Hideous error – despite checking loads of times, I still managed to read the Xmas Eve page instead of Christmas day.
As noted in the comments, there is NO river bus service on xmas day.
I blame the slight confusion on an earlier email that said a river bus would work on the day, which it evidently now wont. Damn.
On the day where the trains and buses all take a day off, it turns out there is at least one form of public transport still working on Christmas Day… the river bus service.
OK, not that often – with just one every 30 minutes, but it will be running from 6:15am to 8:15pm and between Woolwich to the London Eye (which wont be rotating on the day).
There is a suggestion that the service between Westminster and Greenwich will be running a normal service – but the PDF from TfL is just a tiny bit vague about that as no operator name is provided. Caveat Emptor.
Great for anyone along the Thames towards the East of London to get into the West-End, and home again.
Obviously, nothing is open in the West End on Christmas Day, but if the weather is nice (forecast says yes), then you might be tempted to soak in the utterly surreal atmosphere of a totally deserted city centre.
At least I wont have to cycle in, all around town and back again – that was quite exhausting last time. Although I did have a stinking cold as well, which didn’t help.
You forgot the Boris Bikes too, they’re public transport in my books and when the last bus has left and the final train departed they’ll get you home! (and cycling on Christmas Day in London must be great – you could do wheelies down Park Lane and there’d be no one there to notice)
While Boris Bikes might get me home, as I would then have to keep the bike overnight and cycle back into town the next day to drop it off, it is not that viable as an option.
I’ll use the bike around the centre, but not to commute to/from it.
Don’t trust the main roads to be totally traffic free: there’ll be more than a few harrassed people heading off to lunch, late, to relatives. Or heading back from lunch drunk, furious or both.
Are you sure about that? The version I have (page 6) says…
“No services except:
Christmas Day Lunch Cruise:
A boat would be handy since the Greenwich Foot Tunnel will be closed on Christmas Day.
Back when I worked stations (a long, long time ago) I can remember that there used to be a handful of buses running on Christmas Day but I guess not enough people used them to make them economically viable. Wonder when they stopped running them?
Hideous error – despite checking loads of times, I still managed to read the Xmas Eve page instead of Christmas day.
As noted in the comments, there is NO river bus service on xmas day.
I blame the slight confusion on an earlier email that said a river bus would work on the day, which it evidently now wont. Damn.
Just seen why – in part – I got confused.
Each “page” on the PDF is actually TWO PAGES, so when I scrolled down to page 5, I was actually also reading page 4, which is the day before, but printed on the same sheet as page 5.
Argh!
The sages on District Dave say a Tube service ran on Christmas Day until 1977. We need to find the groovy 1976 London Transport Christmas leaflet!
I was keeping half an eye on the oobrien Cycle Hire map yesterday (while at work, I should add) – and the highest number of bikes I saw out concurrently was 587, at around 3pm. I wonder how many people were going from A to B, and how many were just out enjoying the quiet streets.