Is it any wonder......

.......that Boris banned the drinking of alcohol on the tube.


And this was supposed to be an "organised" party, with participants having to "behave" themselves. From what i've seen from the TV footage it's further proof that the society of today no longer has restraint, or boundaries. It doesn't even now how to have a quiet drink with friends, a drink now means a binge more times than not.

Yes I admit I am being a tad generalist, but last night and the current government health campaign about drinking, which (shock horror) I actually agree with, do highlight this as being a major problem. Binge drinking does drop inhibitions, and boundaries go out of the window.

In total, seven trains were damaged and taken out of service, and six stations were closed, all because of this irresponsible event which simply caused delay and inconvenience to the ordinary travelling public. In addition, seventeen of these "revellers" were arrested, with four train drivers, three station staff, and two police officers assaulted in the mayhem.

But then what do they care, they were too pissed to give a damn about anyone else.

Tube strike's root cause

Two of the tube's two trade unions have just announced that they will be calling a three day strike over safety, from 6th April. Which just happend to be at the start of the London Election campaign.

But the roots of this dispute, which will affect all of London yet again, has one culprit. Basically the arguements are over mobile supervision of staff on the new stations operated by London Underground. Which prior to the beginning of the year were operated by Silverlink.

These stations were nine times out of ten unmanned. But thanks to Ken's wonderful new London Overground system, he took over the line, and gave these stations to the Underground. The problem is that to suddenly change the operating nature of these stations (Network Rail and LU have quite different operating procedures), is causing this dispute.

Now, I'm not going to get involved in the who's right who's wrong arguement, but this whole situation was brought about by Ken's desire for national rail lines to be brought under his control. This dream, and the practicalities of realising it are the root cause of this strike announcement.

It was Ken that pissed off the unions by closing the East London line, and making it part of the Overground. It is Ken's Overground lines that are the root cause of the problem. The tube staff that go on strike will get the flack, the tube managers will be blamed. But it was Ken's ideology that set this ball rolling.

Is it any wonder that he hasn't said anything yet. After all a tube strike in an election campaign will hardly go down well.

Gong snub is another broken promise

I defy anyone to read the Times this morning and feel a sense of injustice has taken place.

When Gordon Brown came to power he promised to recognise the civilians that turned from commuters to heroes of the 7/7. Instead they have been snubbed! Again!

What I find disgraceful, more than anything is that this was a personal promise from Brown that has been broken, not just a manifesto one that we are used to being broken. These people are the true embodiment of the word hero.

To date a number of people have been honoured for their contributions on that day from London Underground staff to emergency services personnel. But their heroic acts where made in the call of duty. After all, I speak from an informed point of view as I was on of the many LU staff that answered that call of duty of that day, and worked my knackers off in some very unsavoury conditions. However, these people didn't have a call of duty, they were simply commuters. Their call of duty was to get to their place of work, instead they dived in, helped out wherever they could, and by their actions they probably prevented more lives meing lost.

So, what thanks do they get, none!

The ethos behind getting an honour is going beyond the call of duty, and giving service beyond the expectations of your role. So how did they not get an honour? It becomes even more of a disgrace when people that have been honoured are pen pushing civil servants who have simply done their job for the government, or in the case of Richard Summersgill puts half of the nation's personal details at risk and gets a CBE as a thank you.

Sometimes this government's actions don't just make me cringe, on days like this it makes me physically sick. But then the government has been doing its level best to brush the whole events of July 2005 under the carpet, with their insistance of not holding a public inquiry, ever since.

Ah diddums!

It seems as though Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie has had a spot of trouble on the tube recently if his latest Early Day Motion is anything to go by. In his EDM (no. 111) he's written:

"That this House recognises Scottish Sterling bank notes as equal to all other Sterling notes; notes with disappointment that London Underground Oyster machines, among many other outlets throughout England, refuse to accept Scottish notes; urges the Government to raise awareness regarding the existence of Scottish and Northern Irish notes as legal currency; and requests Transport for London to rethink this damaging and degrading policy."

What a twat! It's not a damaging and degrading policy, it's a matter of cost. He is quite right though in pointing out that Scottish and Irish notes are legal tender, but if all of the machines on TfL were upgraded to accept more than one set of bank notes, the cost would be passed on to the travelling public in London. The cost of the tube is expensive enough without a Scottish MP now wanting a policy that would see fares increase even futher. It's bad enough that the Mayor if forcing part of the Crossrail cost on us Londoners (but thats for a different post), without Mr Hosie trying to bump up the cost of living in the capital further.

