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Post by londonstuff on Sept 1, 2019 22:01:42 GMT
*I was quite impressed by the rent-an-umbrella service in Shanghai (where it was dry, but didn’t see it in Beijing where it was absolutely monsoon-like). I think you just returned them to another station à la BorisSantander bikes. Mind you, even with they were in use, there was still an insatiable appetite for selfies. Imagine needing a selfie this badly. 😂 *probably all off-topic - sorry
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 31, 2019 13:57:14 GMT
I was nearby today so had a brief look. As with other automatic lines, acceleration seems pretty quick. imgur.com/a/ET6BgZW
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 29, 2019 15:36:31 GMT
Off topic: one year we should start at Penderels Oak and then do a circle line tour: twenty minutes at an establishment somewhere near each station. Well that's this year's Christmas Social sorted! I have it in my calendar to discuss Christmas once all the schools go back and people are out of summer holiday mode. Less than four months to Boxing Day 😂🙃
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 28, 2019 16:28:42 GMT
I certainly wouldn’t do it if I had a pint at each station (or even a half) but a caña in most places (and the occasional orange juice) might just be possible.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 28, 2019 16:25:51 GMT
Holland Park?
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 28, 2019 14:00:29 GMT
Off topic: one year we should start at Penderels Oak and then do a circle line tour: twenty minutes at an establishment somewhere near each station.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 25, 2019 21:04:17 GMT
From my perspective as a driver there were no issues. A bigger problem these days, AIUI, is that an area needs to be fully tested if it isn't used for a number of days (more than a weekend). It's the length of time required to do those tests that can delay the railway coming back into use. This is what I was told in relation to the commissioning of CBTC on the Hammersmith to Latimer Road section. There is a concern that if say after a week and a half of CBTC, the decision was made to revert back to the legacy signalling system, it would take a considerable amount of time to fully test the legacy system before it can operate a public service. This is why confidence needs to be high before switching to the new system, cos once you've run it for a week or so, you've gotta stick with it. As I understand it, TBTC on the Jubilee was far from perfect but I gathered that the time that after testing and testing and testing (with there being so so many shutdowns) and it still not being right, they switched over anyway and more or less decided to fix anything that still wasn’t right while it was being used. I’m sure there was more than a wing and a prayer for that upgrade.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 20, 2019 14:52:16 GMT
goldenarrow - that is a very, very good effort: I think you’d only see such a level of interest and detail here. Very well done! 👏🏻 However, in the interests of healthy competition I thought I’d have a go, to put my own unique slant on it, after all, no one wants one person getting all the glory. I can confirm that no liquid drinks were consumed making this.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 17, 2019 13:58:18 GMT
Have any new Train Operators been recruited anywhere? I haven’t heard of any for ages and presumably if some Night Tube operators are transferring to ‘daytime’ working, there must be gaps there too.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 17, 2019 11:47:46 GMT
What are the effects of strikes by train operators on signallers/controllers? How different is it to a normal day? I'm guessing that when there are no or very few trains operating that a signaller's workload is significant less than typical, but is there something I'm missing? I would naively expect that trying to run some sort of service with significantly fewer resources is a harder task for controllers than the usual planned and (nominally) well resourced day is? Note: I'm not intending this to be a discussion of whether a strike is a good or bad thing, nor whether any given strike is or is not justified, or whether any increased workload is or is not fair. Strikes do happen, and I'm interested here in the effect on behind-the-scenes staff when they do. When we visited the Victoria line control room at Northumberland Park (thanks to seaeagle!), the controllers there told us that the default position when nothing had gone wrong was that the whole thing basically ran and regulated itself so that there was little intervention needed. I’m sure on a strike day they’ll be working harder. On lines with less modern signalling I assume that the signallers are a lot more involved on a day-to-day basis.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 16, 2019 18:27:31 GMT
Canary Wharf group got their cheque book out and made a major contribution to Crossrail - there's a station at Canary Wharf The property developer at Woolwich Arsenal got their cheque book out and made a major contribution to Crossrail - there's a station at Woolwich The owners of City airport refused to open their wallet - so surprise surprise, no station The same with the DLR extension, if it ever happens. Of course it’s reporting and who knows what goes on behind closed doors but it seems that if you want it built, you pay for it. www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2019/04/19/the-dlr-could-be-extended-from-bank-to-euston/I think the group who have Battersea Power Station have paid loads* towards the Northern extension there and I heard way back when that the developers had basically paid for Imperial Wharf station on the Overground. * Highly accurate amount
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 15, 2019 22:34:56 GMT
Can Picc trains hide there too?
