On 10 Jan, 16:28, Mizter T wrote:
gw2486 wrote:
On Jan 9, 5:45�pm, gw2486 wrote:
I was reading through the weekly email of weekend engineering works
today and clicked on the link for more information on the Aldgate area
closure. Was very surprised to be advised
[see page 5 of PDF at http://tinyurl.com/34sppe]
that if I want to get from Whitechapel to central London, the
alternative route is ELL via Canada Water. Not very well thought out!
Has anyone else found similarly bad advice given out by TfL?

To which I must add, there is a reminder almost exactly opposite on
the next page saying that the line is closed!
gw

[Long URL in original post substituted for tinyurl]

What a spectacular display of ineptness! Presumably the erroneous
Whitechapel information has been copied and pasted from a previous
closure leaflet when the ELL was still open - still, one would have
hoped that a little bit of proof-reading would have picked this up.

An alternative for Whitechapelites heading for central London would be
to get the 106 or 254 bus from outside Whitechapel station up
Cambridge Heath Road to Bethnal Green tube station to get on the
Central line. Or of course simply take the 25 or 205 bus straight into
central London.

Off hand I can't think of any other similarly elementary error such as
the one you give above. However when I was on the North London Line in
November or December (indeed just after its transfer to TfL's London
Overground) there was a guard on board who, to his credit, was making
helpful and very clear announcements - problem was one of those
announcements was "Change at Highbury & Islington for the Victoria
line" when there wasn't any Victoria line running whatsoever that day.
Quite possibly not his fault but the fault of whoever at LOROL who was
supposed to disseminate such information to the guards.

I dare suggest that there are many such announcements made by TOC
staff on mainline trains that don't reflect weekend closures on the
Underground network - and indeed announcements on the Underground that
fail to account for non-running National Rail routes (in particular
auto announcements).

Do you think maybe it's not so much a mistake as systems being
programmed to treat the ELL replacement bus services as being
equivalent to the ELL?

If that's the case, then the ELL exists for as long as the replacement
buses exist and unwitting travellers will be advised to use it.

In reality of course, the replacement buses are presumably there for
political reasons and serve almost no purpose that I can think of,
certainly south of the river.

Increasing the service on the 225 (maybe extending it to Rotherhithe
Station) would do most of the job for people whose entire journey is
between Rotherhithe and the New Crosses, while anyone crossing the
Thames or going to central London will just get to their nearest
Railway/DLR/Jubilee/District station by whatever bus goes there.