An overheard conversation of a frustrated passenger sitting across from us.
Today there was a collision of decisions to upgrade the underground that resulted in many lines interrupted or cancelled. We slowly grasped that we might be affected when we turned our corner to see a white wall where the entrance to our tube station should be. “Closed for the weekend due to engineering upgrades.” Then another sign beside it listing a number of other lines affected. Our route was pretty much toast!
The result was that we spent much of the day travelling in circuitous routes by bus and tube to avoid the affected areas. Trains were delayed, crowded and stopped often while the driver apologized on behalf of London Underground for the need to “adjust route intervals”! None of it affected us in a negative way - we felt no real urgency, tried some lines we hadn’t been on before, and made a few interesting last-minute changes about our destinations. It helped that underground employees stationed at every stop often came to offer us help before we even knew we needed it,
So Travalgar was off the list. But why not get on the District line and go to its end at Wimbledon? Sounded like fun. We hesitated only once toward the end of the trip when we suddenly realized we really didn’t know where to get off: “Wimbledon?” Wimbledon Park?” Bill asked a seated woman in the nick of time. She thought it might be “Southfields” as the station doors opened. As we jumped off she called out, “You can always get back on…”
The flags and super clean station gave us the answer. We followed the sidewalk signs and a mile or so later ended up at the stadium. Did we watch a great match?? Well, it turns out, the actual tournament starts on Monday…. Oh well, we had a great chance to talk to security who were all practicing their procedures in a number of locations. All very friendly, relaxed and ready to chat. We saw the outside of the stadium, perused the gift shop, extolled the strengths of Raonic whenever we could and then walked back to the tube to begin the puzzle of getting back into town.
We figure we have now truly experienced living in London. We marvel daily at the efficiency of the transportation network in London. It is an amazing people-moving system that is people-friendly and works! Until it doesn’t!
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