On Sep 7, 5:49*pm, David Walters wrote:
SNIP
Old Street to Moorgate on First Capital Connect is timetabled at 5
minutes. Old Street to Moorgate on the Northern line is timetabled at 1
minute. Even with the longer change at Old Street changing there is on
paper quicker.
SNIP


I've never known it to take longer than perhaps 2 minutes. Yes, it
does tend to be slower than the tube, as it enters Moorgate relatively
slowly, but never 5 minutes.

The interchange walk at Old Street, however, is easily three minutes,
whereas Moorgate is probably about 20 seconds. And of course, involves
very little walking, as it's a single escalator going from one
platform to the other, whereas the Old Street one is much more labour
intensive!

Thanks all of you for the explanations... and also for that news (to
me) -- thanks Mizter T -- that it's not a £4 penalty but a "maximum
fare" which can now shockingly be almost double that. Now, I don't
know if you'll agree with me, but I don't think that's been very
heavily advertised. I heard a lot about £4 when the scheme launched,
but not a lot about "maximum fares" and "anything up to £7.40" now
that the fares have gone up. Most people will see it as some sort of
"fine" even if it's in fact a "penalty fare", and most people will
expect that any increase in this amount will be advertised clearly, as
other fines for smoking etc are advertised fairly clearly.

It almost seems that this has crept in quite quietly. A bit like the
increase in the daily caps, which appears to have increased
considerably this year - in the past, you'd know that after a couple
of tube journeys and a bus journey, you would probably not to charged
anything on the following bus journey... but now, my friend who uses
PAYG decides to take a bus for a couple of stops expecting it to be
free, and suddenly discovers that £1.80 comes off the credit.

Anyone else with me that, although I salute Boris for the Bike scheme,
the sooner Ken gets back in charge the better? Like him or loathe him,
he DID bring better value to the commuter while keeping the system
running fairly well. Or is that for another usenet forum?