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 12, 2019 3:51:12 GMT
Night Tube reverses at Marble Arch on both Friday nights 2nd & 16th August. Perhaps someone may be able to report approx. how far a stabled train stands from the tunnel end, and also how far it is from the points before it drives back out. So it's on again this Friday. Can anyone tell us what is up at the end of the siding? There was once room for another 4 cars! How much space today? I presume PWay have made use of some of that for storage etc. Someone will do it, I’m sure! I don’t suppose this helps, obviously it’s the reverse of what you wanted.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 11, 2019 20:33:26 GMT
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 11, 2019 1:05:35 GMT
The Inset is New Brighton. New Brighton is the station closest to where I lived as a boy for twenty years - about a mile down the road. I must have used that station over a hundred times and would never have got it. How anyone gets that from that photo, I’ll never know. Long live The Quiz!
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 10, 2019 5:10:34 GMT
I believe that the costs of building on rafts rather than solid land make rafts only viable for commercial developments, and then only in areas of high property values. At Hammersmith alongside the H&C station a development was specifically built to the west to allow two sidings beneath, but this was then used for car parking and is not part of the 4LM project! Wow, I didn’t realise that there was provision for sidings there. Something similar to what you are referring to happened on the entrance/exit to Bank a couple of years ago: www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/08/28/dlr-tunnel-to-bank-station-being-extended/With this case, with the fact that this land will need to be used at some point, is there a case of it being one department not knowing what the other needs? Obviously it makes the whole future arrangements a lot more expensive if alternative provisions need to be found with everyone in the know saying ‘Why didn’t we use that land we used to have?’ It just seems terribly short-sighted.
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Post by londonstuff on Aug 3, 2019 18:12:13 GMT
To be found on this BBC news page. Oooh, thanks. I’m there on 1st September so that’s a nice little preview.
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 13, 2019 23:01:59 GMT
What do all the cool kids use nowadays for photo hosting? Obviously Flickr is changing beyond all recognition in a bit to become profitable and even though I’ve got way <1000 photos on there, it doesn’t seem to let me add any more. Can Google services be used which then get given links? Or anything else? Everything I have is in iCloud but that doesn’t seem to like giving easy links for Forum use, they only give URLs which last for 30 days. I have my own webspace but it’s not exactly easy to upload there via a browser either. Sorry to sound like a n00b Flickr seems OK if you have a paid subscription, but it's becoming increasingly unfriendly towards those who don't. A lot of people have switched over to smugmug in recent times. I haven't used it to host pictures myself, but I have had a look at other people's sites on there, and it looks quite good. I have also had a play with a Wix site, that might be worth a try. Thanks! I suppose I was asking just to be able to host so that I could embed the odd photo on here. You’re totally right about Flickr becoming increasingly unfriendly to non-subscribers. Google Photos doesn’t seem to ‘host’ but you can embed stuff using Imgur: I had a go by changing the photo of the interior shot of the DC metro and it seems to work fine. There’s also some pretty witty stuff on the main site
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 12, 2019 23:03:00 GMT
What do all the cool kids use nowadays for photo hosting? Obviously Flickr is changing beyond all recognition in a bit to become profitable and even though I’ve got way <1000 photos on there, it doesn’t seem to let me add any more. Can Google services be used which then get given links? Or anything else? Everything I have is in iCloud but that doesn’t seem to like giving easy links for Forum use, they only give URLs which last for 30 days. I have my own webspace but it’s not exactly easy to upload there via a browser either. Sorry to sound like a n00b
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 12, 2019 14:22:53 GMT
@ jimbo Local residents would prefer the Central Line to reach Uxbridge (already proposed by local council) than the Jubilee No purpose in Jub serving Uxbridge, but Central Line definitely via Ruislip Gdns etc Met & Central to Uxbridge would make a good combination, releasing Piccs for Heathrow I’ll be throwing you in the FRIPAS slammer if you’re not careful, castlebar
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 11, 2019 10:17:52 GMT
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 7, 2019 14:43:47 GMT
All: we've gone through unused accounts today and deleted them. If anyone was inadvertently 'invisible' and got deleted without wanting to be, please sign up using the same username and we'll restore your postcount in a matter of mere moments...
