Rock bottom

Thameslink services reached rock bottom this morning (at least I hope so, the thought of them deteriorating from here is truly depressing).

Full when they got to St Albans with Midland Mainline passengers from Nottingham, dangerously overcrowded by the time we reached Radlett.

A 20 minute journey from the platform at St P to the Victoria Line platform at Kings X, made worse by two closures of the Thameslink access to KX tube station while I was queuing to get in.

And shouted at to keep out of the way of a bicycle (at full pelt in the middle of a crowd of several hundred people).

It would help if the length of Pancras Road was closed to all traffic (including bikes) then they could do away with most of the crowd controllers whose sole role in life is to shout at us through megaphones, along with the barriers that keep us penned like sheep on the left hand side of the road; it surely must be possible for taxis and buses to leave the station forecourt by the same or similar route to that by which they got there.

And who benefits at the end of all this? Midland Mainline and Eurostar passengers get a bright new station. Regular users of KX get a new tube station. Thameslink passengers get a huge dry cleaning bill and a promise that services will return to 'normal' in May 2005.

Bitter? Moi? You bet.