Case of the vanishing Circle Line

I heard Ken Livingstone, our Mayor of London, say on the radio that he had got rid of those top managers who "ran" the London Underground. I was alarmed to hear this because there is clearly an urgent need to establish a register, open to the public, which records where they are now working: even more urgently we need to call them in for questioning before they go into hiding. I should like to begin the questioning by asking them: "What has happened to the Circle Line?"

On the London Underground system, it's recognised that some lines are worse than others. Most Tube trains go from one end of a line to the other, and Londoners know the names of such romantic terminuses as Morden, Upminster, Stanmore and Cockfosters (of music-hall fame).

These lines all have something in common - they have somewhere to go to and come from, and no doubt at the end of each line there is a sanctuary for the drivers in which to have a cup of tea, a sausage sandwich and a game of cards with that happy gang of drivers who have actually made it to the end of the line.

Then, suitably refreshed, they go to the opposite end of the train and drive to the other end of the line for another cup of tea and a sandwich and perhaps finish their game of cards.

But there is a sad exception to all of this: the Circle Line. For the uninitiated this line goes around in a circle, or it should do. There is no end of the line, no hospitality and friendship for its drivers: they go round and round without getting anywhere. For them, there is no Upminster or Cockfosters. There is no end and no beginning.

The problem is that the Circle Line train is so rare it has become an endangered species. Occasionally there is a buzz of excitement as a sighting is recorded, but for most of the time there are only announcements with rehearsed apologies.

Sometimes we are advised to go to Aldgate East and then get a train back to Liverpool Street or King's Cross. Tingling with the excitement of visiting a new place, we set off for Aldgate East. I am not sure what it is like above ground but I have to say underground Aldgate East is a disappointment.

Go up the stairs, then down the stairs, and you find yourself in a throng as thick as the one you left at Westminster. These are all returnees, waiting for a train to take them back to the route the Circle Line would have followed if there had been one. To do this you must catch a Hammersmith Line train, and there's the rub: they are almost as rare as Circle Line trains.

While waiting for the Circle Line I have been fortunate in striking up many friendships with other passengers. The lack of Circle Line trains is a uniting circumstance and provides an opportunity to share the miseries of being at Westminster Underground station instead of on the mainline train which has now departed.

Those who stand and wait sometimes pace up and down the platform mumbling to themselves. Sometimes they stalk the station staff in an attempt to get them to change an Upminster District Line train into a Circle Line train. Others just wonder and speculate.

At Westminster, there are often a number of MPs waiting. Since they have appeared on TV in your living room you tend to go up to them and start a conversation without being introduced. This must be tiresome for them, but as MPs they have to put up with a lot of things more annoying than being addressed by their Christian name by a complete stranger at an Underground station.

It was on just such an occasion that an MP said, after his tenth turn around the platform, that he believed the driver must have got lost.

At first sight the possibility of a driver who goes around and around in circles getting lost seems remote, but there may be something to it. Perhaps it is possible that a Circle Line train can get itself up some branch line and join a collection of others at somewhere such as Neasden, where there are many trains.

Perhaps it is another example of "undermanning"? There is a lot of that on the railways. Then there are the leaves, which cause absolute havoc around this time of year, but what about the rest of the time? The management who have been got rid of must know why the Circle Line no longer circles.