Sadly, the unions RMT and TSSA were in dispute with Transport for London and withdrew their labour on the 5th and 6th February. RMT was formerly the National Union of Railwaymen, usually known as the 'NUR'. In 1990 this union merged with the National Union of Seamen to form the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, usually known as 'RMT'. TSSA is the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association. For more information, there are Wikipedia articles on RMT and TSSA.
Journey to East Croydon
The most obvious way of avoiding the Tube on this journey is to alight at Watford Junction and then catch a service to East Croydon. However, not all the fast trains into London stop at Watford and the connections onward are not always convenient.
So I decided to travel to Euston, as normal, walk to St. Pancras (oh, alright 'St. Pancras International') and catch a 'Thameslink' service to East Croydon. The Virgin train was a few minutes late into Euston. It seemed to be the usual snag involving waiting on Camden Bank for a departing service to clear the platform. After a wait, we rolled into platform 16, stopping clear of a Class 57 parked on the buffer stops.
I walked along Euston Road to St. Pancras, being frequently reminded of the thoughtlessness of London pedestrians who bang into you and jostle you without even appearing aware that they share the footpath with others. I knew that the 'Thameslink' platforms were underground - a quick look at the National Rail site (http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations/STP/details.html) allowed me to walk straight to the ticket barriers and head for platform 'A'. In the post Zen and the Art of Platform Numbering I wrote about capital letters changing to lower case in platform numbers but here, capitals reign supreme, perhaps for the good reason that each platform is quite independent of all others, without a common access point (or, perhaps not).
There were plenty of passengers and frequent trains in both directions, but they all seemed to be a few minutes late. Two pre-recorded public address systems, one with a male voice, one a female voice) were giving announcements (this seems to be increasingly common, as I noticed at Clapham Junction). A combination of poor acoustics, simultaneous messages on both systems and a terrible racket every time a train arrived or left meant that I didn't glean much from the messages. The visual displays weren't too easy to read either (white characters on a blue background and lots of reflection from incident light) and the system became completely foxed when the train I was waiting for arrived before a prior service which was late running. The displays couldn't cope with a train that had somehow 'leap-frogged' another. There was a little pantomime as people boarded, realised it was not their train and got off again.
Once everybody was sorted out, we continued to Farringdon (where the train power collection was changed from 25kV a.c. overhead to 750V d.c. third rail) and then took the Snow Hill Tunnel to the underground City Thameslink. After a brief stop, we carried on to emerge at the rebuilt and remodelled Blackfriars station. People got off, people got on and then we sat there. From my seat, there was plenty of time to admire the view of St. Paul's Cathedral, glowing in the morning sun.
Then the driver announced that we would not make our scheduled stop at London Bridge as our train was being diverted through Herne Hill. A groan went up from the passengers, many of whom were trying to get to London Bridge. The driver said there was a signalling fault at London Bridge and this was the reason for our sudden diversion. This may have been true, although later in the day it was announced that London Bridge had closed for a time because of congestion. A number of people got off (not looking too happy), the doors closed and we set off on, for me, a less-commonly travelled route.
Instead of turning left at Blackfriars Junction and taking the Blackfriars Reversible Spur, so as to join the Charing Cross to London Bridge route at the Metropolitan Junctions, we continued on the four-track section through Elephant & Castle. The lines here are paired by use (Down Holborn Fast, Up Holborm Fast, Down Holborn Slow, Up Holborn Slow). The Passenger Information Displays had not caught up with our re-routing and, for some time, insisted that our next stop would be London Bridge.
At Loughborough Junction, routes diverged both left and right and we continued, at a rather modest speed, on the double track to Herne Hill, merging with the Chatham lines through the station and then turning right on the double track Holborn Line to Tulse Hill. We merged with the Chatham Line through the station and turned left onto the West Norwood Spurs to join the double track Crystal Palace Line from Balham. This took us through West Norwood and Gipsy Hill stations and into the 746 yard long Crystal Palace Tunnel. At the end of the tunnel, there are two routes. The left leads via the Sydenham Spurs to join the four-track main line towards London Bridge. We took the right route, crossed over the London Bridge lines and, via the Down Crystal Palace Spur, joined the London Bridge Lines at Norwood Junction, back on our intended route to Brighton.
View of the lines to London Bridge from my train on the Down Crystal Palace line.
Speed at last picked up and we soon arrived at East Croydon. You really need a pre-grouping railway map to understand the complicated interconnecting railway routes around London.
East Croydon Station looking towards Brighton, showing the new footbridge.
Return from East Croydon
Early evening, I was back at East Croydon Station, wondering what route to attempt for the return journey. My normal approach is to catch the first fast train to London, irrespective of line. Well, I followed this rule and ended up at Victoria, so I hopefully headed towards the Tube station. There were lots of people about as I made my way down the escalator towards the Victoria Line platform. The platform was pretty crowded but I managed to move along the platform to where the crush didn't seem so bad, trying not to myself display the banging and jostling behaviour that had irritated me that morning. From the announcements being made, it was clear that all was not well and apologies were being made for delays. Eventually, a train arrived with some space and I made sure that I was close to a door, ready to board. I made it onto the train, albeit with not much space to stand, but there were plenty of people left standing on the platform as we pulled out. At busy times, this is not unusual when there isn't a strike. At Oxford Circus, I even 'bagged' a seat but I'm always careful to stay near an exit as getting off can be a problem when trains are crowded and I didn't want to get over-carried. Warren Street was closed (as were a number of stations around the system). I emerged at Euston relieved that the problems weren't worse. There was a 'Pendolino' service to Birmingham leaving in about 12 minutes so I headed for the Standard Class Quiet coach. This involves walking the length of the 11-coach train ('Pendolino' were 9-car originally, now strengthened to 11-car) but is usually worth the walk.
Signals at the country end of Euston. The building in the background is the former Euston Power Signal Box. The area is now controlled from Wembley Mainline Signalling Control Centre (note the 'WM' prefixes on the signal number plates).
The journey from London was quite good (involving the fairly usual wait for a platform on the approach to New Street) but I had the usual difficulty in the half-rebuilt station trying to determine the next service onward to Wolverhampton but, all in all, I thought I'd got off lightly. That conclusion was reinforced by watching television news later. They claimed only 35% of tube trains ran and told some real horror stories of commuters stranded or taking hours extra to complete their journey.
The strike was to be repeated on 12th and 13th February but action has been "suspended" whilst negotiations continue.
