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Post by roman80 on Oct 20, 2021 10:58:33 GMT
Will the new system be told when a driver change occurs at Earls Court? I was on train 124 which had a driver change this morning there, which prompted my question. If the system is trying to recover after delays, for example, it may want to send on its way a train that’s changing driver. As a passenger, I don’t know how encoded these are into timetables and how variable they are day to day, hence the question. I’m not aware of seeing any driver changes away from the terminals on the other automated lines I use regularly.
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Post by roman80 on Oct 11, 2021 21:15:59 GMT
No, because the software is designed assuming a specific commissioning order. There's no opportunity to deviate from that. The current issues are with the commissioned area and the intention is to sort that out before commissioning SMA5. I am convinced from a passenger’s perspective waiting on the platform each evening the new system brings trains into the westbound platform at Westminster with a greater time gap between trains than the old system, even when they are clearly stacked behind each other as shown on the indicator board. Is that one?
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Post by roman80 on Oct 9, 2021 17:15:14 GMT
Are the new displays dependent on SMA5 going live to be accurate and commissioned?
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Post by roman80 on Sept 1, 2021 11:32:50 GMT
At Parsons Green, will there be the ability to run in and out of the new yards from Fulham Broadway? Currently when Parsons Green is used to terminate trains that are put away in times of disruption, the process seems quite slow as often both directions are blocked to stop and reverse a train into the yard. If ever Stamford Bridge becomes a 60,000 seat stadium (unlikely even medium term as they've just spent money on new safe standing seats), Fulham Broadway starters and terminators would be helpful in clearing the crowds.
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Post by roman80 on Aug 27, 2021 20:44:02 GMT
At my local, Putney Bridge, the destination boards are basically never to be relied upon. In the past week or so after the early August closedown of the district core, its been worse than normal. Every train has been showing Edgware Road on the eastbound. This afternoon at circa 145pm it was showing 'Mansinn House' as the destination for an approaching Edgware Road train. Never seen that before.
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Post by roman80 on Aug 23, 2021 10:19:13 GMT
Has SMA12 'lite', Fulham Broadway to East Putney been formally accepted as the replacement for a full SMA12? Would it make sense to bring that piece online before the official timeline of SMA12, as only a small addition to SMA5 once that is live?
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Post by roman80 on Jun 23, 2021 20:37:26 GMT
Has it also got something to do with the fact trains from HSK can only arrive at platform 4 at Earls Court? From there anything going to Ealing Broadway or Richmond blocks a departure from platform 3 while it crosses the points. If instead the train is going to Wimbledon, no such blocking. Its not uncommon to see two trains depart platform 3 and 4 at Earls Court simultaneously, one from 4 to Wimbledon and one from 3 to Ealing Broadway / Richmond. Trains from platform 4 to elsewhere rather than Wimbledon reduces the station throughput?
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Post by roman80 on Jun 4, 2021 5:01:32 GMT
Pretty sure the extension to Stamford Brook is some time later than basic SMA5 which completes the Circle and out to Barons Court / Fulham Broadway though. Yes, it will be. The extension of scope to include partial delivery of SMAs10 & 12 will come at the end. How much of SMA12 do you think may get done? Parsons Green yard area, or as far as the National Rail interface at Putney Bridge / East Putney?
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Post by roman80 on Mar 7, 2021 17:46:55 GMT
How advanced is the on track and trackside hardware installation at present? Into which SMA areas can physical hardware be considered mostly done, with testing and the like able to be considered later in 2021?
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Post by roman80 on Mar 3, 2021 4:33:42 GMT
Is there a 'soft date' for SMA5 or any others after SMA4?
