Whoever said London Underground use metric time? May 16, 2006
Posted by boltzmann in Uncategorized.trackback
There’s an old joke that time on the Tube is metric – ie. there are 100 seconds in a minute. I decided to test this.
Arriving at Manor House tube station, southbound, no train was displayed on the indicator board. They only appear when they’re 4 minutes away. Eventually, of course, one flashed onto the screen, 4 minutes away. This was at 12:37:30.
I waited and waited, and the minutes (irregularly) ticked away, and eventually the train burst into the station and drew to a halt at 12:41:40. That’s 4 minutes and ten seconds.
Were these 4 estimated minutes metric, the train would have arrived in 400 seconds = 6 minutes 40 seconds. Going by this, it was two-and-a-half minutes early!
But seriously, folks. At this station, the trains come when they say they will (in general)!
Madness!
Reminds me of other such nonsense my end.
In the Uni bookshop the other day, they had some french reading books that I need. Labelled 3 euros 50, I thought “not bad, that’s only about £2.90!”. I was dismayed to discover that it was priced up at £6.66! Almost triple what it was worth. Now, I know they need to mark up the price to cover shopping from France, but I doubt shipping would cost twice what the book’s worth!
12:27:30 until 12.41.40… 14 minutes…. bring back Mussolini….
Oops!
Oh dear, oh dear!
The Underground works on a 26 hour clock.
Everything gets rebooted after 2am, and we fit 26 hours into the day.
Don’t ask me how as I’m still confused after 18 years on the job.