Does anyone travel to Paddington ...

[Amelie]

from Elephant & Castle during the rush hour on the Bakerloo line? TfL's site is claiming that the journey (11 stops) only takes 19 minutes, but I find this a bit hard to believe. I need to know as I have an interview for a job on Wednesday and I am trying to plan my journey.

[Jimbob]

elephant and castle to paddington, is the least of your worries, getting to the elephant will be the big test. how about applying a bit of common sense however and give your self 2 hours to get there, hence arriving in plenty of time to relax,have a cuppa, get freshened up,check any last minute notes etc, nothing worse arriving at the last minute, a definate recipe for disaster.

anyhow good luck,let us know how you got on.

[Siduhe]

The trains from Peckham Rye to Blackfriars stop at Elephant and Castle and you can always get on them (sometimes, you can even get a seat!), even in rush hour. At least 3 trains an hour and takes about 10 mins.

[paragon]

Amazingly people often display little or no common sense when arriving for job interviews. I once worked as a recruitment consultant and the amount of times I had to phone clients to tell them that someone was running late was ridiculous.

[alethea]

I used to travel to paddington everyday, Siduhe is right about the trains and the good thing about getting on the tube is that you always get a seat with is being at the end of the line. The walk from the train to the tube does take a few mins but I'd rather get that than the bus anyday.

Alternatively, train to victoria and circle line to paddington.

TFL are right though it doesn't take forever.

Ax

[NunheadGirl]

I worked in Paddington for 15 months and it used to take me an hour door to door - Nunhead to Elephant & Castle (Blackfriars train), then Bakerloo Line all the way......I was heartily sick of the commute by the time I changed jobs......

[ClareC]

I make this journey up to three times a week, by far the best route is ED station to LB station, Jubilee line to Baker Street and then Bakerloo to Paddington

The Jubilee / Bakerloo change is dead easy, just across the platform.

I catch the ED to London Bridge train at 7.20 am and at Paddington between 750 and 8am.

[FrustratedLawyer]

The quickest and easiest route by far is:

ED to London Bridge

London Bridge (Jubilee) to Baker Street, change onto Bakerloo and then Paddington.

I travel home to Wales quite regularly and I find that route to be quite painless.

[boosboss]

Amelie Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> from Elephant & Castle during the rush hour on the

> Bakerloo line? TfL's site is claiming that the

> journey (11 stops) only takes 19 minutes, but I

> find this a bit hard to believe. I need to know

> as I have an interview for a job on Wednesday and

> I am trying to plan my journey.

Amelie, the TFL site is correct. It is 19 mins from E&C to Paddington (as long as nothing goes wrong!). Get on the middle of the train and you'll be near to the exit at Paddington (although the front carraige is likely to be less crowded). I do this journey many times during my working day ;-)

63 or 363 to Elephant is quick too and the stop is just over the road from the Bakerloo entrance.

[Amelie]

Thank you for all your suggestions. As it happens I now have an appointment in town in the morning so will catch the Bakerloo line from there. I have also discovered that the #436 bus runs from Camberwell Green (starting at Lewisham) to Paddington and allegedly takes 45 minutes from there, presumably if there is no other traffic . However, I have also sent off for my provisional licence so if I am offered the job (which would be for 12 months) I will learn to drive rather than chop and change on public transport.

[Huguenot]

Lol - you're going to drive through central London to Paddington at rush hour? At 8 quid a day++?

Are you new in London?

[Amelie]

@ Huguenot

No, I have lived in London all my life and was born in King's College Hospital. At least if I drive I won't be reliant on public transport, which is notorious for breaking down. Neither will I have to be constantly changing means of transport. Thank you so much for your patronising and rude comment. BTW: I said that I have to travel to Paddington to attend an interview, I did not say that the interview was in Paddington. A moment's thought on your part might have led to the realisation that I meant the railway station, not the area.

[lofty]

I think Huguenot is correct in (a roundabouts way) saying that driving would take significantly longer than on public transport.

[Huguenot]

Oooh blimey Amelie - spiky or what? Best of luck with that interview ;-)

Hell hath no fury eh?

"I won't be reliant on public transport, which is notorious for breaking down" :) (A sort of hooting noise)

Please don't drive your car

xx

[Sue]

:)):)):))

[bignumber5]

Amelie, I think Huguenot was just being silly re: how much longer that drive will take, plus the sting of the congestion charge. If you're thinking private transport is the only way (and, for the record, I think that may be a mistake) then give some thought to a scooter rather than a car - rush hour in town is much faster negotiated on 2 wheels, but is also a bit scary if you've never done it before, so a personal judgement call.

