Why Is it ?

The usefulness of a screen in the DMT office is limited by the time and ability of the DMT to interpret it!

Firstly it comes down to space on the booking on point counter, there are already PC's, trackernet, CCTV, phones, documentation, intercom systems, need I go on?
Secondly it comes down to how much information any one person can take in at a time. The DMT (adw!) has to check duties, analysis, juggle spares, book staff on, carry out reforms (who's getting off, who to put on, where is that person now?), deal with short meal reliefs, deal with staff arriving late, deal with staff at the counter, answer the main phone line, answer the direct lines, check the monitors, allocate the right spares to the right duties in order not to let a later spare finish before an earlier one for eg (so as not to upset the little lambs in the mess room!), and still find time to go to the toilet! Not to mention trying to ensure that the spares get an hour out of it, although if you achieve that today - your the best bloke in the world but if you can't do it tomorrow - your a B*****d again.
As for the signallers, some cabins do have CCTV but at the end of the day if he/she is booking the trains in and out properly they should know what trains they have in their area and what they have in their 'numbers' (pairs etc).

I thought there was a grade called 'Train Crew Manager', or is DMT the new name for it?

That would cost money and take ages if the experience of Baker St SCC is anything to go by. Until 1998 Euston Square was the eastern limit of the SCC's control area. Then the Aldgate area was added. This left a gap between Euston Square and Liverpool St still controlled from Farringdon Cabin. Our biggest cause of wrong signals in the SCC is mis-identification of trains as they enter our control area and the transfer of the Aldgate area to the SCC introduced three new locations for trains to enter and be mis-identified (ex Tower Hill, ex Whitechapel and ex Liverpool St) All these are so close to the point where a wrong signal will be cleared that once a train is mis-identified there is almost no opportunity for the SCCA to correct it before the signals are cleared. Therefore in order to provide a little extra time CCTV cameras were requested to check train numbers at Liverpool St EB, Aldgate East WB, Tower Hill EB and Great Portland St WB (for trains coming out of the other end of the 'Farringdon' Gap).
In 2000 Farringdon Cabin finally closed and the Euston Square to Liverpool St section came under the control of Baker St. In late 2003 or early 2004 the CCTV cameras were finally brought into use. The ones at Tower Hill and Aldgate East are worth their weight in gold and even the ones at GPS and Liverpool St have their occasional uses even though the gap in the SCC control area has disappeared.





The trouble with Trackernet is that the number displayed is largely based on what the signaller thinks the train is.

It's easier to tell the punters it's a signal failure, they can relate to that. Our customers (or passengers, whatever you like!) are synical enough as it is without them hearing the in's and out's of a cats backside over the PA. I have heard numerous announcements in recent history to customers stating the delay is due to staff shortages, so I don't think there is a concerted attempt to mislead the travelling public. Honest!

It's all perception really. Some people would object to being called a passenger as they have purchased a ticket and consider themselves customers. Other people want to be called passengers for the very salient reasons you put forward. I have always thought of the 'punters' as customers on the platform and passengers on the train, but thats just my perception!

I don't think we do too badly when you consider just how many people we move on a daily basis and then take into account the equipment we have at our disposal to do it. I use the word 'disposal' deliberately here because that's what we need to do with most of our equipment - dispose of it!
What I was trying to say was that to a punter, a failure is a failure is a failure. They don't really care if the delay is down to a set of points failing to normalise, or a defective track circuit. The net effect is that they are delayed by a signalling problem, so why complicate matters any more by trying to explain what a 'PL&D' box is!

They get called a lot worse sometimes...

no the problem about 11:00 was due to a staff shortage but they say it was a signalling problem in the earls court area

the t.d was wrong when a train left the bay road at tower hill thus putting it all out of sync but if the signalman was watching this and aware of the problem these can be put right at either mansion house or embankment so by the time the train gets to south ken the train should have the correct t.d

Ok, I think I can see where you're coming from on this - I have heard a whisper that sometimes not all of the desk's at Earls Court are manned all at the same time (oops, did I say that out loud? ;D) - but I still think that what the public were told was correct in the grand scheme of things.

FCFS? First Come First Served or something else?

That'd be an incentive for racking it up out of Aldgate East for the green line! Get there before those dirty yella's!

Baker Street has far more modes than a program machine site, NOOT etc, and FCFS

Actually it has fewer; only three, compared with four for a programme machine.