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Post by roman80 on Jun 12, 2020 8:23:09 GMT
Stopping at SMA8 leaves all Met fast line trains stopping to change to/from tripcock opposite Preston Road platforms without assistance when trouble, so not sustainable long term. Leaving SMA12 to Wimbledon leaves Earls Court Control Centre open indefinitely just to let trains in and out of Parsons Green sidings, see districtdavesforum.co.uk/post/486329/thread and responses. In the Parsons Green and Earls Court Control Centre situation, defining a SMA12lite to finish between Fulham Broadway and Putney Bridge may make more sense? Earls Court Control Centre can be closed, no separate panel at Parsons Green as a redmediation, takes out old signalling TFL needs to maintain until the National Rail signal interface at Putney/Putney Bridge.
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Post by roman80 on Jun 10, 2020 8:48:37 GMT
The following article may be of interest. Published today by Bloomberg news. An interesting graphic showing potential capacity of a Central line carriage under the current two metre guidelines. I believe the link should work and the article should be free to read. Please bear in mind the website allows only one free article. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-london-cycling-streetspace/
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Post by roman80 on Mar 16, 2020 15:52:28 GMT
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Post by roman80 on Mar 14, 2020 12:37:01 GMT
There is also another angle. While the forum doesn't discuss politics, it is factual that the London Mayoral Election has been postponed by a year. Polls indicated a large lead for the incumbent, as per a recent press article (Evening Standard last week). An politician returned or newly elected with a large majority can front load some painful decisions on things like finances and taxes and spending at the start of a new term more comfortably than one having an extra year of campaigning ahead.
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Post by roman80 on Mar 13, 2020 21:21:37 GMT
As one perspective, the bank I work for has about 5,000 people in Canary Wharf. A back up site outside London which sits permanently ready with 600 seats was activated as of a week and a half ago. It is only reachable by car or rail practically from central London. Businesses that have seats there have split their staff three ways. One third there, one third in CW and one third working at home. Of the 3,000 not in the above, 1500 are formally working at home. The balance are still coming to the office some days, working at home others. Many clients only want meetings via audio or video as well. Testing shows everyone in Europe at the bank can work from home without server capacity markedly degrading. More server capacity was added this week with a failsafe to prioritise who gets 'load shedded' if there is a server outage or similar. I manage a team of about 250 and the feedback from them is that it will be hard to go back to commuting five days a week when this ends. We are doing many team calls by video conference and at the click of a button our office phone rings on our mobile or home phone as we want. Same when we want to call someone. Click a button on my workpc and my mobile rings, as does the phone of whoever I am calling. That is some Cisco app called Jabber I think. One of my team is flying to Brazil on Sunday and will work remotely London hours for the next month and visit her parents. Another chap has gone to his home in Yorkshire. Others are planning similar. Will be interesting to see the long term effect of this on commuting.
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Post by roman80 on Feb 11, 2020 14:37:29 GMT
Under ATO the platform edge door system is linked in so that a train can't move if one or more of the platform doors aren't closed, in a similar way to the pilot light (door closed visual) on the trains themselves. In the case you witnessed yesterday a PED would have somehow opened (even by a tiny amount e.g. by someone leaning on it) or more likely just an indication that it had i.e. an electrical malfunction. This has the effect of shutting down the area (technical term - "closing the track") within the platform so that any trains there or immediately approaching will be emergency braked while those further away will be brought to a smooth standstill until the fault can be rectified. (I'm not sure of the exact range.) This is done by station staff having to isolate that door from the rest to allow the system to restore ("opening the track"). It is a safety feature that a PED should not be open when a train is not properly berthed as, for example, a partially sighted person might assume there WAS a train there if one was open. My understanding of how things worked pre ATO was that it was up to the driver to stop the train if a door opened, having seen a platform door light come on in his or her on-board monitors. It seems now that this sort of thing is becoming more common, with several instances of isolated doors at any one time across the 8 PED stations. I guess at 20 years old things are not as reliable! On the whole PEDs are a good idea, but it does seem a waste of resources every time one fails that a member of station staff has to supervise that door at all times. Thanks, very helpful.
