Train pain

I've always maintained that we Singaporeans are a very spoilt lot and have taken many things in our lives for granted, but I've never fully appreciated Singapore's efficiencies until quite recently. A simple example of this is the tube.

The tube's been around for more than 100 years, and from what I've been told, hasn't been upgraded properly for many years. Now that the olympics is going to be held in this city in 2012, I think they've finally started upgrading their system. What this means is that every weekend, when upgrading and maintenance works are being done, I have to check that the lines I normally take are running (so far, the Circle line has been closed on weekends), and if not, plan alternate routes to get to the places I want.

That's not counting the unplanned delays, like trains stalling at stations, or like what happened today, some happy vandals having fun at the Gunnersbury station. I'm still confused about this, how can graffiti stop a train? As a result, my District line train to Richmond was suspended, and I had to take another route to work. Painful, it was.

I'm getting smarter now. I've learnt to check the tube website for updates on all lines now, so I don't get any nasty surprises.