Tube walkout could be the shape of stoppages to come

The RMT strike this week was super-efficient, but it brings risks for Eddy Dempsey's members writes Simon Calder

- Simon Calder

“Which bits of the Tube network will have trains on this particular strike day?” That was one of my daily tasks over the past week.

As you will know, members of the RMT union working for the London Underground walked out and brought the capital to a gridlocked halt for the best part of the week. Almost all of the Tube network was shut down, but each day, a few random stretches would open.

Mostly, they were the outermost reaches of the network, such as the couple of stops between Arnos Grove and Cockfosters on the Piccadilly line. But on Tuesday, I was able to complete a loop of central London on the briefly resurrected Northern line. And on the last full day of the strike, my bingo card was completed by the Metropolitan line from Baker Street to Harrow-on-the-Hill.

I just had to experience the journey. Baker Street was one of the seven original stations on the world's first underground passenger railway, from Paddington to Farringdon, which opened in 1863. With almost all the platforms locked, you did not need to be the celebrated resident of 221b Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes, to work out that the train was leaving from platform 4.