So my response to Mr Hosie is sod off back to Dundee, and stop trying to push up prices in England.

Metronet are screwed.

It's official. After requesting an additional £1billion as part of an extraordinary review, they were only awarded a paltry (in comparision) £121million.

It is now expected that Metronet will have to go into administration.

Now, although I am pleased that Metronet aren't getting the money, of which that they didn't deserve anyway, I does leave me a little worried as to what happens next on the Tube and for London as a whole. Who will pick up the pieces of this whole disaster?

And, let us not forget that this whole PPP mess was set up by Gordon Brown in the first place!

I said it would happen.

It was today revealed that TfL will close 40 London Underground ticket offices in March.

However, I revealed that it was TfL's plan to reduce the number of ticket offices back in October. I know that the dead tree press is slow but that is really slow.

I told you it would happen, in fact the 40 ticket offices are just the first phase.

Another one-sided contract

Prepare yourselves, I'm going to break with my morals and do something that is quite rare. Agree with Ken Livingstone.

Metronet, or Craponet as I commonly refer to them as, the consortium tasked under the massively flawed PPP to refurbish the London Underground system are demanding £600m from taxpayers to fund their £1.2billion overspend on refurbishment works. Metronet, which consists of Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, Thames Water, EDF Energy and Atkins, has abandoned hope of reaching a settlement after London mayor Ken Livingstone told them that the problem was of their own making. Basically sying that they should shove their request.

Now, Ken (for once) has a bloody good point. Craponet's overspend it down to the way they operate. After all, before starting any refurbishment project they conduct a survey, then hold a survey of the survey, then survey the findings of that survey, and then hold another survey to see if the findings of the findings are suitable to start the project. You can see where this is going can't you. But it doesn't end there.

Once the project actually begins Craponet flood the place with more contractors than is required, botch the repairs and then have to start again. Anyone who uses Tower Hill station will notice that.

So, how is it London Underground or TfL's fault? Well, quite frankly it isn't. But that hasn't stopped them trying to claim half of that overspend back. According to today's business section of the Times, Livingstone will be forced by the Underground's public-private partnership arbiter Chris Bolt to pay well over half the reported cost overruns of up to £1.2bn which it incurred in its first four and a half years of operation.

However what I find bizarre is that after Ken wasted all that money trying to get the PPP overturned in the courts, only to be told that the contract was water-tight, Craponet seem to be perfectly able to request a review of its 30-year contract in order to get its hands on our money.

Seems a little bit of a one-sided contract that Labour negotiated for London.

John Reid's veiled threats

"If you want a public enquiry, you will put the security of our nation at risk". It may not be those exact words but that is basically what John Reid told us all yesterday, as he defended the government's position not hold a full independent public enquiry in to the 7/7 London bombings. Which, to be honest, is the usual spin line from this government whenever any of their decisions are questioned.

Now, I have a vested interest in this subject, as I was on duty that morning and ending up being part of an incident response team that attended the Aldgate site. So as you can imagine, I want answers.

What I have great deal of difficulty in believing is that any recommendations, or answers, will come out of any closed doors review by a group of MPs. But, it isn't as though we should be even be looking at blaming anyone. The fact of the matter is that two of the London Bombers were known to have fraternised with MI5 targets, but were never followed up. There could be a simple explanation for we know, but nevertheless they were never followed up, and I know the consequences of that better than any MP.

So, we therefore need to have a public enquiry to find out what went wrong, as we need to learn from that. We need to know what signs were missed, in order for MI5 to know what to look for next. The enquiry must be a learning exercise, and not a blaming one. However, until the government do hold one, there won't be any definitive answers, only accusations of agencies covering up their errors.

BREAKING NEWS: Peace breaks out on LU

I have been informed by a reliable source that the RMT have seen sense in their pay dispute with London Underground, and will announce that they have accepted the pay offer.

At least Londoner's won't have to put up with strike action now.

Strike action on the tube

The RMT have shown this afternoon just how out of touch with the real world they really are, with the announcement of a "yes" vote in a strike ballot.

The pay deal has been accepted by two other unions, TSSA and BTOG, with ASLEF currently recommending acceptance of a three year above inflation pay rise.

But the dinosaur's that are the RMT, don't want an above inflation pay deal for it's London Underground members, despite agreeing to exactly the same deal for it's TfL members. How two faced!

However, it's hardly surprising, it's been at least a year since the Media chasing Bob Crow has graced our TV sets, and to think, our Mayor even "employed" Bob on the TfL board at one stage.

Says it all really.

Lethal Weapons on the Underground?

