there's one on the departure boards at the very moment.

Splendid, just the two booked morning reversers then?

Thanks.

Regular spectator (and participant) of Jubilee Line trains being turned round at North Greenwich here.

They are not normally indicated as such in Central London, but as you approach Canary Wharf if the PA starts to crakle you just get the feeling that the message is coming - 'we are now turning round at North Greenwich, change here at Canary Wharf for the next train'. Sometimes the message is added to with a statement that a Stratford train is"right behind us" (always lies), and sometimes there is a mumbled non-official apology for the notice "only just having been given by the control room".

We have wondered if the reliability measurement by the Good Service Department is officially taken only at some more central point on the line, so if trains are turned round at North Greenwich they are somehow not identified as such in the management statistics.

Would you believe there are occasions when passengers are put out at Canary Wharf, and when the next train to Stratford finally arrives you cannot even get into it, it is so full. This is a paticular issue at around 7 pm in the evening.

TVM reg if I were not in Swanage at a gathering of AI's clan, I would have dug out the WTT. Useful extract, though. I remembered the 0925/45 as they're on one page.

Diana I really think you'd be far happier if the JLE just didn't exist!

But it doesn't exist anyway as far as I'm concerned!

Up early at the house here today, as Diana is off eastwards to meet the family, so you boys will be spared my comments for a while (is that "Hooray's" I hear floating across London?)

Now I don't have to check if the Metro is running at our destination, as it just always is. Every centimetre of it, 7 days a week. But here, of course, the Jubilee Line is not running beyond Waterloo today, so once again not able to go through to Green Park to connect to the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow. Never mind, the second option is DLR from Canning Town through to Tower Gateway and then the District Line on to Hammersmith. Guess what, THAT'S closed today as well......

I was thinking

DLR to Bank
Central to Holborn
Pic to Heathrow

Diana, how will your posts read when they finally finish upgrading the Jub? Have you considered moving to another area of town where there is future planned upgrade work? Just to keep you busy on this forum I mean...

Changing at Bank from DLR to the Central with suitcases would be horrendous. (As changing from the central to anything tends to be there)

At Waterloo there is a long interchange but the passages are generally wide, there is the travelator and there is a lift at the jubilee end (but not the bakerloo end IIRC)

We're back; goodness me, isn't London cold and into Autumn after just a week. Mr Diana is going to have to go up into the attic for the winter coats today. Thank you boys for your views, which unfortunately have turned poor Mr. MRFS42's initial question about train operation into a long set of travel advice.

Well done those who actually started to think that we might have heavy luggage as we were going to Heathrow; this sort of practicality seems to evade those whose experience of the Underground seems confined to doing the Tube Challenge rather than actually using it for the day-to-day life of Londoners, which is what the bulk of the customers need it for.

We dragged our suitcases on the outward journey through those overlong passages at Waterloo, and negotiated Piccadilly Circus. We needed to change at Acton Town as well, where we noticed, not for the first time, that the platform indicators on the Heathrow route have never been updated to the current style, on just the very route where you would think they were required, and this led to getting into a conversation, ostensibly in Diana’s Best German, with a couple of bewildered Austrians who could make no sense of which platform at Acton any train to Terminal 4 departed from.

By the time we got to Heathrow our arms felt they had pushed the train all the way there, and so it was Cognacs all round, and then off northwards and eastwards to the city of my dreams (well, that is what you lot seem to think), where the Metro always runs as advertised - although some here just can’t believe this. There’s even a new Metro line, we now have five, first big investment for many years. Not that I went on the new one. Family picked us up at the airport, but we travelled round the city a lot. I’ll just let you guess how much of the system was working last Sunday. And this one ......

On our return we stupidly had not enquired about what was working and what was not in London over the holiday weekend. Never mind, British Airways kindly gave me a right-hand window seat and arranged a sightseeing tour coming over Hampstead and then right over Canning Town before turning for Heathrow. And there, looking down, was a Jubilee train's lights leaving southwards towards the tunnel, so things looked good. Alas we later found this was something like a mirage in the desert (more likely a test train of some sort, though still with all the lights switched on), and there was no Jubilee Line. So drag along. At Victoria the District Line driver announces “Due to the investment programme ... bla ... bla ... no Victoria Line”, and we are invaded by many perplexed tourists who we end up giving advice to yet again. Couple of stops further on at Westminster and it’s “Due to the investment programme ... bla ... bla ... no Jubilee Line”. We discuss how much the introduction style of these sounds like the messages from the “Leader Of Our Glorious Wonderful Republic” we used to get in the old days back home.

Mr D has informed me, very sensibly, that this is the last time we do Heathrow at a weekend with suitcases (don't forget that he gets the heaviest one) on the Underground. It is just beyond us, and this is from two regulars down at the gym. It's either taxi both ways or the Heathrow car parks from now on.

Whilst I do have a 24 hour bus link to Heathrow, it is erratic enough during the daytime, so there's no way I'd use it to get to Heathrow for an early morning flight. Likewise a cab requires some contingency time in case it's late, so the car, parking at Heathrow is always my method of choice on an early check-in.

The driving standard is still pretty appalling bar the odd decent one!

There is no hard and fast Acton platforming, except that most Northfields train run via the westbound local line. There are of course others that are booked via the local platform too.