My Adventure

Today I was supposed to go to Portsmouth. However that didn't happen. How I ended up travelling alone and why I was getting the coach there (I love trains) is a long story which, if we're dealing blame, is fault of many people none of who I can get angry with. I started my day on the train to Clapham Junction arriving in plenty of time for the short 3 minute train trip to Wandsworth Town where I should have gotten the coach. I arrived at Wandsworth Town at about quarter past 8 plenty of time before my coach which was scheduled to arrive at 08:55. I was early planning for any disruption with the trains (which we're actually pretty perfect all day) so I brought some skittles from Poundland for £1. I got to the bus stop where the coach was supposed to depart just after 08:40 and sat down and waited.

I had no suspicions yet. The National Express coach tracker said it had left Victoria on time. The GPS tracking hadn't been updated for a while but I thought nothing of it. GPS trackers are by no means flawless so I thought my coach to Portsmouth was on its way. It was cold at the bus stop and slowly it became 09:00 me and the other 4 people were patiently waiting (I knew who they were because they arrived at about the same time as me and didn't get on any of the local busses). The GPS tracker had now updated but it still said Victoria. I knew something was wrong. But we all waited hoping the coach would roll round the corner and pick us all up. I got on Twitter to ask National Express where the coach was. The time then rolled round to 09:30 and then as I didn't really want to go to Portsmouth by myself I asked in Twitter DMs if I could get a refund. 10 minutes later I got a response (the customer service team at National Express is so much better than their website, which I had problems with, and their coaches which I was told there was "major disruption on that service due to vehicle issues"). But customer service said I could get a refund for my non-refundable ticket. With Promise of a refund, which was confirmed within 10 minutes, I hopped on the 220.

I was reasonably cold from my hour wait for the coach that never came. So I warmed up and ate a packet of my Skittles. I knew the bus went to Willesden Junction but now with a free day to spend ahead of me I needed to decide what to do. Not too extravagant but also interesting. I used my bus map to see where the 220 went. We already went through Putney and over the bridge so first was Hammersmith Bus Station which is a wonder of interesting design with the station on two levels and the upper one in the middle of a building with us being carefully navigated into and out of out bus stop. Next place was Shepherd's Bush with one of London's Westfield shopping centres. I decided to get off and walk about 50m to the 607.

607 is a 600 bus and all 600 busses in London are school busses, that is except the 607. The 607 has its number from history when its route was served by the 607 tram. The 607 is also one of London's 4 limited stop/express bus (the others being the X26, X68 and X140). I was virtually at the start of the route and decided to take the 607 all the way to Uxbridge over an hour of riding away. The 607 is limited stop but the first half of the route doesn't feel that way. I also noticed while waiting the 4 minutes for the bus that the N207 which also goes all the way to Uxbridge but at night and stopping at the stops takes 10 minutes less time just because of the lack of people and traffic. I arrived at Uxbridge just before midday and brought lunch. It was still cold and there was a slight drizzle.

After quickly consuming lunch I continued travelling and I decided to catch the 331 which passes 2 hospitals in 10 minutes and spends a significant proportion of its route outside of London. I thoroughly enjoy busses in outer London going along small roads at high speed. After a minor slow down because of some temporary traffic lights I made it to Northwood. Northwood is the last station on the Metropolitan line which is in zone 6, but far from the actual end of the line in Amersham and tracks go all the way to Aylesbury and will probably eventually join onto East West Rail. I got on the Metropolitan line to Harrow-On-The-Hill where I made the biggest mistake I made today.

I wanted to get the 258 and whilst I knew it stopped near the entrance of the station I didn't know where. I saw my bus pass in front of me and thought I'll just get the next one but what I didn't know was that the bus went round the bus station and stopped less that 50m from where I saw the bus. But by the time the bus did that I was already walking to another nearby stop where I knew it stopped. I waited for the next 258 and took it all the way up north to Watford and the shopping centre their. I spent some time wandering through a couple of stops because there was a specific train I wanted to catch at Watford Junction. So at quarter to three I went to Watford High Street station and caught the overground (which was 5 minutes late) to Watford Junction.

Despite being 5 minutes late I had plenty of time to catch the longest one stop train journey capable while using an Oyster card. I expected for us to go at a high speed as we were meant to make the journey to Euston on the 12 car 350 in 20 minutes. But whilst it started relatively fast the train slowed down to a crawl just after Harrow & Wealdstone. We crawled the rest of the way into Euston eventually arriving 10 minutes later than scheduled. Euston was busy because of Storm Arwen and Avanti West Coast cancelling a large number of trains. I also saw on my arrival some engineering works on some of the other tracks on my journey their. I didn't stay long at Euston and headed straight for the Victoria Line. The Victoria Line at Euston has cross platform interchange with the Northern Line Bank branch and for this to happen with southbound to northbound and vice versa connections the builders needed to flip the side the trains are running on. You would never notice you were on the right hand side as you are deep in a tunnel. I continued on the Victoria Line and after a few changed I arrived home after my long bus dominated day.