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Post by ducatisti on Aug 19, 2008 8:38:27 GMT
Moscow subway's pretty deep too
Why is a small tunnel (in engineering terms) better than a large tunnel? apart from cost reasons? I don't think the London clay is that thin that a larger tunnel couldn't be put through it. Also, there are at least four different tube diameters that have been used (original C&SLR, "standard", Victoria/JLE, and Northern City). The Jubilee line extension spends most of it's time out of the london clay belt where it's south of the river
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 18, 2008 12:11:27 GMT
When will we know? (I'll just wheel the bike out of the shed and add to the pollution content)
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 18, 2008 12:10:14 GMT
So who's gonna break in and steal the Bills of Quantities? That 3x cost - is that /mile or overall? Has inlation/prices rises etc been put in (copper for example has gone up by Something Silly) Strip out all the newly required features (eg DDA requirements, increased security etc Do we know how much they are factoring for property blight? Crossrail goes through some more expensive areas than the JLE, and IIRC property blight is related to both the value of the building (which will be higher in the city as they are bigger) and commercial value (also higher becuase of rents etc). there again, they should be going through more predictable underground geography (is it geology when there's not a lot of rock? where does geogrpahy stop and geology start?)
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 17, 2008 17:26:13 GMT
The biggest costs in a any job like that are generally real-estate-related, not the physical items. also, the cross-sectional area isn't doubled. Costs of materials like concrete and so forth are significant, but nothing compared to land, and labour.
The economics are not as you'd think - or Crossrail would be an order of magnitude more expensive with some siginificanlty bigger tunnels
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 16, 2008 21:23:40 GMT
I've always thought it should have been built to SSL loading gauge. Given the majority of the northern end of the original line is the old Met anyway. Then at sometime if the will/money had been found the whole thing could be run with SSL trains, which woul give you a bit more capacity
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 14, 2008 16:57:36 GMT
yeah - you are probably right. Mond you, I think the "more information" thing is a statistical wossname. I remember when out for a blast on the bike once I was accosted by a pollster asking about public transport in the Bewdley area. For some reason I replied "more information", when I should have not answered. I think "more information" can mean "ummm, no idea but I want to appear constructive/helpful". Or it can mean "more information that my train is on time" (ie I want my train on time). I also doubt very much people ask for "repeated recorded announcements that grate down one's spine after a few minutes..."
I *always* say thankyou to my local station staff. This may go some way to explaining why we had no difficulty photographing the special at West Finchley.
I shall try to get my finger out and respond.
I suspect everybody is simply trying to do the best they can, but that there's a logical flaw somewhere that gives funny outcomes.
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 14, 2008 8:43:12 GMT
Who do we shout at for this sort of thing? It's all very well saying "managers want...", but unless they are truly servants of evil, presumably it's done becuae they think it's what is wanted...
But qv my mini-rant on the rant thread, when announcements are percieved as being incorrect, they get ignored, which means an important announcement will be ignored too. Ditto the "no interchange at Bank", most people I know respond "lieing ****ers, I changed there this morning", so if it was genuinely shut for some reason, you'll still have the majority of commuters rocking up there
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Post by ducatisti on Aug 2, 2008 23:34:39 GMT
Ooh! been watching a bit of it. Nice to put a face to the name Annie Mole. (missed the tube bombing bits I assume)
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 25, 2008 8:40:45 GMT
Was that at Camden or Marble Arch? Camden was running right way round this morning...
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 24, 2008 8:25:43 GMT
were going the wrong way this morning... (ie the normally-up escalator was the down escalator) As they are next to each other there's no issue with the signage etc, and I assume that when it's exit only on Sundays they run both up. But was there a reason for this this morning? whimsy by the staff? escalators get bored if run too long in one direction? Also, signage etc aside, as all escalators bi-directional?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 21, 2008 12:30:42 GMT
Ta
(one of the reasons I thought about it was the leader in Modern Railways fulminating against bus replacements - which I entirely agree with). As the tube is pretty much affiliated (in people's minds) with the bus network anyway, it never seems quite as irritating. Is the perception different on the LO?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 21, 2008 9:59:02 GMT
Ona similar note and just about not off-topic-ish, there are some "blockbusters" planned by Virgin this summer, taking Voyagers a funny route into Euston from the GC mainline. (I can't remember off the top of my head what the route is)
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 18, 2008 13:57:02 GMT
*dons speed demon's hat* Where is the fastest bit of the line? North of East Finchley would be my guess
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 15, 2008 13:04:07 GMT
Hmmm, can't see any specific advantage. I wonder if there is any curvature that puts a specific lateral force on the rail there?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 15, 2008 10:10:51 GMT
They look a similar design to ones I've seen on the southern region (obv taller). The SR ones aren't twisted like those though - out of interest, which way do trains run on that pic? I wonder what the twist gives?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 13, 2008 21:33:09 GMT
I should imagine any surviving class 08s knock most other things into a cocked hat when it comes to age (and in design terms, certainly...). 20s, 37s, 47s will also be older. I wonder how old the surviving mark IIs on the Virgin runs are? In terms of multiple units, the slam-doors on the Lymmington Branch are probably older, too.
