The pleasures of Pimlico

I have lived and worked in London pretty well all my life. I have used the tube to commute to most of my working destinations. So you might think I had travelled on every line, main or branch and graced most stations with my transient presence.  But you would, as must be obvious from the hackneyed, yet strangely attractive and compelling, way I have set up this line of reasoning, be wrong.  There are many parts of the great underground complex that I have rarely used. Some never. And today I travelled a route that I think I have only ever done once before, down to Pimlico via the Victoria line, for a meeting.

The Viccy is clearly a high-frequency route with the trains shuttling in at intervals of a minute or so.  And just as well because what I had not expected was the huge volume of people switching between the Jubbly and the Viccy at Green Park, the essential interchange on my migration south from beautiful Ruislip. This was early afternoon, mind you. Not the peak hour for shops to close or office workers in the metropolis to leave their desks. Yet there were throngs pushing through the platform exits, jamming up the corridors, filing endlessly down the stairs and effortlessly filling the trains, no matter how quickly the latter arrived.

The journey home was pretty slick though. Arrived at Pimlico, straight on a train. Transferred at Green Park to the Jubilee and again straight on a train. A piece of nifty footwork secured a seat so I remained until Finchley Road, disembarked and lo! the first Met was going my way and coming in even as I took up my place on the platform. I did notice that on both southbound and northbound journeys the Jubblies and the Mets take no notice of each other. Arriving southbound off a Met, I crossed to the waiting Jubbly and the doors shut in my face. Going home, as I took my seat in the Met a Jubbly came into the platform hard on the heels of the one I had vacated. Did we wait for passengers to cross the platform? Hell no, we were off even as they were coming out. Now this doesn't matter much for Jubblistas because they get one train every 1 to 2 minutes but it is a much longer interval on the Met. I hardly ever travel by the Jubbly so I really couldn't care much but it must be galling for regulars.

[so what was your original journey to Pimlico all about then? Your readers will want to know: Ed]  Sadly I have no recollection. This must remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or I could make something up. I'll revisit this one the next time I am stuck for material and on a deadline. [Good idea. Although we don't actually have deadlines on blogs, do we?: Ed]