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Post by roman80 on Feb 10, 2020 21:40:27 GMT
I saw an interesting occurrence at London Bridge at about 610pm this evening. The westbound train I was on started to depart London Bridge but after moving about a carriage length the emergency stop cut in. A number of folks near me lost their balance. The driver immediately announced a PED door had opened as the train was leaving, causing the emergency brake activation. After a delay of a few minutes the driver announced the platform staff had dealt with the door in question and we departed. How does the train find this out so quickly? Is there a point of no return once a train has started to move after which such an indication is ignored? This is the first time I've seen this type of occurrence since the extension opened.
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Post by roman80 on Dec 31, 2019 19:11:48 GMT
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Post by roman80 on Nov 8, 2019 10:14:49 GMT
Various newswire announcements in the last hour that TFL says 2020 for the central core is off the table, 'opening of central section will occur as soon as possible in 2021'.
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Post by roman80 on Oct 31, 2019 18:39:14 GMT
An email from my firm to staff in Canary Wharf this week says the restricted entry plan TFL is employing between 430pm and 730pm at Canary Wharf is expected to last for up to six weeks. I wonder if that’s when TFL expect to fix the problem by, or if they expect to have Christmas bail them out as people take holidays and so can relax the plans after mid December for a couple of weeks. Travelling home from Canary Wharf is an utterly miserable experience. A testament to many failures in London given over the road stands an empty CrossRail station that should have been open by now and easing the load on the Jubilee line, which is an shambles to use in the evening peak at the best of times.
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Post by roman80 on Oct 25, 2019 15:35:59 GMT
It would be nice if some attention was given to minimising the gaps in the peaks, and TFL could give an update on the disruption and its length. Canary Wharf is a disaster in the evenings. Every entrance bar one closed, and that forces thousands to queue in the weather from 5pm onwards. As its half term, there are less people using Canary Wharf but in another week it will be back to normal loadings. The crowd control is actually so aggressive that trains are leaving westbound in the evening with spare capacity. As entrance is so restricted, passengers cannot enter in enough time to spread along the whole platform.
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Post by roman80 on Oct 18, 2019 17:07:26 GMT
According to an ASLEF mail shot the cracks were on the underframe next to the coupler, they'd checked 45 trains this morning, 27 were okay, 18 had cracks with 18 left to check. It also said they were checking the 1995s but so far there were no problems. How difficult and time consuming is the fix on average once the issue is identified?
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Post by roman80 on Oct 16, 2019 17:33:51 GMT
PA announcements this evening saying it is a trial. No mention of an end date.
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Post by roman80 on Oct 15, 2019 19:30:33 GMT
I really don't see why this is as controversial as it seems to be. The groups of people who will disproportionately use cash are children, foreign tourists and the very low paid - all of whom (combined) are a very tiny minority of users at Canary Wharf JLE, and almost none of them will have this as their closest station. I can't imagine that there are any companies at Canary Wharf that pay their cleaners in cash, so even they will have access to debit cards (and wont be living nearer this station than any of the other options, and/or will be walking to/from work), and there are no cheap hotels anywhere on the Canary Wharf estate, so almost everyone staying at them will be either business travellers or paying by card. Lower income tourists/backpackers/similar tourists will not be staying near Canary Wharf and, if they do need to top up before their return/onward journey then there are the other options nearby (see next paragraph). For those that do want/need to top up using cash, it will still be accepted at Heron Quays DLR (2 minutes walk on a very simple route), Canary Wharf DLR (<5 minutes walk), South Quay DLR (about 10 minutes walk), West India Quay DLR (about 10 minutes walk). It might also be accepted at the Crossrail station when that opens. Then there are two ticket shops on the Canary Wharf estate and at least 7 more within 20 minutes walk. It's not a convenient location to top up at before getting the bus (the DLR stations or ticket shops are much better situated for this), other than perhaps for people coming from the lower levels of Jubilee Place Mall - and if you're working there or can afford to regularly buy things there then you wont be reliant