I subscribe to the Times newspaper. This was the front page yesterday. It’s rush hour at London Waterloo station, the busiest train station in the UK. I believe that the entire Waterloo hub (Waterloo, Waterloo East, Waterloo Underground) is the busiest in Europe. But as you can see, it’s not terribly busy at the moment.

I work at the country end of the line, seeing off passengers on their way to Waterloo. Yesterday, I saw off very few people. It’s difficult to see how – or even why – the rail companies would try and keep a full service running at the moment. 

The one justification I could offer would be this – trains with few passengers on board do at least enable social distancing to take place. A reduced service with more dense gatherings of passengers would not be a great idea. And if you’re paying the staff anyway, then…gee, I just hope they do keep paying the staff.