Thursday, May 29, 2008

Groundhog day

On Feb 7 this year I wrote about how problems on the Jubilee Line, coinciding with a football match at Wembley, caused chaos on the Underground. Last night there was a football match at Wembley - and lo - signal problems at Willesden Green once more took out the Jubilee Line and there was serious overcrowding at Baker Street.

I dunno. Is this some vast social experiment to see how bad the tube has to be before we all revolt? Presumably somebody working for LU reads the papers and knows when the next match is on? They didn't even try to lay on extra trains on the Metropolitan - when I was standing at Baker Street in the crowds, all the trains were coming up from the City and platforms 1 and 4 were empty. Trains could have shuttled between Wembley Park and those platforms with ease. And how about the occasional train deliberately not stopping at Wembley so as to make it easier for regular commuters - you know, those of us who actually keep the service afloat - to get home?

As I observed last time, the football fans were amazingly well behaved. No raucous chanting, no drinking, no belligerence, just a friendly good-humoured and tolerant approach to the jammed trains. If this is an experiment, the results seem promising.

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