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 9, 2008 16:51:20 GMT
i'm with Chris M on this. The JLE platforms can get a lot of people getting off *or* getting on. But they can't do anything about the size of the trains themselves, which is going to be the big issue at Camdn as you get both-way changes.
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 9, 2008 10:28:36 GMT
Quoting Sweek
I do mean South of Kennington. Running more trains would only clearly improve matters if more trains can be run. My concern is that Camden Town will need to cater for some very large numbers of people trying to squash onto already crowded trains whilst a large number of people get off. I think this is comparatviely unusual as most peak-time flows are one-way. The result is (and I await to see what research has been done on this) that dwell times at Camden will go up very steeply in peak hours. So you won't get more trains (or at least nothing like as many as you'd hope).
In terms of Kennington, I've never had the pleasure in the rush hour, but again as it's splitting one feed into two outgoings, I should imagaine it's less bad.
Talk of how the station might be re-built doesn't really alter the key problem that there are fundamental limits on how many people you can get off and on the trains in a station stop, and until I see evidence that that has been properly factored in to calculations, I don't see how the proposed benefits will materialise, or outeigh the inconvenience caused
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 9, 2008 9:15:19 GMT
It's something that can be done, but will it actually improve matters? Will splitting the peak southbound services help the over-capacity on the southern end? I should imgaine by the time you get all the trains through to the southern end, the worst of the peak will be over?
Also, It's more than just a pain to change at Camden, it stands a good chance of preventing them delivering the tph improvement that they are claiming is on offer, whilst making it worse for the northbound.
Assuming there are gaps in the city loop service, and given that most southern-end peeps will be going to the central destinations, lots of Euston (and any other points that allow it) Reversers would seem the best way to get more trains back south quickly.
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 9, 2008 8:11:34 GMT
Grrr... the split... Wish I'd been to that. Having struggled through Camden Town tube this am them all the High Barnet branch trains were going to the City and all the Edgeware ones to Charing X, the platform times are seriously slow. No-one's told me how they are going to manage to get x extra tph when each city train on Camden drops off c1/3rd capacity and takes on 2/3rds capacity and the CharingX ones do the opposite. You could add addtional cross-passages I assume, but you can't make the train doors any bigger or do anything about the peeps who got on at Barnet having to squeeze through the train to get off.
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 7, 2008 16:45:14 GMT
If it fed direct into Kennington, it would be about the one place you could put extra capacity onto the system.
But the cost of the civils makes my eyes water. Anyone know how badly that area got bombed in the war? the geological situation (I think it's the Reading beds of gravel and sand there, which would be pretty 'orrible tunnelling teritory).
If you kinked the route carefully, could you get the material out to rail? (Although I'm not sure how popular spoil trains would be on that part of the network)
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 4, 2008 14:24:30 GMT
www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jul/04/bendybus.routemasterHmmm... can't see an open-platform bus being allowed, but good luck if it can! Also - marvellous piece of journalistic ineptitude "Johnson confirmed that the new routemasters will have two crew on board including a driver." And there was me thinking it would be two conductors...
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 4, 2008 14:22:38 GMT
The wedding list should be more interesting than normal...
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 3, 2008 10:15:25 GMT
explains why I didn't hear it southbound then... there are a lot of people working on or aboutthe track round there, so it could well be that. I'll try and listen tonight...
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 3, 2008 9:01:22 GMT
The only thing to do with foreign students is to politely, but firmly, walk though them... I find a bag quite handy for getting past the ones who walk abreast as you can get it in their peripheral vision. Ditto for the veerers (why walk parallel to the platform/corridor when you can zig-zag accross it?)
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 3, 2008 7:52:20 GMT
Indeed. I read in a railway mag (so it must be true...) that trolley bags cause a 1/3cut in capacity on Escalators
Another pet peeve are the people that sort of stand to the right but don't. I don't mind shoving past them, but if one was smaller/less grumpy you'd be blocked.
As for people stopping at the bottom, one way around this would be to move the maps - Central line seems to be the worse for that - there's always a collection of people blokcing the stairwells where it feeds onto the platforms of people not being able to work out which platform. Might help on platforms with entrances at the end, too. Give them an incentive to move from the blockage points
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 2, 2008 21:39:08 GMT
No, not Visordown - another group called 'Ixion'. Which only vaguely talks about 'bikes - camera and gadget woes; sql problems and GPS tend to crop up with more regularity than 'bikes. they sound a right bunch of ne'erdo-wells (yes, I'm on that list too...there's a worrying number of various flavours of rail enthusiasts on there, we're surreptitiously upping the tube content) anyway, back on topic... congrats again. Has the ring been forged by the Nibelungen yet?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 1, 2008 21:25:44 GMT
Can't say I've ever noticed this - is it in a specific direction? what time did you hear it? I'll keep an ear out. Is it the track that beeps or the train?
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Post by ducatisti on Jul 1, 2008 8:14:54 GMT
There's a couple more suspects on the footbridge...!
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Post by ducatisti on Jun 30, 2008 21:07:28 GMT
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