Wimbledon to The City

I know the last few posts have been very self-centric, but then,
that's implied by the blog title anyway. I do plan to do a couple of
techie posts - one on async programming, at least - but that's tricky
to do with a phone keyboard/email combination, so it'll probably have
to wait until I get full internet access again.

So this is going to be another Wimbledon post, although one that might
be useful to other people who need to travel into the city every day
(ok, probably not). It's difficult not to slide into a 'why I hate
the tube' post, but I'll do my best.

Going from Wimbledon to work, I have 3 options:
- first capital connect train to blackfriars
- district line to blackfriars
- southwest train to waterloo, and a bus the rest of the way

Now it turns out that the best way to get to work is not the best way
to get home from work. Going to work, the blackfriars train is best,
since it's fast, but it only runs every 20 minutes or so. So if I
just miss that one, the district line is my best option. The waterloo
train seems good, and it's fast, but the benefit is lost by having to
wait for ages to get a bus at waterloo. Even the district line isn't
quite as simple as I thought it would be, since there are a couple of
different destinations and either you have to pick the right train or
change later. And since it's the beginning of the line, each train
isn't necessarily leaving right away - they sometimes sit for 10
minutes. At least with the info boards you should be able to tell
which one is leaving first.

Coming home from work is, as I say, a different story. The district
line is fine, although again there are like 3 different destinations,
so you need to pick the right train or change later. The blackfriars
train is tricky - there are a lot of trains leaving from the same
platform, and very few of them go to wimbledon. Those are not very
frequent, and it seems that you need to take the one that goes to
Sutton, and oddly enough not the one that goes to Wimbledon, which
goes the long way round the loop and takes absolute ages to get there.
Since it's easy to catch a bus _to_ waterloo, the waterloo train is
the best option, although while there are a lot of trains to
wimbledon, it's not easy to tell which is leaving soonest, so you
might sit around on the train for 10 minutes or so before leaving (but
the trains do get pretty full, so at least that way it's easy to get a
seat).

So that's my guide to travelling from wimbledon to the city :-) At
least a lot of it's overground, so I can do stuff on the net during
the trip!