A Parting shot

Just two more days and I will be free from the Piccadilly, when my office moves from Hammersmith to Waterloo. Here are some of the things that make it unworthy of respect.

• You come down to the platform just in time to see one leave, going to Northfields. You don’t know as you enter the station where a train is going, you only find out on the platform.


• Trains do not normally go to Northfields. This one should have been for Rayners Lane. The station announcer tells us that a good service is operating. Plainly he is lying.


• After a longer than usual wait my train arrives. It is packed, naturally because at least one train going on the same branch (to Uxbridge) was cancelled (see above).


• People can barely get in at Hammersmith and at Acton Town. For all I know, standing very uncomfortably with one swollen foot, there may another just behind. But naturally nobody tells us, for the simple reason that nobody knows. Well, perhaps the line controller knows. But why should he tell us – we are only the paying customers. The indicator boards do not supply the answer because they are incapable of displaying this information. On other lines, they do so.

All of this happened tonight, as you have probably gathered.

There persists an uneasy feeling that, for all I know, things may be worse on the lines I shall be using from next Monday onwards. Watch this space.