please empty your brain below
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Indeed, the weekend travel chaos has definitely been worsening over the last year or so. Bad enough for we who live here but surely a damaging long-lasting impression for visitors.
Bizarrely the weekly "Weekend line and station closures" email I get has the information presented far more clearly than on their site....different departments perhaps?
NiC | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 9:34 a.m. | #
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Having lived around Greenwich before, you'd have been best served catching a train from Waterloo East to Greenwich and taking the 129 from there. Faster than anything outside the Jubilee Line, too.
Chz | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 11:00 a.m. | #
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360 to Elephant & Castle, tube to London Bridge, train to Charlton, Millennium Busway to the Dome.
Mr Thant | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 11:02 a.m. | #
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Well, if *you* couldn't find a way from x to y, all I can say is, how the hell are most other people meant to?
Yet more reason why people who have them will never be persuaded give up their cars in London.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 11:05 a.m. | #
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Train to Greenwich, Maze Hill or Charlton followed by a bus definitely the best option. The TfL Journey Planner is quite useful in these circumstances, as it does take account of engineering work.
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/
It gets really annoying when there's engineering on the Greenwich line and the Jubilee on the same day. Grrr.
Mark Etherington | 06.07.08 - 11:35 a.m. | #
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Great though journeyplanner may be, it's not much use when you're a non-wifi-enabled family stood at a bus stop planning a spontaneous journey.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 11:39 a.m. | #
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Despite my broad sympathy for the need to get on with all this engineering work I can sympathise with you a lot. First of all the area around Elephant and Castle and the Imperial War Museum is really pedestrian and bus-user unfriendly. The need to use subways at E&C means you are easily disorientated.
Secondly the lack of both Jubilee and East London lines makes certain journeys just incredibly difficult. I believe the work needs to be done now but the attitude of a 188 bus from North Greenwich being a suitable replacement for the Jubilee line is laughable. However it does show how dependant this part of London has come on an underground line that a few years ago wasn't even there.
Central London yesterday was farcical. The traffic from Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly was diverted short of Piccadilly Circus into a narrow side street. The first stretched limo taking this route ensured gridlock for all traffic. I am all for Gay Pride events and Thames Water doing a wonderful job in pedestrianising London but if there is basically nowhere for the traffic to go I think we should just accept the reality of the situation and ban the traffic. It would then at least make it possible to walk around without being surrounded by unpleasant traffic that is hardly moving.
And while Blue Witch's comments are so true the obvious problem is that when people take to their cars they make it worse. The collary is also true in that if they did not then the buses could probably cope quite well and we could still make our journeys in a reasonable time.
Pedantic of Purley | 06.07.08 - 11:46 a.m. | #
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I don't think people would mind the engineering works so much, if they at least concentrated on getting one bit at a time finished, rather than doing a little bit on every line at once.
Clair | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 12:16 p.m. | #
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A very understandable point of view Clair. It is actually a bit of a lie to call the the Jubilee line closure "Engineering works". It is really signalling and train capacity upgrade works. What they are actually doing is testing the the new automatic train system so that they can run more trains in the rush hour. Personally I do not think it ought to be delayed as we really need it in the rush hour and it can't wait for the East London line works to be finished.
Pedantic of Purley | 06.07.08 - 12:23 p.m. | #
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Who, me?? I will say \\_nothing\\_ about the benefits of cycling.
Oh, and...http://failblog.org/
Ham | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 12:33 p.m. | #
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yes its not easy to get around in new places and its not easy to recognize the travel maps
siddiq | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 1:57 p.m. | #
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Sadly my family forgot to bring their bicycles with them on the coach to London, otherwise (obviously) cycling five miles in convoy through Southwark and Lewisham would have been right at the top of our list of travel options.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 5:23 p.m. | #
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I still get the weekend closure email, because I never got around to unsubscribing. Totally useless to me now, but it gives me a twinge of nostalgia every Thursday afternoon...
town mouse | Homepage | 06.07.08 - 7:18 p.m. | #
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Your tale reminded me of a friend today who was not aware of the extensive suburban National Rail network in South London and travelled from Lewisham to Bank on the length of the DLR (rather than a speedy train to Cannon St).
I was initially sceptical of having internet access on my phone - and find that I only ever use it for journey planning and Yell.
Novaelius | 06.07.08 - 10:59 p.m. | #
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Britain the new Italy!
bgw | 07.07.08 - 2:39 a.m. | #
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Dearie me DG! the 188 runs direct to the Dome (02) from the road outside Waterloo station. It's not that far from the Imperial war museum.
Richard | Homepage | 07.07.08 - 10:08 a.m. | #
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Ah, but the 188 isn't mentioned on the bus stops outside the Imperial War Museum. It may stop nearby but, with spider maps, nearby is another country.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 07.07.08 - 1:11 p.m. | #
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Buses from the IWM aren't great though, as far as I'm aware. I remember when my dad and I went to the IWM last year, and then had to wait about half an hour for a bus to Liverpool Street (rather than taking the tube, we decided on an alternative way of getting around). I joked that the bus drivers must go down the pub and then forget that they've got a route to serve! 
Andrewh | 07.07.08 - 1:15 p.m. | #
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I was at the Dome last night to watch Dolly...... We booked the Clipper before we knew about the jubile line works. Going East was a bit of a lottery and the clippers were a little swamped (not literally) By the time we disgorged from the concert the boat boys had really sorted their act out and did a great job. I was so impressed by the way they handled things I'm going to send them an email today thanking them.
AFC 30K | Homepage | 07.07.08 - 2:54 p.m. | #
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sounds like you need a quickmap:
http://www.quickmap.com/
i agree about weekend engineering work. i wish they would just close the whole of the tube network for two months and get it all out of the way.
amanda | 07.07.08 - 2:55 p.m. | #
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Internet access on the phone is indeed a lifesaver when it comes to this stuff. But when you are very much in doubt and are in an area you don't know well, why not call the transport information number publicised at every bus stop and tube station?
sweek | 07.07.08 - 7:25 p.m. | #
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Check before you travel. It's written on the TfL posters, leaflets and website. They must mean it?!
I know at weekends, If I have guests and don't want to look like a plank I have the route planned out before we leave. Journey Planner is the easiest way. Avoids most of this kind of thing.
Nick | 07.07.08 - 7:37 p.m. | #
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I did check before we travelled. I knew that the Jubilee line was down, and I knew that central London would be jammed by the Pride march around lunchtime.
What I couldn't do was pre-plan where precisely my family would want to go, how long our first two visits would take, whether the rain would force us to change our mind, precisely when my nephew would get tired of walking, and where people might want to go to eat. I think they'd have cursed me if I had.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 07.07.08 - 7:53 p.m. | #
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The trouble with National Rail services in South London is they don't take Oyster PAYG, so work out more expensive than the tube.
Anonymous | 07.07.08 - 9:48 p.m. | #
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this was the day i was born
farz | 09.02.22 - 5:14 p.m. | #
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