Shutdown

(I am trying not to bombard people with millions of posts, but I must vent my frustration over my morning. Feel free to skip this one, as it is mostly a rant.)

It snowed last night in London, and it is still snowing (it's noon here now). Not much snow, really--there's maybe four inches on the ground. But it is too much snow for London.

This morning my computer was uncooperative and I was unable to get online to check my e-mail or the news. As a result, I was unable to search for either school closings or Superbowl results. I left the house about 6:55AM, a bit later than I should have.

I did not realize the extent of the snowfall until I got outside. I thought there was a good chance Hornsey was cancelled--but I didn't want to take the chance. I called the school as I trudged towards the bus stop.

[Here I will depart from my story to provide with a quick orientation of how my daily life depends on London's public transport. The closest Underground station to me is Ealing Broadway. Both the Central Line and the District Line stop at Ealing Broadway, and it take me 25 min or so to walk to the station. Alternatively, I can walk about ten minutes to catch a bus to the station (5 min bus ride, usually). Typically I take the bus in the morning. West Ealing rail station is closer to me than Ealing Broadway--a 10 min walk--but it does not connect to the Underground. It runs trains to Paddington and to Heathrow, so it is a useful station, but I do not use it regularly.

To get from my house to Hornsey, I walk/bus to Ealing Broadway, where I catch the Central line heading east into Central London. At Oxford Circus (a 25-30 min ride) I transfer to the northbound Victoria line, which I ride to Finsbury Park (15 min tops). At Finsbury Park, I catch the W3 bus to Weston Park, where I then walk for about 5 min to reach the school.]

No sidewalks had been cleared yet, and the side streets were still covered. I got no answer at the school, but it was only 7:00AM so even if the school was open there probably wasn't anyone in yet. I got to my usual bus stop and waited there for not even a minute before a passerby informed me that no buses were running.

This was worrisome. If there were no buses running anywhere in the city, then I would not be able to get from Finsbury Park station to Hornsey School. I had no way of knowing whether there was this much snow everywhere, or whether any city buses were running. For all I knew, it was just Ealing that couldn't cope with a few inches of snow.

So I continued trudging through the snow, trying to ring the school. I got alternatively voice mail and busy signals. I had the other interns' mobile numbers in my bag, but I didn't want to stop and dig through my bag in the snowfall. I decided to pull out their numbers when I got to the station.

Once at the station, I called Stacy, who answered almost right away. She lived in the same building as the other two guys who work with us, and I knew that they travelled together in the mornings. "Is Hornsey open?" I asked.

"Well, that's the million dollar question. No one has any idea. We can't get through to the school. But there are no buses anywhere, and the Bakerloo line is shut down near us, so we're screwed even if it is open. Can't see how we would get there."

At this point, if I had any sense, I would have turned around and gone back to bed. But I kept thinking that at home, school would not be cancelled for this amount of snow. I knew, though, that most students used the city buses to get to school, and now I knew that it wasn't just Ealing's buses that weren't running. So I should have figured it out.

But I just didn't want to miss a day of work. We were already all scrambling for hours, since the school gets a couple of weeks off in April. If the school was open and I didn't show, I didn't think I'd get in trouble, but I'd miss seven hours needlessly (we have an hour requirement with CAPA). So instead of turning around and going home, I told Stacy that I was going to get into the Tube and that I'd keep trying the school. We promised to share information as soon as anyone got any to share.

Once in the station, I noted that the District line wasn't running--it was closed from west of Earl's Court, a station in Central London. But the Central line was running, and did not seem any more crowded than it normally was on a weekday morning. I grabbed a copy of the free morning paper and got myself a nice standing place halfway up the train. I tried calling the school one last time before I lost service; no answer.

As the train sped along--it seemed to be doing just fine--I scanned the paper for Superbowl news. It was too early, though; the game had just ended about two hours ago, and the results weren't printed. The predicted low temp was, though: -5C. This is about 20F, and therefore not really that cold. But it is apparently the coldest London has been in more than a decade.

With roughly four stops to go, the train all of a sudden got crammed with people. Seriously, people were getting stuck in the doors because of the crowds. It seemed to come from nowhere. It did not seem like a good sign.

At Oxford Circus I shoved my way out of the train and decided to exit the station before boarding a Victoria train to Finsbury Park. I was determined to get through to Hornsey before going any further; Oxford Circus station was mayhem.

Above ground, I called them twice before a human finally answered. "Is the school open?" I asked.

