Anonymous Commuters

I commute to work daily. Today however is a little different as I'm heading to London for a meeting. I've caught a train an hour earlier than normal and it's packed.

As I stand wedged in a corner I realise that I spend an awful lot of my time with people I don't know. There's a woman to whom I gave the last seat, reading an A4 document with all the Important bits marked with yellow highlighter. There are two women drinking hot liquids from stainless steal flasks. Many of us are listening to our favourite sounds through headphones. Most are small in-ear ones, but 3 of us have larger over the ear types, myself included. I find they shut out the noise far better and allow for lower volumes to be used. Loonies tend to leave me be too.

There are various mobile phones, Blackberry's, iPhones and one iPad in a fetching shade of white. There are suit wearer, tie wearers and 2 wearer of jeans.



All of a sudden we arrive at our destination, London Bridge. I'm surprised at the lack of urgency displayed by my fellow commuters to get off the train. But once off it was on with the mad dash to the Tube. I did this journey for two years in the early 2000's and I don't miss it one bit. The Tube from London Bridge is a nightmare of delays and Sardines. Not a nice experience and I'm in no hurry to repeat it daily. Once in a while is plenty for me.

I caught the Jubilee Line to Canada Water expecting it to be fairly lightly loaded. How wrong I was. It was obvious that this section of the tube is now just as packed in the rush hour as every other section.

From at Canada Water I caught the recently reopened East London line. I actually designed the control & indication system that controls the signalling for this line, but this was my first trip on it. I am happy to report that my design worked perfectly well today 8-)




I was surprised that so many people could fit on these trains. I thought they would never stop getting of the thing. Eventually they did stop and the reason why so many could squeeze on became clear. Very few seats. Most of the area was designed to allow maximum people to stand. It seems to work quite well to.

I arrived early for my meeting, which was all over by 10:15 and then it was time for the return journey.

Regards
Chris
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