to be offended by that deeply unhelpful notice on Tube barriers which says that children under five and dogs must be carried?

[Raichy]

Do dogs and children under five have the same status? And what if you have more than one child under five? I can't help feeling that the Tube has not been designed with parents and children in mind. Also these nightmare barriers are now at mainline stations too. My children are older now, but I have spent much time in the past struggling with them and automated barriers. I keep meaning to write and complain, but I thought I would see what other people thought first.

DownbytheRiverside the escalator ate your buggy??

OP public transport is largely very tricky for kids, buggies and anyone relying on wheels. After years of taking groups of kids on outings I thought I'd grasped the situation in it's entirety, but no, I was wrong. I've only just started getting out and about with my hand-me-down pram and our station has 40 steps up to the platform.

The worst experience so far was being precariously balanced on an escalator when it broke down and left us teetering halfway down. All the people behind me walked back up and went down the stairs leaving us dangling. literally.

The escalators only eat buggies when they can't get doggie paws which are their staple diet :o

I have always believed the London Underground to be entirely unsuited to human life, in much the same way that the planet Jupiter is, or the ocean floor, or Stoke-on-Trent.

but surely, Lady Mary, you have a chauffeur to whisk you around London?

Personally I think there is a circle of hell reserved for people who dither around escalators. Who fanny about with their stupid wheeled trolleys. Who stop at the top or the bottom risking a mass pile up. Most of all who stand on the RIGHT, the fuckers. No excuse for that at all, even if you can't read English you can see what everyone else is doing and copy them.

(And people who dither around platform entrances. If you want to haver, stand to one ruddy side so those of us who have jobs to go to or children to collect from childminders can get past!)

Edam you're right, we have Branson with the car if we want to go anywhere in town. [looks into middle distance]

Seriously though, the tube is too small for the number of people it has to cope with. And escalators are bitey.

OP - the reason why children (under 5) or dogs (age irrelevant) is because of safety. Not because London Underground is trying to make your journey more hellish than you already believe it to be.

Once something has passed through a 'beam' on the other side of the barrier paddles it will cause them to close. What LU don't want is people (and I have seen this with my own eyes) walking through first and expecting their small child to follow them through, then the barrier closing on the child. Or dog. The best thing (and safest) would be to find a member of staff, and ask them to open the gate (or at most central London stations there are wide gates which you can access with your own ticket)

The same reason applies to escalators. Little feet or little paws can easily be caught in the escalator combs - as their co-ordination doesn't allow them to judge easily when to step off at the top or bottom.

Oh edam you are so right about the ditherers and people who stand on the wrong side of the escalator (you got that the wrong way round btw but never mind). Every so often a member of staff should get on the left side (the walking side) with an electric cattle prod and hurry the standers on . . . and you'd never know when it was going to happen. Dreams, dreams.

the only thing worse than people on the wrong side of the escalators is people who stop suddenly at the very bottom (or top) to consult their map in a leisurely, contemplative fashion, as 4000 commuters crash into a giant pileup behind them.

There's actually a sign at Victoria that says something like

DO NOT STOP AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS ESCALATOR FOR ANY REASON

I applaud it every time I see it

I have 2 great danes so I'd be completely buggered if I took them on the tube - they both weigh about the same as an adult human so I've got a snowball's chance in hell of carrying them!

That said, I probably wouldn't ever take them on the tube!

It probably wouldn't end well :)

Andrew - yeah, was so cross I got muddled! I have to commute through St Pancras every day and every day I wish for a cattle prod to get dopey tourists out of my fecking way. If you've got all day to stand and stare (and walk in circles and drag your fecking suitcase on wheels three feet behind you just to take up even MORE space) then stand to one side FGS to let people who know where they are going and have to be there on time get through! AND I wish they'd use their eyes to notice that there are LIFTS - they don't have to get on the escalators and block them with their mahoosive suitcases. Feckers (again).

(Not that I feel strongly about this at all. And I'm quite a nice commuter really - I just wish them an early death, I don't tell them I ran after a man the other day because he'd dropped a red rose on the floor, for instance. Hopefully saving the romantic moment he had nearly ruined...)

Wheely briefcase users are fuckers. PICK IT UP and don't bash my ankles.

Wheelie briefcases....Now You Are Talking

[emoticon of pure hate]

I suppose what I would like (and I actually don't think that this is unreasonable) is a nice helpful sign (backed up with nice helpful station staff of course) which said something like, if you need help with children/buggies/baggage/whatever go to access gate, rather than an unhelpful instruction to do something which is generally difficult/impossible. After all public transport is supposed to be there for all members of the public including all those annoying people with buggies, wheelchairs, small children, large suitcases etc.

All safety signage must conform to BS EN safety standards. There is a limited amount of info you can get on these signs - they are normally to the point in giving an instruction.

Sometimes you will find a poster by a gate denoting what can be taken through. Or this will be actually on the gate. Hopefully the nice helpful station staff will be nearby too.

Edam At the risk of sounding like David Cameron, calm down :o but I feel your pain. I suggest

I'm pissing myself laughing at some of this.

Priority boarding - there already IS this system - it's called get there first and you conveniently find yourself at the front of the queue. Failing that, there's always the "ask politely" (key word here - if you start screeching like a self-entitled loon people tend to be less cooperative).

As for the Tube - write to them, complain about the poor dogs being forced to share a sign with those rotten children and insist on separate signs - and the dogs say can you make theirs gold plated with flashing lights around the edge please?! Or I quite like the suggestion of "do what the hell you want with your children but pick your dogs up for their safety" to be honest too.

Seriously if that's the worst life throws at you (and look at some of the tales on here of the disabled trying to use public transport to see how utterly fucking ridiculous you sound seeing imaginary offence in a SAFETY sign) - you're doing pretty well.

And thanks for the escalator horror stories guys - I've got to go to London next weekend and I'm already fretting about those hideous ones on the Tube now (I used to be shit scared of them when I was a kid).

since someone else has brought up the fecking tourists... MUST they stand and debate where they are going to go at the exit of the tube, blocking the stream of people behind them trying to get out? can't they fuck off down the street and form a confused huddle somewhere else?

there is a special place in hell for the users of wheely briefcases. also for anyone who takes a massive suitcase on the northern line between 8 and 9am on a weekday.

Micro, I had to tell some lads to move their mahoosive suitcase off a seat on the train the other day. Commuter train, full of people trying to get to work, but it does stop at two airports. They were really grumpy about it as if I was being terribly unreasonable expecting the seats to be available for human beings, even though several passengers pointed out, there is space for suitcases between the seats... I hope making them move the damn thing made them resolve NOT to use the train next time!

I got on the Gatwick Express and put my case on top of another one on the luggage rack.

Its owner whined I would damage her case. She must have got a shock after the baggage handlers had got hold of it.

It always worries me when I see the sign 'Dogs must be carried'. I mean, what about the people who don't have dogs?

Nine members of my family were at a station some years ago and using the downwards escalator. My father, in his seventies, was at the front with his suitcase across his feet. When it was time to get off, he couldn't pick up the case. the rest of us piled up behind him. At the back, I found myself sitting down and an aunt in front of me jumped over the side barrier, having thrown her two grandchildren over first. I called out to someone to press the button to stop the escalator because there were people behind us and two members of station staff just stood there watching. Our family will never forget that incident - well, the five of us who are left won't

Yes, there was damage. My cousin had been given some beautiful tomatoes to take home (300 miles away) and they were squashed. OK Mary, you know who I am now.