on cash. If your onward journey is by another transport mode then you will either just top up at your origin station, your destination station or the DLR station instead or be using a mode of transport that doesn't take Oyster cards (walking, coach, taxi) - a possible exception is Thames Clippers, but (a) very few people will do this as it's not a convenient interchange, (b) the route takes you right past Canary Wharf DLR station, and (c) you can pay cash directly. If you arrive at the station by bus and need to top up before you make your tube journey, then you will just need to get off the bus one stop earlier or later and top up at Canary Wharf DLR station (which all buses currently pass) or Churchill Place Post Office ticket shop. If/when the buses from the Isle of Dogs are rerouted back onto their previous route when the western end of Bank Street reopens then the stop before the Jubilee line station will be Heron Quays DLR. This certainly wouldn't be acceptable at most stations, but Canary Wharf isn't most stations. I strongly suspect it's got one of, if not the, lowest proportion of people paying cash and you actually have to try very hard to find someone who will be inconvenienced by more than 10 minutes by this (a person can only top up with cash, doesn't know this can't be done at the JLE station before they get to the ticket hall, has to ask how to get to somewhere where they can (I'd be amazed if there wasn't clear signage of this, possibly even at the top of the escalators before you get to the ticket hall) and walks much slower than average). And even then the chances of finding someone who will use their debit/credit card to top up your oyster if you give them the cash will be pretty good. Great summary of Canary Wharf Chris. This topic perked my interest also as I’ve been using Canary Wharf since its opening day. At 6pm today I decided to do a quick count of modes of payment at just one entrance gate (main entrance) while waiting for a colleague to arrive. Of 25 or so people through the gate, only two Oysters. Balance of nine or ten phones and rest contactless. It is very atypical of a London station, as you say. Also interesting everyone using a phone had it unlocked before getting to the gate. That is not typical of London overall.
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Post by roman80 on Sept 18, 2019 21:59:24 GMT
Where on the Wimbledon branch will be the point of cutover between full CBTC and overlay?
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Post by roman80 on Sept 14, 2019 9:09:15 GMT
All on the route of the Great River Race this weekend?
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Post by roman80 on Aug 31, 2019 5:28:47 GMT
PM sent on inset
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Post by roman80 on Jul 27, 2019 13:47:04 GMT
Ive personally had good results in reducing the temperature in a loft with three south facing velux windows by putting up solar film on the glass each May and removing in September. Has reduced the temperature by at least 3 degrees versus without over the past two summers. I rip off for the other seasons as I use a film with the highest solar blocking, which reduces light also. Fine for summer but need the light outside summer so don't leave on permanently. Tinted train and car windows are standard in places like Australia. Perhaps they should be considered for mid life refreshes. I was personally surprised the S stock didn't use tinted windows. The solar gain on even short sections in summer on the S stock is noticeable, such as West Brompton to Wimbledon. London has much lower summer nighttime temperatures than most hot places, so I think storing trains with doors open is sensible, and worth trialling.
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Post by roman80 on Jul 5, 2019 9:08:00 GMT
Westminster SSR westbound is another. Surprising as its relatively new (JLE rebuild). The low ceiling, curved platform and perspex screen at platform edge hung from ceiling all conspire to make the one indicator useless unless one is standing close to it. Given its a major interchange and there are four options for a destination in different directions (Wimbledon, Ealing Broadway, Richmond and Circle), and in July and August tourists outnumber regulars, very annoying.
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Post by roman80 on May 18, 2019 14:11:59 GMT
Opposite Marshall Fields Department Store at the corner of East Washington St and North Wabash Avenue in downtown Chicago. The red store on the right is a Staples. Behind and above the photographer as the photo was taken would have been the Washington/Wabash El Station.
I think the store has changed its name by now due to a corporate takeover but when I last saw it in 1993,the building on the left across the street was called Marshall Field and Company, a department store.
The El lines included at the time as serving the station above were the Brown, Green and Orange I think, will stand corrected as to the current situation.
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