For the record, my route to Paddington is Bus 12 to lambeth north (I hate changing for anything at E&C, and L.north is fairly sleepy even at rush hr) and then Bakerloo all the way. takes a bit longer but gets you onto both the bus and the tube early enough in their journeys to get you a chair. I am happy to sacrifice a few minutes in exchange for a seat all the way, but that's a personal choice!

[Amelie]

I had an appointment in town to go to first, which I thought I had left plenty of time for and caught the #176 bus. I had not reckoned on the phasing of the traffic lights, or the number of traffic lights, on the Strand. I got off at Charing Cross in the end and took the tube and was only 5 minutes late but already hot and starting to become dishevelled. Not helped by meeting someone who was immaculately made up, which I wasn't as I thought it would probably just melt off.

I am going to rant about First Great Western and London Underground at this point:

I caught the H&C line from Gt Portland Street with no problem, arrived at Paddington to find that unlike the other tube lines the H&C exit was at the departure end of the platforms and not on the main concourse. Having made the mistake of wearing my best pair of black heels from which I was already suffering I was not thrilled about this. There is no A/C at the station except in the enclosed shopping area on the main concourse. So I limped down the stairs, all the way along the platform and stopped at the Ladies on my way, with my interview clothes sticking to me. The Ladies is downstairs. You would think that being underground it might be a bit cooler. Wrong. It was BOILING and again had no A/C, but did have huge numbers of enviromentally unfriendly lights and several of those new Dyson hand driers. You also had to pay to get in, 30 pence, which had to be paid as 1 10p piece and 1 20p pence; you couldn't pay with 3 10p pieces. OK if you speak English as your first language, although irritating when you are hot, tired, footsore, pissed off and desperate. Not good if you are a tourist, of which Paddington running the Heathrow Express has many. The change machine was broken, and said Out of Order - not an engineer has been sent for you note. There was no pictogram explaining what was required to the tourists, and the booth which was supposed to contain a member of staff was empty. I felt very sorry for the three women in front of me. The person in charge grudgingly let them through the exit in the end.

I limped back on to the main concourse and not having had any lunch yet looked for somewhere that wasn't selling huge amounts of calories deep fried and dipped in sugar. I looked in vain of course and eventually settled for a small fruit salad and some juice from Boots.

Now all this is something that I hate about this country at the moment. We have had hot sticky summers in London for as long as I can remember, so why are our public places STILL not designed to cope with this? Why isn't Paddington and every other station equipped with a cooling system, why aren't the toilets air conditioned, and why are places that are heavily used by tourists so bloody unfriendly?! And WHY does FGW let its trains sit with their engines running when it is already unspeakably hot, not to mention the damage this does to the air quality in London? And WHY can't you buy healthy appetising food at a railway station?

There was a time when this country produced the best engineers in the world, and a problem was something to be addressed not greeted with a shrug of the shoulders.

Anyway I get on the delightfully cool fast train to Slough, hence the need to travel to Paddington in the first place. I get to Slough, discover that I had left behind my carefully pre-printed map and looked around for the map that I assumed would be on the wall of the station. There wasn't one, either inside or out. Yet something else that FGW can't be bothered to provide, so when a visitor arrives at the station they can't orient themselves. There was a map however attached to the corner of the building opposite the station. The logic of this escapes me.

I make my way home after the interview to discover that there is no correlation between fast trains from Paddington (every 10 minutes) and fast trains from Slough (every 30 minutes), change for the Bakerloo line and get to E&C. One of the lifts at E&C is broken, again there is an Out of Order sign with no suggestion that anyone has actually called an engineer to fix it. An announcer tells waiting passengers that they can use the emergency stairs if they like, there is no mention that anyone who suffers from asthma/breathing difficulties/heart problems should avoid this, nor any acknowledgement that telling people to use the stairs in a deep station on an extremely hot day is probably not a good idea. I caught the bus home from E&C, and even managed to get a seat.

If anyone saw a woman in a black suit on Overhill Road that afternoon with her shoes in her hand walking up the road in her stocking feet that was me. I have never been so glad to see a shower in my life.

Hopefully I will have some news next week.