On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:12:52 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:
I don't have an answer to your question Paul, but I have just perused
the TfL New Year's Eve travel info leaflet and there's no specific
information about closures of Charing X station on NYE. It might be
the Met Police being overzealous, I don't know.

I was stuck on Villiers Street for a while, the police said that the
exit south to Embankment wouldn't open until 0200 and it seems they
meant it. They were also very well trained with "well I wouldn't
start from here..." type answers to why people couldn't get through to
see the fireworks, etc. I went round by Northumberland Avenue in the
end.

Still, at least we had some proper beer in the Ship and Shovell and
saw 25% of the fireworks round the side of the office blocks by
Embankment station. This beats last year, when I saw the 1% that
poked over the top of the buildings on the south side of Trafalgar
Sqaure.

Aha - but there were special services in the early hours of New Years
day, sponsored by TfL and free to use. Charing X was the start point
of four separate half-hourly services.

In my addled state, I bought a ticket to Kingston, as these seemed to
be the only services running from Waterloo after the (SWT-paid-for,
presumably) later than usual "last" services. I thought that TfL may
have provided them but couldn't find any publicity. Everyone knows
that the underground and buses (etc) are free but there seems little
effort to inform us about the trains. Perhaps I wasn't observant, but
at Wimbledon we were joined by a Woking service (at about 0300) that I
hadn't seen on the screens at Waterloo at all. Although on the Down
Fast it didn't sneak past us before New Malden and I was able to get
back to Surbiton by train after all.

Richard.

Richard wrote:
On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:12:52 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:
I don't have an answer to your question Paul, but I have just perused
the TfL New Year's Eve travel info leaflet and there's no specific
information about closures of Charing X station on NYE. It might be
the Met Police being overzealous, I don't know.

I was stuck on Villiers Street for a while, the police said that the
exit south to Embankment wouldn't open until 0200 and it seems they
meant it. They were also very well trained with "well I wouldn't
start from here..." type answers to why people couldn't get through to
see the fireworks, etc. I went round by Northumberland Avenue in the
end.

They made such a pigs ear of it two years ago that I didn't bother this year
(last year was a logistical disaster as well).

Two years ago we were near Hungerford Bridge. I had to get back up to
Marylebone - which I intended to do on foot. In view of the number of people
heading for public transport - and mindful of the numbers in Trafalgar
Square from previous years - I decided to head down Northumberland Avenue,
through into Whitehall and down to Parliament Square before heading north.
The last place that I wanted to be was Trafalgar Square or the West End.
Emerging into Whitehall I was immediately ushered back towards Trafalgar
Square, adding to the numbers crushing into the square. It took over half an
hour to get from Great Scotland Yard, until I was in a position to duck out
towards Pall Mall and up into Piccadilly and down to Hyde Park Corner and
Park Lane. It was nothing short of a farce of Met Police disorganisation,
forcing people who could have relieved the congestion into making it worse.

I stayed at home this year and watched it on the telly. Much less hassle.

"chunky munky" wrote in message
...


Paul Speller wrote:


Does anyone know what on earth was going on at Charing Cross? Why did
they not let enough people in to fill the available trains? Is the crowd
management always that atrocious?

Paul

The Met Police were probably in charge!

They where...

Waterloo was the same when I left the office at about 02:00 - Huge queues
round the station, people waiting ages and ages to get in. Quick walk to
Southwark on a almost empty JLE train to green park - Waterloo platforms
where very quite upto Green Park for the Vic line (Was no worse than a week
day besides the tit who pulled the PEA because his mate missed the doors at
Euston) got back to KGX and was told by an LUL person all the trains had
gone (Which wasn't true) and on the 02:36 home!

I recall last year I ended up not using Waterloo for the same reason.