And now for a rant...

Public transportation -- even when it's good it's bad.

In early 2009 TfL (Transport for London) announced that they were going to make a change to the circle line, it wasn't going to go in a circle anymore and it was going to enable more frequent trains on both the circle line and the Hammersmith and city (shitty) line.  This all sounded great.

Fast forward to present day...

New lines have been implemented, and apparently 1 train every 10 minutes is considered good service.  This morning I got to Earls Court station, where I normally change for a different branch of the district line, to hear an announcement saying there would be a long delay for my train and they recommended continuing on to the next station to catch a circle line train which was running good service.  So I dutifully listened to the announcer and got back on the train I'd just gotten off and proceeded to the next station...

Upon arrival at Glouchester Road, I hear an announcement that the next train will arrive at 8:20am, time now, 8:10 -- how was I any further ahead going to this station.  I still ended up standing on a train platform for 10mins and now I'm further from work rather than closer to it...

So the lesson here...ignore all announcements made at tube stations unless they indicate life threatening circumstances.  The so called 'control centres' have no better idea than you or I when a train will actually arrive, it's all a bit of a surprise.

The one thing I would say about a small transport vs a large transport network -- if there's 3 lines and they say it's running -- a train will come -- if there's 15 lines and they say it's running -- you've got a 50/50 chance that anyone has any idea what they're talking about.

Rant end.