Central Line Strike 22/08/14

Waterloo and City also affected. Btw how can that line become part suspended?

It can't, really, it's not even like you could reasonably run it only in one direction. More likely it should really just be suspended.

If the W and C is closed, it puts a lot of extra passengers onto other routes. It's usually rammed during the peaks.

will they sacrifice the Waterloo & City service for the benefit of the central tomorrow?

Presumably, if there were missing staff, the W&C would be first to go?

I have heard the W&C be announced as part suspended a couple of times!

Yes, that's about it. Not enough train ops to run a service to Licerpool Street of any meaningful frequency.

Central line seems to have more ASLEF drivers than RMT, as the service during the RMT strike was better.

I don't know the background behind this dispute, however in general most of the 'local' disputes tend to be the culmination of an individual manager or group of managers in that local area or line who don't follow the company's own procedures when dealing with performance or attendance issues.

I really think that means nothing east of White City. However, it wouldn't be that odd a thing to run, since you'd literally need just one train to run it and it might help some of us sticksers get to the more civilised areas of Woodford and Hainault, from where buses are a little better. But no I think it means no service White City to Epping and no service White City to Woodford via Hainault.

Mmmm and it's not that far to the London Overground station Leytonstone High Road, which might help some people, although many might well be better off on the buses.


It's quite common to see Epping - Leytonstone 'shuttles' (for want of a better word) during service disruption and the like. As has been said, there's probably no way you could get to Bethnal Green or Liverpool Street and still have a reasonable service frequency on the east end. Unfortunately, it's 8.19 km to the next reversing point after Leytonstone on the westbound (Bethnal Green) and 10.46 km to Liverpool Street. It takes approximately  about 11¼ minutes (saith the WTT) to get to Bethnal Green and 3¼ more minutes to get to Liverpool Street. Now, one might think that it would be a bit quicker with the completely clear run you would get, but the platforms would be jammed, so it'd probably take a lot lot longer. Nothing much more you can run really and it gets some people on their way I suppose.

Woodford's quite useful for buses as well, so I suppose running to Woodford might help people out on the far east of the line?


Although that is now true.

It was mentioned on the lunchtime regional news that if this dispute is not resolved, there's another wlakout planned for "next month". Do we know a date in September yet?

The TfL website currently says:


Which surprises me. I assume they're reversing them via the crossover at Bethnal Green, although why they're running empty from Mile End I don't know - anyone know any better?

Agree, wouldn't a Bethnal Green tip out be easier, given at Bethnal Green you only have one line to worry about, whereas by tipping out at Mile End you have to worry about people thinking that westbound services are running normally.

Well, in theory, to Bethnal Green, I mean, quite a lot people want to use Bethnal Green (and couldn't under this arrangement, even though trains were trundling through very merrily). If the iPod devotees have failed to get the message they could always cross over to the eastbound platform or, alternatively, use local buses etc. Additionally there's Bethnal Green NR station and Cambridge Heath.

In practice, though, I fear you and Chris M may be onto something. I was on one a couple of years ago when the Central was reversing at Bethnal Green all weekend for engineering works. I may have told this story before, but despite the destination boards saying Bethnal Green, the train pulling into the platform with Bethnal Green on the front, sonia telling them the train terminated at Bethnal Green at every station and announcements aplenty, I still had to let a group of people know. Then, when we arrived at Mile End there was announcement after announcement but it still took a person going through carriage by carriage and telling everyone that the train was going no further than the next station Bethnal Green before the last few who needed to got off to change to the H&C/District.

This is as nothing to another story I may've bored you with before. At Woodford westbound one morning, I got off a Woodford via Hainault and waited. It quickly became apparent that there was a man in car 1 who simply would not leave. Kept insisting he wanted to go to London and despite the T/Ops increasingly exasperated pleading, he would not budge. I thought at first maybe the man didn't have much English, but nope. He could understand, he just wasn't moving. Eventually it took one of the station staff to usher him off. Ultimately, he probably delayed his own journey to London by about three or four minutes. What a complete...

You might be able to tell that I don't have much sympathy Annoyingly I think you're probably right. I guess they were turfing everyone out at Mile End because they imagined loads of people would end up at Bethnal Green and need to go back in the other direction, because they won't listen. I think it's infuriating, but you probably are right.