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 7, 2019 10:19:30 GMT
commuter - I’m not sure if you’ve got out of bed on the wrong side of bed this morning but you might want to consider how your posts come across before pressing the ‘post’ button on your next one. On an Underground Forum best known for its love of detail, I don’t think this is the right place to accuse someone of showing off. Let’s get back to a rather interesting thread.
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Post by londonstuff on Jul 6, 2019 12:51:40 GMT
Maybe someone should report these “illegal” DMI’s to the powers that be? If they are illegal, surely TFL would be required to replace them? Why would a company produce a DMI that was not compliant with the Legislation? Why would TFL buy such a thing? I would suggest that the DMIs comply with the letter of the law, whether that allows us to read them is another thing entirely. I am sure the legislation does not mention sun glare, backgrounds and all the many other factors that make such things unreadable. There’s a thread around somewhere from quite a few years back where I complained about the massive DMIs at Victoria going to be replaced by the smaller ones. There’s absolutely no way I can read the off-the-shelf ones. I could understand if the rationale was to have one near every platform entrance so that people saw them on entering the platform. With the digital adverts, it wouldn’t even be beyond the wit of someone to integrate the next train info between the adverts. I totally agree that as they stand now, they’re effectively useless.
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 23, 2019 8:17:55 GMT
A good day was had by all with Rich32 , Chris M , whistlekiller2000 , jason15c , Dstock7080 , Tomcakes , Tom , goldenarrow , beingcharley and me having a great time, sending back the constant supply of dirty glasses, drinking the Prosecco and tequila (bad mistake) which just arrived and laughing at Tom 's 'I do all my own shunts' t-shirt. The date for Christmas is already confirmed - Saturday 14th December - so do put it in your diaries and come along. While you're there you can also wish Dstock7080 a very happy birthday
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 21, 2019 7:00:53 GMT
Is C Rayner's Lane?
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 17, 2019 13:47:52 GMT
Just a final bump, everyone. Hopefully we'll see a few people on Saturday from around 3 or so. Any difficulties finding anyone, pop a message into this area or send a PM to me.
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 12, 2019 9:08:42 GMT
I wrote that this morning, posted, decided that it wasn't and then deleted my post.
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 10, 2019 21:31:48 GMT
I wouldn't be so sure on this being a set-up. This still happens today, yesterday, tomorrow: every single day. I have many female-identifying friends who are train operators, and they all have numerous experiences of people waiting for the next train purely because they're a women. Many even choose to walk up to cab doors and attempt to explain as such, although one particularly memorable story relayed to me was the time when the following five trains were all also being driven by lady drivers. If only they knew of female control staff... I wonder what they do when they're strapped into their aircraft seat and the announcement comes: "Hello, I'm Felicity Kemp and I'll be your captain for today. Our first officer is Alison Cooper, and she'll be flying this segment, our cabin crew ..." <Snigger> We're starting to make some progress but it seems that in today's society, it's two steps forward, one step back. The story from March 2019 about an entirely female crew flying from Brussels to Doha certainly made me think things are creeping along though, albeit far too slowly. There are still virtually no female conductors in the classical music world even though when orchestras used to be entirely male (and still are in places like the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra - Google it) and apparently were just plain boorish. I was at the AELTC having a behind the scenes tour of Wimbledon the other day and there was a huge poster showing the winners from 2018. Sure enough the male singles winner was in the top-left with it going down and down in hierarchy to the disabled women's winner in the bottom-right. It rankled with me at the time and still does now - I can't help but feel that if that'd been me, I'd have done it completely randomly to show how diverse the Championships are and to celebrate that a little bit.
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Post by londonstuff on Jun 9, 2019 19:06:07 GMT
Edgware is indeed one of them. Now, I knew I knew it but I had to check with the inimitable kateyay about this. She told me and then gave me about 500% extra. The one I knew about was Aldwych, which apparently isn’t there anymore; [/url] aldwych by Emma Wright, on Flickr However, she also let me know about St James’s Park (also home of the James’/James’s roundels: St. James's Park Underground station by bowroaduk, on Flickr Quite unbeknown to me, there’s also something from Wood Lane lurking around the LTM: LTM Acton - old Wood Lane station roundel by metromadme, on Flickr goldenarrow - I’m so glad you pointed out the unbalanced E - it’s not something that I’d noticed before but now I don’t think I’lll ever be able not to see it
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