You weren't trying to call me, but...

[baratron]

Huh, I just got a "wrong number" text from someone who wanted to know what station to go to for the Rainforest Cafe. So I texted them back to say Piccadilly Circus. Although I suppose I should probably have said it's equidistant between Piccadilly Circus & Leicester Square, take your pick.

Baratron London Transport Services. Ask me how to get anywhere, I'll find you a route...

Comments

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I've heard some bad things about the place; you probably should have recommended a better restaurant. ;)

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Millbank/Vauxhall Bridge intersection to City Hall?
Thoughts on fastest/most reliable/easiest routes?

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Walk along the Thames towards parliment (Down stream but I think you can see it from there)
Just after the palace of westminster (The other name for parliment Look for big Ben Sticking out of it) turn right and walk across Westminster bridge. Thats city hall just on the other side.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

My god, i managed that whole post without any tour guide banter.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Er...no, that's County Hall, where Ken&Co used to be when it was the GLC. City Hall, where Ken & the GLA are now, is off Tooley St between London Bridge and Tower Bridge.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

Well, at least I've got you on the right side of the thames, just keep following it in the same direction It takes an hour. Otherwise take a tube to tower hill (You can get on at Westminster and follow the district line east) Come out of the station walk down beside the old bit of roman wall to an underpass which will put you next to the Tower of London. Around the side of which (Clockwise) you will find Tower bridge. Cross it and you will see a large testicle shaped building as you do. That would be the one your looking for.

You could also tube to London Bridge station and Walk along Tooly street from there, it's roughly the same distance maybe even a smidgen shorter but not as pretty.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I'm very familiar with the place - I do it almost weekly. All routes seem to take about 45 minutes (so just faster than walking), but feel annoying as the amount of walking/changing required prevents one doing any work en route.

The inhabitants like to think of it as the Headlamp. They don't seem to like thinking of themselves as sperm...

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

I think there's a boat from westminster to either london bridge or the tower. That would give you plenty of work on route time.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head I'd suggest walking or bussing to Vauxhall, train from Vauxhall to Waterloo, Jubilee from Waterloo to London Bridge and walk from there. South West Trains are not known for their great reliability but the trains from Vauxhall to Waterloo are frequent enough that it doesn't much matter. The Jubilee is reasonably reliable, most of the time, and even if it's having one of its bad days, it'll still be more reliable than Southern from Waterloo East to London Bridge.

Whatever you do, do not get the Victoria line from Vauxhall to Green Park and attempt to change there for the Jubilee. It's horrible. Green Park interchange = teh suck. You have to go almost all the way up to street level then come all the way back down. Ugh.

I'd be interested to see how my route agrees or disagrees with http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk ;) I find the TFL Journey Planner favours tubes in preference to buses in preference to mainline trains, even when a mainline train is quicker than a bus. It's most annoying.

[a-musing-amazon.livejournal.com]

My experience of using TFL is different - I always find that it tries very hard to find routes that use buses - even to the extent that one can find faster routes that using tube/trains if you tell it explicitly not to use buses. It also seem to avoid journeys that involve going to a stop past your destination even if that can be quicker/easier.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Having done it many times in a variety of ways, I can say that Vauxhall (leap on 87 bus if one is visible, otherwise walk) to Waterloo platforms 1-6, then Waterloo East plat C to London Bridge, tends to be faster than walking all the way down to the Jubilee line at Waterloo, but I doubt there's much in it. The Jub and SouthEast Trains (not Southern) seem much of a muchness.

Pimlico via Green Pk to London Bridge is about the same but more crowded - I always follow 'Way Out' at GP and then take the escalators down, but the Jubilee is twice as far as the other two lines. I'd only do this if it were freezing, to avoid hanging about on NR platforms.

A colleague prefers walking/bussing to Westminster and then the Jubilee (or D/C if the J is screwed), but I find that's longer. The tube routes are recommended by TfL, probably because they don't run the trains.

The fastest route if timed perfectly would be boat from Millbank to London Bridge, but that costs extra and I've always been interrupted and missed the boat.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Anywhere? Okay, how do I get from Kingston Ontario to Kingston England? (There probably needs to be an airplane between the trains.)