According to a British Transport police officer, a "Cricket Ball" is considered to be a lethal weapon when you travel on the London Underground.

I have to somewhat agree with this police officer in one aspect of their interpretation, in that a cricket ball IS a lethal weapon, but only if it held by an Australian, with an English batsmen standing 22 yards away.

Gee thanks!!!

Thank you very much Metronet for causing me no end of grief this morning, by totally screwing up the District Line!!!

Jelly Babies are racist, apparently.

Two Tube workers have been cleared of racially harassing a colleague with "JELLY BABIES", by a Crown Court this week. Yes you have read that right.

A jury took just an hour to find both not guilty at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court, in central London, after an eight-day trial costing £250,000! They had denied taunting a black colleague, with black Jelly Babies. He claimed the pair had taunted him with the black Jelly Babies, and were biting the heads off them.

One of the men was suspended, in February 2004, for three months and the other eight months. They were both subsequently cleared by an internal investigation. However, unhapp at the decision the complainant decided to report the matter to police, and the pair were subsequently summoned to court to face charges.

At the hearing one of the men stated: “One time I gave him a bag of Jelly Babies and he called me a racist because there were too many black ones.”

The verdict is a victory for common sense. It's a shame that it took £250,000 of taxpayers money to prove it.

Ken will make millions of pounds of investment worthless

Millions of pounds will be wasted over the next three years as Mayor Ken strives to achieve his Oyster dream.

Ken and TfL's strategy to date, has been a massive hike in cash fares, and the reduction of Ticket Office opening times across the Network, last February. However, the next strategy will end up with the millions of pounds already spent on station refurbishment projects being wasted.

A large proportion of refurbishment budgets, at present, is spent on updating, and in some cases re-building, of ticket offices at their equipment. But all this expenditure will be prove to be fruitless as Ken's TfL quango have made it their next abjective to further close ticket offices.

Along with hiking up cash fares, TfL with make it even harder for people to purchase tickets forcing them on to the Oyster Card. The latest figures have revealed the extent of the closures, only 30 ticket offices are expected to remain, across the network. That means over 250 will be closed permanently over the next three years.


The problem is that millions of pounds have either already been spent, or currently being spent, on ticket office refurbishment, and Ken's Oyster dream will render that investment worthless.

In addition, any closure will no doubt infuriate the trade unions causing more unrest, with your average commuter having to suffer as a result.


Also posted on Anyone But Ken

24 hours and it's broken already

Yesterday the Waterloo & City Line re-opened after a £40million, five month closure for modernisation. The modernisation programme was carried out by maintainence firm Metronet, who boasted that the investment delivered a new signalling system, new track and refurbished trains.

This morning services were suspended, during the rush hour, following a signal failure, and a broken down train.

Do you think the money was well spent?

Cash fares to increase by 33% on the Tube

Ken Livingstone yesterday announced his latest move for forcing people on to the Oyster card, and penalise those who still pay for their fares by cash.

In the January fares revision, a zone 1 tube fare is will rise by a staggering 33% from £3 to £4 for a single journey. Cash fares for bus journeys in zone one will also rise from £1.50 to £2 as part of the fares package.

In his speech Livingstone stated: "the big differential between cash and Oyster card fares is designed to speed up the system by getting people to switch from cash to Oyster. I want to see every Londoner paying the lowest possible fares by switching to Oyster".

The move has sparked anger amongst the majority of tube users, as it means the cost of travelling one stop on the Tube will have quadrupled in two years.

Brian Cooke, Chairman of London TravelWatch said: "we are extremely concerned about the rise in cash fares on buses and on the tube if the journey includes Zone 1. Cash fares on buses are rising 33% to two pounds, and cash fares on the tube in zone 1 will also rise 33% to an astronomical four pounds. There are still not adequate facilities for visitors and tourists to buy Oyster cards easily, so this will really hit hard. London is already an expensive city - it has now become even more expensive for visitors to the city.

The fares increase is not what London needs, as it's just Ken's way of taxing the use of public transport even further.

After all he wants to further tax cars in London to force us on to public transport, and then further penalise us until we switch to his oyster card dream by increasing fares by a ludicrous amount to reap the profits.


Also posted on Anyone But Ken

London has the world's best transport

Well that is according to the report on Sky News' website in to the survey conducted by travel firm TripAdvisor.

As a transport professional I would love to know how that was achieved. Especially when you consider that the trains are packed, the infrastructure is falling apart,
the stations have had their staff numbers cut, and Ken keeps increasing the fares to fund his beloved Oyster cards.

The word cuckoo springs to mind.