From Beckton To High Barnet

2 months in, and I still haven’t written a piece dedicated to my favourite forms and transport around London: the Underground, and the DLR (the famed red London bus comes a distant third due to an ongoing feud I’m currently having with it). I want the world to now about the fantabulosity of these two public transportation systems!

My ultimate goal is to traverse London; passing through every station of every line. The progress of this aim has been hindered slightly recently; basically, I have no money to use to get on the Underground network for more than a couple of stops. 50p off my Oyster card when I’m travelling from Newbury Park to Barkingside?! That makes a very angry me (but – with an air of a serendipitous nature about it – last week, the ticket machine at Barkingside malfunctioned, and I ended up with what was effectively a free journey back home *grins*)! For all intents and purposes, we’ll ignore that minor aggravation, and look at the bonuses of the Tube (I’d choose standing inside a packed train carriage on the Jubilee Line at rush hour over a dog pile on a bus any day, if I can afford it).

Nearer the beginning of September, I chose to attend a University open day at Brunel in West London. I travelled down there with one of my friends…bah! To hell with writing that over and over again; this friend's name was Tom (others mentioned have so far been Peter [sent me a link to another blog, plus one of the two with sleep aversion; his blog link is on the right, labelled Where Is My Mind?], Rachael [was listening to same song, and endures months of agony without a good sleep], Cubitt [lost his Internet connection a while back, and naps in the afternoons], Abbie [had listened to Otherside, and is the other one of the two who refuses to sleep before the early hours of the morning], Jack [read The Catcher In The Rye before me] and Jolene & Josh [the latter of which passed his driving test at the end of August]). Back on topic, Tom and I had planned to meet at Newbury Park station at around 6:30am. As always, I was late; I am often late to things, and this time, it was by 15 minutes. We hopped on the train at around 10 minutes to 7, and knew we had a long journey in store. From Newbury Park, we would have to change to the Metropolitan Line at Liverpool Street, and then up to the western terminus in Uxbridge. The terminus! Turns out it’s a very long way away – about 2 hours – with the number of stops along the entire route amounting to 27 (it should have been 29, but displaying very mild pity, the train bypassed both Preston Road and Northwick Park). And despite this extended trip on the Tube, the journey was not at all strenuous.

And it did cross another London Underground terminus off my list, so all the grander.

The new 3-unit trains that are about to be brought into commission on the DLR are things of beauty. A very sleek appearance exterior, coupled with tidily furnished interiors mean that it’s going to be a joy to first travel around the Docklands area on one of them. But the work required to transform all platforms into sizes that can accommodate these 3-unit trains is vast, and completion is not expected until 2010.

I’m always excited to see Underground and DLR construction projects on the go. Work has now commenced on the building of an additional westbound Central Line platform at Stratford; very exciting! The DLR extension to Woolwich Arsenal is also progressing nicely (although that is an assumption based on the fact I have heard no news of major hitches in the programme). With London 2012 fast approaching, delays and service alterations may prove troublesome, but in the end, it’s guaranteed to be worth it, as we are supplied with more efficient subway/light railway systems.

I love the Tube and the DLR!