Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Text your London Underground delay Customer Charter Forms

After the debacle over the Central Line closure and the many claims for compensation, Tube Refund have come up with a great way of making your claims to the London Underground under the Customer Charter easy. The Customer Charter which offers compensation for delays over 15 minutes seems to be little known on the tube.

At present, London Underground receives only one compensation form for every 1,700 passengers it carries. (see The Times article)

The problem is that it's quite a hassle to remember to pick up a form, fill it in, post it back, so now, thanks to Tube Refund with a simple text or email, you get a form created and completed in minutes and you send it off the to London Underground by freepost. Up until the 1st November 2003 the service is free, so make the most of it. After that point it's a fiver for 25 forms and considering you could get from £25 to £92.50 for those claims it's still a bargain.

posted by Annie Mole at 6:46 AM

Friday, August 29, 2003

Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?

As Graeme mentions below, a major power failure in London caused transport chaos during last night's commute. It was not quite the scale of the big US East Coast blackout, but power was cut to 1/2 million people in South London for 34 minutes. Every train and tube line was affected, with thousands of passengers stranded underground. The knock-on meant Victoria station did not clear all the passengers until 2:30am.

Me?

I got stuck at Streatham Hill station, about 2 miles from home. It was pouring rain as we waited about 20 minutes at the station. Luckily we'd made it to the station so I eventually gave up and cadge a lift the rest of the way home. I guess I was lucky both because I left when I did - about my usual time - and because I could get a lift. There were dozens on my train who had no other way home.

Meanwhile, I read that DC suffered a major blackout after storms clattered through the region.

posted by pete at 7:17 AM

Thursday, August 28, 2003

The major power cut in London this evening added a whole special dimension to my commute home. No trains, no tubes, even the pedestrian crossings were off. Chaos reigned in the streets as pavement and road merged into one and the line between pedestrian and traffic blurred.

Candle lit pubs seemed the best kind of refuge as I was turned away from an evacuated Waterloo station although my drinking buddies were trapped underground as the tube also ground to a halt with them trapped inside. It was especially nice that the first rain in weeks chose that moment to arrive.

Fortunately I captured some exclusive footage of the event.

posted by Graeme at 10:08 PM