Another journey I undertake frequently is Canary Wharf - Finchley. DLR to
Bank is always fine. The Northern has been the cause of many 'apologies for
lateness', however. When something goes wrong, the High Barnet service seems
to thin alarmingly, and reversals at Finchley Central appear to be the norm.

It is a problem that when there are service disruptions, one of the
key ways in which we recover normal service (i.e. get back to
timetable working) is to short-trip late-running trains. This does
mean that people travelling to the extreme ends of the line (thinking
particularly of both Edgware and High Barnet branches of the Northern
line) do get a raw deal. However if we don't do it the trains run
later and later, drivers go over their hours or end up in the wrong
places for their breaks (which has a further knock-on that they are
not available to drive again at the time and place they should be
after their break), and generally cause all sorts of knock-on
problems.

From the point of view of a passenger of course, I don't care if the
train is 1/2 hr late as long as there is a train when I want to catch
one. But from the point of view of keeping the service running for
the whole day, some short-term pain has to be inflicted. I don't half
hear about is too, as my partner works in High Barnet and it's
inevitably my fault that he had to wait 15 minutes for a train........