Oh man have I got it sussed now...what *should* have been a complete disaster (earlier in the week) when I arrived, hissing through gritted teeth, at the firmly gated entrance to the Jubilee line (great job once again there TFL) I turned tail (billowing cloak of annoyance fluttering angrily behind me) heading quickly to the DLR at Heron Quays (as I would normally do), where men in HVJs were blocking two of the entrances (no doubt some futile attempt to stop overcrowding on the tiny platform), however, when I bypassed them (finding an unguarded stairway), I found it wasn't going to be that easy...there were no trains headed to Bank, which was unusual...prompting the sudden recall that one end of the DLR is closed for engineering works (and has been since Christmas), including my intended interim destination...a frantic 30 seconds of panic (and visions of begrudgingly curling up under my desk in the office) later I formulated (what I hoped was) a cunning plan...
Back last year, when a fire on the Jubilee line had seen me stranded at the O2 (a less cunning plan that ended in an unwelcome collision of flame, freezing rain and considerable delay), my only option had been to try and get a bus to Greenwich (which worked...albeit eventually)...I realised, if I could get the DLR in the opposite direction to normal, I might be able to connect to the mainline and get to London Bridge on a train from south of the river...
Fifteen minutes (and one almost empty Lewisham train) later I was on a Cannon Street train pulling into London Bridge, missing my normal train home by exactly one minute...but now I know the route and quite how quiet the route was, even in a TFL crisis, if it weren't for adding another possible point of failure into my journey I would almost be tempted to try doing it instead of crushing onto the tube every day...
Not bad, it's only taken two-and-a-half years to work this new rat-run out... ;)
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