Better Transport In and Out

When I go to London for a concert the one thing guaranteed to mess things up is the transport network. In the last year I have had to leave concerts early to ensure that I could get home and, in one case, ended up with an expensive Uber ride back home. Southeastern trains and TFL who run the tubes seem designed to make your night out as difficult as possible by basically closing the network by midnight.

In July I went to see My Chemical Romance at Wembley Stadium. The concert was amazing but the trip back turned into a real pain. First of all, it took us an hour to get from the Stadium to the tube station which was incredibly crowded with people but not with trains! The stupidity of running a large scale people moving operation with limited trains and the decision to stop the first train at Baker Street would almost guarantee that anyone trying to get back to the Medway Towns or Canterbury, two major population centres had no chance. The last train from both St Pancras Station and Victoria Station left at the same time, 11.40.

With most major concerts ending at about 10.30 these days it is just baffling that no one in either Southeastern or TFL has the foresight to think, ‘We need to put on an extra service tonight’. Mind you, they also run short trains on days when there are huge concerts or large crowds going to football matches! As with so many other organisations it is pathetic managers whose only interest is in how much they will get paid not doing any work to justify that pay. When we have been in Sydney for the New Year’s Eve fireworks their trains and buses have continued until 4am. That is a proper transport system for a city famous for nightlife, not the poor excuse of a system we have in London. Come on London, sort it out!