Jim Haysom | This Is Your Life an internet professional in digital advertising

Commuting nightmares at Clapham Junction are shortening my life

I have to say that I do my fair share of community.  Why, er, I'm still trying to figure that one out.  I moved to London in 2002 from a sunny south coast town of 160,000 people and joined the 7+ million people in the big smoke.  The promised land which was laid before me, was going to be full of opportunities in life, money, socially and career.  It was going to be a new and exciting chapter of my life.  But the one thing that was overlooked was the time spent getting from A to B. 

8 years on, I can frankly say with conviction, commuting is a bitch, no doubt about it.  Sometime last year whilst sat on a train pondering just how long I'd spent travelling to and from work.  After graduating, my life was my work, and my work was my life.  As an entrepreneur in the dotcom boom and bust, you lived for the day.  You'd never really think what was round the corner, nor how much time was eating into that precious "Me Time".

Today it's a different story.  I've grown up and have to now respect the things I'm fortunate to have; my health, my house, but most important of all, a beautiful wife and a gorgeous son.  'Me Time' has become 'Us Time' with a bit of 'Me Time' , and this year I'm going to make a resolution to get the life balance back on track.  That means leaving work on time so I can avoid the commuting nightmares on my journey home.

I once thought of keeping a diary of just how often the trains are delayed, but given that they were frequently delayed coming in and out of London, I'd lost interest due to the sheer depression it was bringing on.  If you were to consider the delays when there is snow, then you are in for a proper hiding.  It's not a pretty story.

This week, a bit of snow came down midweek.  Okay, the country had suffered from a snow battering the week before and people were thinking that things were finally getting back to normal.  But it was a only a couple of centimetres in Sussex, and looked to be about the same as I headed towards London. 

Having got to work at 8am, I'd been lucky to miss the carnage that was happening behind me.  There was a lot of annoyed and bemused people wandering Clapham Junction when I passed through.  Yet the evidence was seen in the hours to follow as people arrived late into the office or were sending emails and texts that they were still waiting at a bus stop or train station and had decided to head back home.

Now with Gatwick and City Airport cancelling flights during the day, it was clear that people had not been warned of this by the Met Office.  I was fortunate to be at Clapham Junction shortly after 6pm later that day and thought that having only 1 direct train to my local station meant I could finally get home at that earlier time promised. 

Below is the photo taken above the ticket gates at Clapham at around 6.10pm.  You'd think that you'd be in luck if you were heading to Milton Keynes with the train showing to be on time, but even that train was 30 minutes delayed as it was still on the boards.  Almost every train was delayed.  More of my precious time wasted at a train station.  To be honest, these nightmares mean that I don't get to spend more time doing stuff I want to, like seeing my family and watching my son grow up.

It makes you think that all the money invested into the train networks, why on earth are we seeing annual train fare increases?  I did some digging on the web, and found that there was news stories EVERY year talking about fare rises on the trains for the year ahead;

• 2004 "Rail fares set to increase by 9%" BBC
• 2005 'A bad day' for rail passengers BBC
• 2006 Rail fares to increase up to 9% BBC (Notice the news headline regurgitation)
• 2007 Train fare rises draw criticism BBC
• 2008 Fare increases of up to 15% anger rail passengers Guardian
• 2009 Train fares to go up in new year BBC
• 2010 Rail fares set to increase by 15 per cent in 2010 Daily Mail
• 2011 Train fare increase of ██ % is just ███████ ████████ (TBC)

I'm sure this misery is also taking days if not weeks or months off my life.  And it always seems to be Clapham Junction, 'Britain's busiest train station', that is the bane of my life.

If you about to leave work and have come to this story or have found it by browsing the web in search of why your train is delayed, I hope you get home on time.  Here is a link to the live departure board by National Rail for Clapham Junction train station.