Whereas most tube lines are content to inflict delays, cancellations, signal failures and derailments in haphazard succession, the Northern "misery" line appears to bunch its catastrophes together for the greatest possible effect. Over the years, only the Central line has ever really given the Northern a run for its money. And, as if to prove the continuation of the duo's supremacy, both these lines have recently suffered weeks of suspension after derailments.
Quite why the users of the Northern line have suffered so much more than the others is not clear. The bizarre layout of the line, making it look roughly like a two-headed flamingo, cannot help, effectively doubling both the number of stations affected by any one problem as well as the complications of keeping a full service running.
In fact, statistics—or at least the enigmatic ones the underground produces to fend off customer charter complaints—suggest that the Northern line no longer suffers noticeably worse performance than other lines.
Would that it had always been so. When the Central line's faulty signaling equipment briefly wrestled the mantle of "misery line" in the mid-1990s, the Northern line waited no more than a year before attempting to introduce its much-vaunted new train stock, with predictably dire results. Every day, new trains turned out to be defective, not enough drivers were trained to use the new stock that did work, and the old stock had already been turned into trendy cafés. The Northern line carries so many passengers that if four trains are cancelled between 8 and 9am, there will be overcrowding, which means you cannot get on the train, let alone journey unmolested by other people's armpits. In the Northern line's 1998 winter of discontent, cancellations were running at up to 20 in the peak hour.
No one who travels on the Northern line needs to be told any of this, but my perspective is different. The problem for the man on the station comes when people, unable to get on the trains that are coming in, crowd the platform. Then you have to close the gates upstairs so that the people on the platform don't get pushed on to the track.
Bringing in "crowd control," as it is known, is one of the more entertaining tasks on the underground, mainly because it involves arguing with people who, for once, have to listen to you. The station assistant (SA) on the platform, the lucky soul who calls out the destination of the train to no one's great benefit, gets no such joy and has to stand there hemmed in with everyone else, enduring the rage and spittle of the disgruntled customers. Once the platform SA gives the word, the SA on the barrier closes the gate and then, if he's like me, momentarily entertains himself watching people continue to try to enter the station even though there's a closed gate in their way.
Now I do understand—it's bad enough going to work, without being prevented from going to work—but at least crowd control gives people an opportunity to harangue someone, namely me. For once I don't mind, even though it's not my fault, because I can argue back and I'm in the right. The idea that they're being held for their own good completely escapes some people, who boorishly demand to be let through or to speak to the supervisor, who has got much better things to be doing. Then some people claim to want to travel in the other direction, where there's no overcrowding, and demand to be let through.
The truth is that if the gates are shut it is because the platform is full and cannot fit anybody else on it. Nevertheless, not too long ago one bright spark saw his opportunity to start the revolution.
"Come on," he exhorted, "let's jump over the gates!" I couldn't believe it. "You're all so bloody English!" he said to the distinctly uncomfortable crowd around him. The winter palace it was not. Even he was placated when I explained how there was another crowd downstairs with only electrified rails left to storm. But I admired his spirit. If we piled sheep on trains the way we do with commuters, thousands of old ladies would be out picketing tube stations.
At least the stations are normally open. I once came into work to see the station gates pulled closed at quarter to eight in the morning and discovered that the station had failed its escalator checks and was going to be shut for weeks. What joy I felt I cannot fully explain. I actually went into the messroom and whooped.
But for once, as I dished out alternative travel advice to a distinctly unimpressed public, I found myself feeling a twinge of sympathy. The 12-week period during which the supervisor had estimated the station would be shut was, even to me, a bridge too far. The worst thing was that people weren't even surprised—they accepted the news with a grimace and went off to cram on to the packed buses. This was, it appeared to me, the true indictment of London underground.
