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

[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.