It is truly pathetic

[mandragora]

how a mere smattering of snow brings one of the world's major cities to its knees.

Yes, we have snow. But, it's only a couple of centimetres deep, not even an inch. However this has resulted in total gridlock on the roads and no public transport, for me at least.

The gridlock is as a result of the idiots in charge of maintaining the roads deciding that as the weather forecast was that the weather would warm up slightly (from minus 6C) they didn't need to order the gritting lorries to go out last night. Um, yeah. Great idea, chaps.

As for public transport, well there are 2 ways I can (normally) get to the office. Either by train, or by tube. Neither are working. In the case of the tube, it's due to a fire alert resulting in the total suspension of the Piccadilly Line. However, even if it was working I would then face severe disruption when I changing to the Northern Line. Sigh.

As for the trains... ::Snort:: Figured they wouldn't be running, bearing in mind that the falling of a few autumn leaves results in severe disruption to the service. And I was right. There are no trains.

Comments

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Think about me and the Central Line - two more weeks of this bollocks to put up with, and that was before we had "snow". I mean, less than an inch, and we get this chaos. (Fume, mutter, fume...)

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really feel for you re the Central Line. Sending a huge wave of sympathy your way.

It's unbelievable that the major west to east tube line through central London will be out of action for 3 whole weeks.

I know that public transport was starved of funding for decades, but wasn't the present Government meant to be doing something about it? On the basis that it's false economy not spending money on it, because that leads to a consequent loss of worker-hours (which is bad for the economy overall)?

Couldn't we put those billions of pounds that we're going to spend on war with Iraq to better use? Like giving us a public transport system that actually works?

Sigh.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Arguably, it was spending money on the Central Line which caused all this - the trains they've taken out of service are comparatively new, they were introduced not long after I came to live in the East End in 1992.

The trains they bought to replace the old, smelly and dirty ones, while flashy, are cheap knockoffs financed by who-knows-what shady deal. The first thing we noticed was that they wore the tracks out (I kid you not) and now it turns out they've a major safety defect.

I did wonder how this all happened, but then I work for a large bureaucracy, and I know how decisions get made.

Spending money, yes

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

But not enough of it, from the looks of it. Which brings me back to my point about false economies.

When I travel on the underground in places like Paris and Hong Kong, even New York nowadays, I just want to weep. How could we get it so wrong?

Yes, we've got the oldest underground in the world, but even so there is so much that could be done to improve it that just isn't.

Saw your post about having to lug around court files. Ouch!

[temaris.livejournal.com]

Think of me on the WAGN line one over from you. My trains are running almost normally, and I got in on time without having to do anything like catch buses, tubes or leave extra early. (g,d,rlh).

Enfield has few plus points, but the trains run on Sundays again (after two years of *not*), and I can get into work.

Remind me again, is that a plus point or not?

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Huh! And in contrast to Lexin feel the wave of hate I'm sending your way ::g::

What gets me, though, is that I have 2, count 'em, 2! ways of getting in, as opposed to your one and neither are sodding working.

And why is your WAGN line working and mine not? Think I'll see if I can send off an abusive email to the train company...

In any event I've been fighting off a virus for a couple of days now, so may as well succumb gracefully, as well as do all the chores I would have done tomorrow today and get some work done tomorrow, instead.

[thermidor.livejournal.com]

It's funny because I grew up in the Deep South (South Carolina, USA) and so when we got more than a few odd flakes it was total chaos! Which is not so odd, as we were in the southeastern US.

So I come to London which compared to where I grew up is practically in the Arctic Circle ;)
I expected everyone to bell full of ennui- "oh, snow. yawn."
Geez, you people are practically at the North Pole (g,d,rlh) and a little snow is a big deal! Weird.

Huh, it's only the southern softies, you know

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

If you go up t'north they know how to cope with snow there. Everything only grinds to a halt when you get 20 feet of snow, as opposed to a couple of measly centimetres.

In the bitter winter of 1978/79 the village I lived in was cut off from everywhere else for a week, and helicopters dropped food parcels. But we didn't panic (actually, I can remember being rather pleased at missing school for a week ::g::) and had a lot of fun with it. Well, except for the people who died trying to drive the 10 miles from the village to Sheffield :(

And to be fair, there's a lot of discussion about why the snow we've just had brought the South-east grinding to a halt. Looks like it's a bureaucratic snafu.

As for location, well yeah. If we ever lose the Gulf stream the climate will be like that of Canada *shiver*.