If a tree falls...

People often remark that transport in London, and all across England for that matter, is a disaster. For the most part, we disagree with that. Having used it every day for the last two and a half years, the number of problematic journeys has been quite minimal for us.

While each autumn we are forced to endorse slower trains because of leaves on the track, we have never been truly inconvenienced by the reported 500,000 delay minutes that these leaves apparently cause (see further reading below).

Cartoon from Cartoon Stock

However, if one does agree that leaves do in fact cause such excessive delays, then imagine for a moment what entire trees on the tracks have the ability of causing. Below is such an example of one of the key stations in London providing overland and tube services. London Liverpool Street is, as a result, already a busy station where it is not uncommon to have masses of people. This however was an unusual mass of people.



And while delays and cancellations are in fact a frequent occurence, never before have I seen so much red on the board, signifying either a delay or cancellation.

Other stations across London experienced similar issues due to the 70mph winds which brought trees and power lines down and caused signal failures and all sorts of things. Getting home was yet another exciting adventure for most London commuters.

Suffice to say, our journey to Cambridge was delayed by a day, hence adding a total of 2,880 minutes to their ongoing count.

Further reading on The Guardian's website here