150 years a tribute to LT

By Nancy woods

I am fascinated by the London Underground and its smooth operation. With recent extensions to the jubilee line and over ground has expanded the network much to the satisfaction of the commuters. We had an excellent transport service for London 2012 Olympics.
One has never given thought, that how it is to run a transport system in London. It happened one evening at 10 PM when I was at Hammersmith station. Somebody had come under the tracks on the district line and a signal failure on the Piccadilly line brought the entire network to a halt. No trains were moving from Hammersmith station Eastbound to London. Those waiting on the platform were constantly informed but much to their dismay and the mourning went on.
As an observer I watched from the platform while the supervisor’s office might have been busy and with only less than a handful of staff. I wondered how they would cope. It seemed like an impossible situation.
In thirty minutes there would be thousands of commuters coming down the stairs to the Eastbound platform from the Apollo theatre. It was show night surely it was a night from hell for LT staff. As thoughts quizzed in my brain.LT staff were on the job.
This is how their strategic plans fell in to place that night. They close the gates on first side of the exit and divert all passengers to the main entrance exit. This is ok, but there were no trains and the entire network was blocked. There were trains stuck on the Piccadilly line tunnel which were on tracks as the train in front of them was not moving up to Hammersmith the entire network was brought to a halt.

There was no excitement or chaos as though it was a normal occurrence with maximum disruption I thought. But the entire situation was handled calmly. The staff knew what they had to do. It was perhaps a night of excitement for them.
After two hours the trains began to move again and simultaneously the passengers started coming down from the Apollo in thousands. After a great and enjoyable night out. They could not even have imagined that Hammersmith station staff coped with a difficult situation to get these passengers on the train. It was surprising that the show had finished just when the trains began to move and not before when the trains were not moving.
I was left bewildered as to how the whole process took place in front of my eyes and Bingo, as if nothing had happened that night. It was as if it was nature’s call and the trains were back running and all the mayhem was avoided. Like magic.
My tribute is to LT staff and engineers who work all hours of the day and night to provide an ace service. Londoner’s are proud to have the tube.

End