[baratron.livejournal.com]

You'd have to get yourself to Heathrow or Gatwick, but from there:

from Heathrow: Go to the Central Bus Station, stand 19, get a 285 or X26 bus. It's 50 minutes by X26 and around an hour by 285. Both stop at the Cromwell Road bus station in Kingston-upon-Thames. Don't get the 111, it takes all day.

from Gatwick: Go to the railway station, take the first train for Clapham Junction (Southern NOT Gatwick Express), go to platform 11, take the first train for Shepperton or Twickenham. Trains from Clapham to Kingston leave every 15 minutes though I can't quote the times off the top of my head, and take about 20 minutes.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I did, btw, assume you wanted the route for coming to visit me. It's important to be precise about which Kingston you want to get to. Apart from Kingston-upon-Thames and Kingston-upon-Hull, there are something like 20 or 30 towns and villages called Kingston or Kingston Something in England:

Kingston, Isle of Wight [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Devon [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Suffolk [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Cambridgeshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Hampshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Essex
Kingston, City of Portsmouth [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Dorset [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Milton Keynes [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Devon
Kingston, Cornwall
Kingston, Dorset [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Kent [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Tameside [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Devon [Town]
Kingston, Dorset [Town]
Kingston, West Sussex [Town]

Kingston Bagpuize, Oxfordshire [Town]
Kingston Barn, Warwickshire
Kingston Beacon, Somerset
Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire [Town]
Kingston Br, Milton Keynes
Kingston Brook, Nottinghamshire [Water Feature]
Kingston by Sea, West Sussex [Town]
Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire [Town]
Kingston Gorse, West Sussex [City/Town/Village]
Kingston Grange, Warwickshire
Kingston Great Common, Hampshire
Kingston Grove, Oxfordshire
Kingston Hill, Oxfordshire
Kingston Hollow, East Sussex
Kingston Holt, Warwickshire
Kingston Island, Nottinghamshire
Kingston Lacy, Dorset [Place of Interest]
Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire [Town]
Kingston Maurward, Dorset [City/Town/Village]
Kingston near Lewes, East Sussex [Town]
Kingston on Soar, Nottinghamshire [Town]
Kingston Park, Newcastle upon Tyne [City/Town/Village]
Kingston Russell, Dorset [Town]
Kingston Seymour, North Somerset [Town]
Kingston St Mary, Somerset [Town]
Kingston Stert, Oxfordshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingston Upon Hull, Kingston upon Hull [City/Large Town]
Kingston upon Thames, Greater London [London Borough]
Kingston Vale, Kingston upon Thames [City/Town/Village]
Kingston Warren, Oxfordshire [Other Named Place]
Kingston Warren Down, Oxfordshire
Kingston Wood, Cambridgeshire [Forest/Wood]
Kingston Wood, Oxfordshire [Forest/Wood]
Kingstone, Herefordshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingstone, Barnsley [City/Town/Village]
Kingstone, Somerset [City/Town/Village]
Kingstone, Staffordshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingstone Coombes, Oxfordshire
Kingstone Down, Oxfordshire
Kingstone Grange, Herefordshire
Kingstone Warren, Oxfordshire
Kingstone Winslow, Oxfordshire [City/Town/Village]
Kingstone Wood, Staffordshire [Forest/Wood]
Kingstons, Essex

and looking elsewhere in the UK we have
Kingston, Angus
Kingston, Moray [City/Town/Village]
Kingston, Pembrokeshire / Sir Benfro
Kingston, East Lothian [Town]

So yeah. Lots of Kingstons.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Yes, I did mean the one for visiting you. I have now bookmarked this post, just in case someday I do come to visit you. You never know.

Oh, and the part on my end would look like one of the following:

VIA Rail to Toronto, Airport Shuttle to Pearson (Toronto) Airport, fly to Gatwick or Heathrow.
Coach Canada bus to Toronto Airport, fly to Gatwick or Heathrow.
VIA Rail to Dorval(Montreal), taxi or little shuttle bus thing across the parking lot to the Trudeau (Montreal Dorval) Airport, fly to Heathrow or Gatwick.

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Planes from Toronto go to London, Ontario and London, England, as I noted from the departure board one time when I had to change there.

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

You were definitly right with picadilly Circus It is a little closer from there and you just have to walk up one street so the rute is easier. It's a pain to find from Licester Sq if you don't know the area.