Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Morning at the London Underground station



I believed London Underground train services were very sophisticated with the different lines and the interconnections and the fact that the city apparently runs on it.

So, I reached London early morning this Sunday for a business trip for 4 days. I thought let's use the train services to reach the hotel. I had traveled before and found it satisfactory. I went to the Heathrow Underground station and was expecting atleast one ticket counter to be operational (they have 3 counters there). To my disappointment none of the counters had a railway official to issue tickets.

I checked with sole official roaming around only to find that I will need to use one of those machines installed to get an Oyster card (the card you can use for train services). My mind said that I do have cash and a credit card, so the machines should serve the purpose. Sadly, the machines (3 of them) did not accept notes, but only coins. I didn't have enough to give the £5 deposit for the Oyster card, let alone topping it up for my trip to the hotel.

Cash was out of the picture now, and my mind said, use the card. The card charges might be higher (given the exchange rates offered by card companies), but I had no choice. Somehow, my card was not accepted, which was strange, given I have used it many times before in a few countries, including UK.

I had no choice but to head to the taxi terminal. Last thing I thought I should do before going on my way out of the train station was to check the timing mentioned on the ticket counter window. I just wanted to check if assistance was nearby. Timing was immaculately mentioned - (i) Mon - Fri: blah blah (ii) Sat: blah blah and (iii) Sun: 7:15 am to blah. I thought the counter should open anytime now and with that thought I checked by mobile to see the time. It was 7:46am. Again, unclear about how such things are happening in a city like London and within that the Underground services was not clear. Again, I approached the sole rail official to check when can I expect the counter to open. He said in 30 minutes or so. I told him that the board says 7:15am on Sundays. He looked at me as if I said something I should not have. The economic situation of UK was out there in the open. The official said, though the board says the time I mentioned, they don't have enough staff and so nothing can be done.

Just then I was again reminded, about how machines have been made to replace people more and more. And even then governments in the developed world are still not managing to fill positions with people, due to lack of resources.

As I was thinking this, another machine (the 4th one at the station) that seemed to be closed till then, suddenly sprang to life. It was a different looking one as compared to the first three. On top of the machine there was a LED display (this it had common with the other machines). It was reading something that I was looking forward to ... 'Notes Accepted'. I was happy that atleast now I will be able to use the train and not have to go all the way to the taxi terminal. There was a small queue already formed in front of the new machine and I decided to join it.

I was looking forward to getting my Oyster card and head to the hotel. I saw the rail official helping some of the passengers at the machines. Slowly as the queue moved and I reached the station, I asked the official if I can get a new Oyster card. And he said NO.

Back to where I started, I thought I had spent my share of time at the station. But just as I was about to move, I saw 1-2 people gathering at one of the ticket counters. I knew what that meant. Quickly rushed to the queue and got myself my well deserved Oyster card and to the train to the hotel.