1) The number of people who want to travel late on a Friday & Saturday
night
is *much* greater than those who want to travel early on Saturday and
Sunday
morning, so it's for the greater good. The number of people cramming on
to
last trains out of the West End at the moment, compared to those using
first
trains on Saturday & Sunday, is evidence enough.

I assume you've not travelled on early morning trains on those days or
attempted to get across London to or from Heathrow airport with luggage.
There are a lot of people who rely on early morning trains at the
weekend. I accept it will be less than those who would use a later
finishing tube service but I'm not convinced by the run the tubes later
argument.


I quite agree. On occasions when I have had need to use the tube early at
the weekend to start a longer journey (to Heathrow or to catch a long
distance train somewhere) I have been surprised how many people are using
the tube, nearly all workers with some other longer distance travellers
thrown in.

More important than the numbers, though, is the quality of the alternative.
These early journeys are being made by people who have little alternative
than to travel at those times, because they have to get to work (generally
the low paid) or catch a train/plane at a certain time. Although people can
change jobs or travel the day before, clearly this is quite a burden and
will not always be possible. Without the tube, these journeys would be very
difficult; they are coming from and going to diverse areas, not all of which
have a night bus (we used to live in Dagenham, a few mins from the tube but
half an hour walk to a night bus). Critically, night buses are infrequent
and can't be relied upon to arive on time and to get you somewhere at a
certain time. As these journeys are generally time-critical, or people
wouldn't be up and about making them, the night bus does not cater nearly so
well as the tube for these workers.

People coming out of the West End at 1am are generally merry, and are going
home. If you have been out on the town and are going home, the whole night
bus network is centred around your needs, taking you from the West End to
all over London. If you're making an odd journey home and it doesn't matter
how long it takes, that irregular journey time or half an hour walk at the
other end doesn't matter too much. Quite a different kettle of fish if you
have to walk that far just to get a bus to work.

I should say that I am more likely to use a later tube than to use the first
hour of service, but on those less regular early journeys it is very
important to me that the journey is fast and reliable. When I am going home
late by night bus I don't really mind how long it takes.

On a separate point, anyone who saw the expose of the LU night maintenance
workers will know that it is quite possible to get much more work done on
the night shift if people actually do some work; a friend working for one of
the infracos (no of course I won't say which/where!) went on a night shift a
few months ago and was staggered that the entire shift was made up of people
with no concept of a work ethic and whose stated challenge when at work was
to see just how little they could do and get away with it. If these idlers
actually had some real supervision you could easily have a shorter overnight
engineering period and get the same level of maintenance done, keeping your
revellers and early workers happy.

Tony