TFL

The F does not stand for 'For' as I discovered this week.

I don't mind trains normally. They are a reasonably less stressful alternative to driving around the city and they get you where you want to go...most of the time. Last weekend was a small exception.

The Met line had work on between Harrow and Baker Street but, ya know, all was okay as the blessed Chiltern Line was on and even running extra trains as that's the kind of stand-up organisation they are. They are normally my salvation after a long day auditioning, or taking classes rather than taking the bumpy Met line surrounded by grammatically challenged graffiti.

On this particular evening I had enjoyed some comedy by Adam Buxton on the South Bank and I was making my way back to Marylebone when I received a text alert letting me know Chiltern Railways had severe delays so "don't travel unless you have to". Well I had to. And 'delays' just means they are going but delayed right? Oh no, this is not the definition currently held by Chiltern Railways; when I got to Marylebone the trains were all cancelled. Bugger.

A grumpy, vocationally challenged Customer Service Assistant stood advising people that if they needed to get back to Gerrards Cross, High Wycombe, Beaconsfield etc then they were paying for taxis to get you home. However if you were wanting Amersham or Chesham, plus any of the stops along the way, to hold on there in the station as they were going to run a solitary train to Harrow for us to pick up the Met Line. Apparently all the signals looked like disco lights and kept flicking between red and green, hence knowing they could now run just the one train on the tracks.

I decided to hedge my bets by flitting between the taxi rank and the station concourse, thinking if a taxi could get me as far as I could go for free I would pay the rest - I just wanted to get home by this point.

As I reached the taxi queue, I say queue I really mean 'bunch' quickly turning into 'mob', it was close to going tribal as they certainly weren't appreciative of the man with the clipboard as their leader. A woman desperately shouted at the man that she needed to get to Seer Green; as if none of the 30-odd people around her wanted to get to their home.

A taxi finally approaches as the group of men, women and children grows to 40 strong. The driver tells the man with the clipboard that he is destined for Gerrards Cross. "Seer Green!" shouts the woman from the middle of the crowd as if the driver got it wrong, I suspect she is a fan of the persuasive techniques of Derren Brown.
Several people silently, with daggers in their eyes, place their hands in the air for Gerrards Cross, climb in the taxi and leave us mere mortals. Another comes along: "Anyone for Beaconsfield?" "That's next to Seer Green!!" Several more hands go up and reach the car before this mad lady can push through. She is about 40, well dressed and I would hazard a guess she would refer to herself as a 'Yummy Mummy'. I leave for the station concourse, not wishing to hear any more.

I am walking up to the platforms when I half hear a, slightly jollier, Customer Service Representative defusing a hostile take-over. He is explaining to some grumpy commuters about the situation before leaving to find out the latest news.

I was stood by a smug-looking, bespectacled 50-something year old man who was apprehending a slightly confused looking South American girl. "Where do you need to go?" he enquired loudly and clearly as if she were a deaf, 70 year old.
"Oh um.. Rickmansworth" she replied in almost accent-less English.
"Ah...you need to ask the man with the clipboard"
"Yes it doesn't look like my train is running any more"
"Yes you need to talk to the man with the clipboard" he said loudly and slowly, this time accompanied with a patronising mime. "I'm going back home to Aylesbury"
Silence from the girl.
"Have you ever been to Aylesbury?" the man continues.
"Er no I don't think so..."
"Oh you should it's just lovely. A beautiful place is Aylesbury" he tells the exotic beauty who is probably from a place that is so beautiful it would have bullied Aylesbury had they been to school together.

Who actually says that about where they live? And about somewhere that is a big development building site at present and for the next few years? Yes a lovely new theatre has been built there but without a car park and next to a building site for Waitrose. Rio it is not.

I am ashamed to say I had a certain amount of pleasure knowing that if this girl held on a few more minutes for the train I was to get on, she would easily get to Rickmansworth on the Met Line. Mr Smug Aylesbury was screwed.

We eventually made it onto the train towards Harrow and whilst sat there I remembered a conversation I had overheard on the way in where the man sat in front of me actually said the word 'Width' 24 times in one minute. I kid you not.

"It's like a length but shorter. Wid-th. Wi-d-th. No not 'with'; Width! W, I, D, T, H." And on the hilarity ensued.

I couldn't tell if he was on the phone or talking to the poor girl sat in front of him, but the conversation then went onto him explaining the wonders of buying vegetables on the market:

"Honestly it is the most economical way to get your vegetables. My friend has a big family, and he buys them on the market for not just his family but another family too and you wouldn't believe what he gets for £20. You can get carrots and onions and broccoli..."
Already I am wishing I had investing in noise cancellation headphones. Is this man really going to slowly recall every vegetable he knows?! Oh yes he is. Luckily for all of us on the carriage he ran out after four types and went back to carrots. Carrots came up three more times in this conversation. I could feel myself start to rock.

So back to my late night journey home and I have made it to Harrow on the Hill. An hour later than I had expected, but I was halfway home. I am told to go to platform 2 where the next train that will get me back to my car isn't for another 20 mins at 23:47. I sit reading my SFX magazine for a while and a guard comes up to me and asks: "Are you waiting for a train to Amersham?"
"Yes Amersham" I simply reply.
He looks at me, slightly concerned and asks: "not any further along the line then? You don't want to go to Aylesbury?"
It took every fibre of my being not to say: "I've heard it's lovely"
What is with people and Aylesbury?!!

Finally the train rocks up and we sit in the cold carriage awaiting our safe return home.
And time ticks on...we are still sat there.
The driver announces that this is the 23:59, which granted is only 12 minutes later than we had previously been told by the guard on the platform, but it is the last straw when you hoped to be home an hour before and it is freezing sat on a train with all the doors open for 12 minutes.
A confused lady makes her way past me to the driver's open door and asks:
"What time is this train going?"
"It's an eleven fifty-nine train" he said in a very hostile tone and standing to his full height over this diminutive lady.
"Sorry I was only asking" replied the lady;
"Humph!" growled back the driver.

We surely have a transport system second to none.