"No, I'm afraid we're not," said whoever had finally decided to pick up a phone. I then called Stacy and made my way back down into the station, intending to hop on a westbound Central line train to get home. It was about 8:00 at this point.

It seemed to be a lost cause. A calm British announcer was listing all of the delays over the intercom: "We are currently experiencing severe delays on the eastbound Central Line. The Bakerloo Line is closed north of Queen's Park. The District Line is part suspended. There is a good service on the Victoria line..." I couldn't even get close to the Central line platform--there were crowds all backed up the stairs. It was infuriating because I knew that 80% of the traffic was for the eastbound service into London, and that if I could get through I could probably get onto a westbound train. Rather than fight the crowds, I decided to leave the station and grab a cup of coffee somewhere, to give the rush hour crowds time to pass.

That may have been a fatal mistake on my part; it's hard to say. In an event, when I got back to the station at around 8:50, there were fewer crowds. I managed to get onto the westbound Central line platform. But in the last half hour severe delays had developed on the westbound Central Line as well. Nonetheless, the sign over the platform said "Next Ealing Broadway train within 15 min." Fifteen minutes seemed reasonable to me, given the madness in the station, so I put on my iPod and waited.

Twenty-five minutes later, the sign still said "Next Ealing Broadway train 15 min." I seriously doubted it, and began devising alternative routes in my mind. I wondered whether the District line was up yet; if I could get to it, I could ride that the Ealing Broadway.

I stopped a TfL worker and asked. He told me that the only line currently running dependable service was the Victoria line (ironically, this meant that I could have actually gotten to work on time). If the District and Central couldn't get me to Ealing Broadway, my only other option was an Overground train to West Ealing. But the Victoria line didn't run to Paddington. It did, however, run to Kings Cross. Kings Cross did not have any Overground trains to West Ealing, but it did boast five Underground lines, two of which ran to Paddington. My new plan was to get to Paddington via Kings Cross.

Sure enough, there were Victoria line trains running every four minutes in both directions (as I boarded the train, my iPod informed me it had low battery). I got to Kings Cross quite smoothly. From experience I knew that both the Circle Line and the Hammersmith & City Line went to Paddington, and that they left from the same platform. I was sure to get a train quickly, since both of them were high-frequency services.

But as soon as I stepped off of the escalator, there was a sign saying that both the Circle and the H&C lines were completely shut down. I turned around and formulated another plan: get back on Victoria and go to Victoria station. Victoria station had Overground trains; I had no idea whether they ran trains to Paddington or West Ealing, but I felt sure that the Underground would never get me home.

At Victoria station, every Overground train had been cancelled. The District line ran out of Victoria and was running good service according to the announcements--but it was also closed several stops east of Ealing Broadway. I had no choice but to take Victoria back to Oxford Circus and try again for a westbound Central Line train.

When the train pulled into Green Park, the station before Oxford Circus, there was an announcement that there was no interchange for the Central line at Oxford Circus. There was a third line at Oxford Circus, the Bakerloo line, which I never used and did not know very well. I knew part of it was closed, but I didn't know what part. With no other plan, I got off at Oxford Circus and inspected the Bakerloo map.

Win! It went to Paddington; the part of it that was closed was past Paddington. It also seemed to still be running smoothly. I even managed to get a seat on the train.

I was now worried about getting a train from Paddington to West Ealing after everything had been shut down at Victoria. The only back-up plan I had was to ride a different branch of the District Line from Paddington to CAPA and chill in the student lounge there. That wouldn't solve anything, but at least I'd finally get to go to sleep. But I didn't even know if CAPA was open; I'd need to call them first.

Luckily, it seemed that Paddington was still running trains. I scanned the departure board and saw that the next train to Heathrow would stop at West Ealing. It was scheduled to leave at 10:03; the station clocks read 10:00 exactly. I sprinted to the train and got a seat. Finally feeling satisfied, I loosened my scarf as my iPod finally died.

I needn't have sprinted; the train didn't leave the station until nearly 11:00. Once it did, it stopped for nearly 10 min just a couple of minutes outside of the station. I finally made it to West Ealing around 11:30, and then back home, where I promptly got into my pajamas and sat down to write this.

Seriously, though--all of this for four inches of snow?! It's not as though they were surprised; the imminent snowfall was the major news item of the weekend. It's absurd that a city of this size and significance is completely unable to cope with a flurry.

Total travelling time: 4.5 hours.
Net distance: 0 miles.

Cheers.