The Anonymous Widower

Dalston Junction To Marylebone In The Rush Hour

Yesterday, I needed to get to Marylebone to go to Birmingham. Some time ago, I wrote about the reverse journey and it wasn’t easy in the rush hour.

So just out of interest, I decided to go by getting the Overground to Whitechapel and then using the District line to get to Embankment for the Bakerloo line to Marylebone.

I left home at 08:44 and arrived at Dalston Junction at 08:52. I left the station five minutes later, after a bit of trouble with the machine buying my return ticket from Marylebone to Stourbridge Town.

I made Whitechapel at 09:10 and at 09:30, I was at Embankment, after a trip on a not-to-busy train.

I’ve avoided Embankment station for some time, as it has been in a state of chaos due to refurbishment, but now look at it.

It was clean and bright and a virtually empty Bakerloo line train got me to Marylebone in a couple of minutes under the hour since I left Dalston Junction. This post on TfL’s web site explains what was done. It says this.

The decision to replace the escalators simultaneously rather than phasing the work meant that it took 43 weeks to complete as opposed to at least 75 weeks. While this work was taking place, LU also took the opportunity to refurbish other parts of the station including retiling corridors and platforms, installing new lighting and replacing station Help Points and CCTV systems.

It certainly looks to be a job well planned and executed.

I think this could become my preferred route to Marylebone and Paddington, until Crossrail goes to Paddington.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a signalling problem on the Chiltern line and staff got confused about the 09:45 Birmingham train’s departure platform. So I caught the 10:15.

November 21, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | London Underground