A fair amount happened on the Central Line but very little of it seemed to be happening where I was. When I got to EAB the EB was stopped on the instructions of the BTP because of an “incident” at BAN but by the time I got to WEA we had the all clear. Straight after there was a “handle down” at CHL but that was sorted before I left NOA. I was held up by a train coming out of the sidings at WHC and I didn’t reach HAI until I was timetabled to be leaving but they cleared the signal straight away and I was off WB only 3 minutes down.

As I pulled into EAB for the second time we were told to “non-stop” OXO though I couldn’t make out why, the announcer must have been halfway through a bacon sandwich. Fortunately by the time I reached SHB OXO re-opened saving me a call to Wood Lane to discover the cause. Other than that there was the usual Auto failure, this time on the EB approach to SHB and numerous rucksacks caught in doors; must have been all those student demonstrators.

One thing that did catch my eye was an announcement from our glorious leader, Mike Brown, that the Tube carried record numbers of passengers last month, over 90m despite two days of strikes. On Friday 26 we carried over 4m for the first time in over two years, nearly a quarter of a million more than the same weekend last year. Over the last seven years passenger numbers have increased by 16% and we run 27% more services than we did 15 years ago.

So obviously we are cutting 650 station staff because the Tube is getting too crowded.