On Nov 30, 10:25*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 14:14:37 -0800 (PST), MIG

wrote:
Although there is mention of general delays, there seems to be a total
lack of any Metrobus buses in service down ower way (Orpington and
Croydon garages I spose).

Apparently Metrobus are saying they've pulled all their buses off the
road. *TfL's details on the real time site indicate otherwise - just
partial suspensions on some routes.

TfL are reporting most of Epsom Buses' routes are not working.

I didn't see a single one in quite a while of trudging through snow,
watching huge crowds at stops etc. *London Central and Selkent running
apparently fairly normally.

And this matches the lack of negative info on the TfL site. One has to
wonder why Metrobus are struggling so badly when other routes seem to be
still running.
--
Paul C

The Croydon area seems to have been very badly hit. It took me over
an hour longer than usual to get from Coulsdon to Croydon this
morning. Traffic was very slow, but at least it kept moving. As I
was waiting to cross the road in Croydon having got off the bus at
about 10:15, a snowplough passed me, something you seldom see in these
parts, but neither the main road, nor the side streets I used seem to
have had any salt or grit applied. Whether this was the reason for
the disruption being worse than last year, with only a small amount of
snow at that time, I don't know.

At lunchtime it was announced that the building would close at 14:00,
but at 13:45 I was asked to leave. I walked down to the bus stop in
Park Street just before where Turtles used to be. After about 10-15
minutes a 60 arrived, going only to Coulsdon, not continuing up the
hill to Old Coulsdon, but this is normal during snow. I didn't see
any 405s running.

I got on, but we only moved by about a bus length every ten minutes or
so, and after nearly an hour we hadn't quite reached the end of the
road, opposite Grants, there was still another bus in front of us.
The traffic on the main road didn't seem to be moving at all at that
point, and the driver announced that all route 60 buses would be
terminating at South Croydon Garage. I'm not sure whether he meant
that the service was being suspended, or that the buses would return
North, but neither was any use to me, so I got off. While at work I
had checked the TfL website; route 60 was shown as having no
disruption or not being a valid route. It was the same when I checked
while on the bus.

I walked back up Park Street, taking little more than ten seconds to
pass the stop where I'd got on almost an hour earlier. I walked to
East Croydon station, and there was a train shown to Coulsdon South in
a few minutes from platform 6, but no train arrived, unless it had
left by the time I reached the platform; I don't think this was the
case as there was snow on the rails. Most services were heavily
delayed, which is not surprising as the weather was pretty bad by this
time. A Tattenham Corner train was shown as being due at 15:07, but
running 12 minutes late. That time kept being put back, as did that
for just about all other trains, quite often showing a time which had
already passed by several minutes. They then started announcing that
the train was just outside the station waiting for clearance to run
into the platform, but nothing arrived, and by this time the indicator
on the platform simply showed the train as 'delayed'. A Caterham
train which was due to leave from platform 6 was changed to 5, and
eventually our Tattenham Corner train was announced as being changed
to platform 4. A large number of people went to the subway, and I
didn't think I'd get on, but did manage to. The train still didn't
leave for several more minutes, but eventually departed 58 minutes
late.

We ran very slowly, with very severe arcing both from our train and
from others. Up trains seemed to be running faster than down ones.

When we reached Reedham I could see that the up track was completely
buried in snow, to above the heads of the running rails, so no up
trains seemed to be running on this line by that time. As we left
Reedham the arcing became even more severe, and the train had
difficulty moving. I wished I'd got off at Reedham before the doors
closed, but the train did eventually reach Smitham. I don't know if
it managed to reach the end of the line.

When I reached Coulsdon the traffic was stationary on the main road,
so no chance of a gritter getting through. It had taken me about
three hours to get home from Croydon.

The weather in the afternoon was much worse than it had been in the
morning, and I'm not surprised at the delays, but I think the
information could, and should, have been better, both for the buses
and the trains.