Tuesday, December 15, 2009

How's the new Circle Line?

According to The Independent, the new Circle Line (or lasso line, or spiral line, or @ line) is causing some confusion for London Underground passengers. Writer, Andy McSmith calls it "incomprehensible".

Paddington Underground station by bowroaduk

He points out what is making things confusing: "To add to the perplexity, Transport for London (TfL) insists on calling the trains that are going by the long route to Hammersmith "eastbound", although they go south, west and north until they get to Liverpool Street, and then start travelling west. "Westbound" trains between Tower Hill and Gloucester Road, are, in fact, heading east, and "eastbound" trains are heading west. Clear enough?"

What we can only hope are just teething problems, added to the confusion at Edgware Road yesterday:

"At the entrance were notices telling you that westbound trains to Hammersmith left from platform 4, and the "eastbound" trains that took you south towards Victoria left from platform 2. But any unwary passenger who believed the notices and got the first train on platform 2 was likely to be whisked away to Hammersmith, because the train drivers were using the wrong platforms."

A number of comments on Twitter show that the line "sucks" or people are reverting to buses instead. Thanks to Seant666 for the heads up to the Indie article.

Have you used the new Circle Line yet? Has anyone tried getting it to Hammersmith, as that's supposed to be the main benefit of extending the line?

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