More travel woes

Well, there's no Northern Line tomorrow either, so 660,000 daily passengers are SOL. I do have an alternative, and I'll probably work from home tomorrow anyway.

The BBC says the line will be 'running by Monday', but as they've also put that in quotation marks in their headlines, I'm guessing they have their doubts, too.

It's not entirely clear what's wrong with the line, but the crux of the matter is that there's a bit of hoo-ha over the way the line, its fleet and tracks, is maintained. The maintenance has been outsourced through something called a PPP (Public Private Partnership) to which there is a lot of public and union opposition. There did appear to be something wrong with some of the emergency braking systems on trains yesterday, but the main reason the line is shut down completely is that London Underground drivers are refusing to drive. Train drivers began walking out Wednesday night (which is why we had a bad journey yesterday - not signal problems as it was claimed)

Now, if it's really unsafe, I guess that's the right thing to do, but with this union you honestly never can tell. They have threatened strike over some workers sacked for drinking on the job, a worker sacked for taking months on sick pay for bad leg who then was found competing in a squash tournament, and for the demotion of a worker who ran through stops several times after ignoring clear safety warnings.

From the BBC story:

Drivers walked out on Wednesday evening because of safety fears. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union welcomed assurances from LU that those who had refused to work would not face penalties. Earlier the RMT and train drivers' union Aslef said they would ballot members over industrial action if these drivers were "victimised" or had their pay docked.

But if you check out this Times story - you can start to work out what might be going on

The braking system, known as a trip cock, is supposed to stop trains from running through red lights and crashing into the train in front. The latest failure, at Mill Hill East yesterday morning, involved a train which had been modified after four earlier failures.

London Underground last night attempted to reassure the union by ordering a spare driver to sit in the cab as back-up in case the main driver failed to stop at a red light. This measure had been in place over the weekend but was removed on Monday because LU believed the problem had been solved.

Essentially, drivers are relying on the Emergency Braking system to stop the train when receiving a red signal instead of actually braking the trains when they see a red light. I guess the back up driver is meant to step in and use the brake if the first one is too lazy to do so. But instead, they've all walked off the job, leaving many people stranded.

Underground