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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 24, 2018 14:19:18 GMT
Jay
Welcome to the Forum.
I will not attempt to provide any statistical response other than to say southbound trains at that timeframe during normal weekdays are fairly hectic most times. How do I know? Well I used to se how full they were when trying to board stopping trains at Wembley Park for more years than I care to recall. By having fewer seats and with continuous car to car connections, the new trains do seem to accommodate almost any number of passengers and far more than the curiously lamented A stock never did. Once people were jammed across the doorways on an A stock there was no real way for anyone else to board. By comparison the new trains seem to be elastic or at least encourage people to shuffle along inside to occupy any less cramped spaces far better than before.
I guess the consequences of commuting underlie your other questions. Inherently do not expect a seat at those times of day unless you are lucky enough to board a trip with empty stock being turned or entering service at Harrow. As for Finchley Road the Jubilee has its own dedicated tracks and effectively operates independently. Gone are the days when platform staff would hold services on both lines to allow cross platform connections. If trains arrive together and people have time to dash from one to the other, so be it, but that is just luck. Both lines operate fairly intense services in the peak so if you just miss a connection you won't be waiting long. Save for some external disaster such as power or signalling failures problems on the Jubilee should not impact on the Met directly.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 18, 2018 21:56:57 GMT
Just in case it is of wider interest, I thought I would mention that there is an interesting new article about the 4LM project just published on the Rail Engineer website. I hope the following link will work. 4LM ArticleIf not you should be able to find the article on their website.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 15, 2018 9:57:18 GMT
This thread strays into several of my pet hates. Yesterday I travelled from DLR City Airport to West Drayton switching onto several different lines/rolling stock along the way and the quality and quantity of announcements was all over the place - and certainly if they cannot get it right at fairly simple stations like Wanstead how do they think they will keep dwell times down at busier locations?
Inside the waiting room glass box on the platform at City Airport the announcement was barely discernible and from my perspective wrongly timed. Surely shortly before the train arrives at the platform you should usually only give out information pertinent to waiting passengers such as the destination and any risk factors like mind the gap when boarding. By all means after a train draws into the platform provide necessary information for alighting passengers but that should not be at the cost of telling boarding passengers where the train is headed or be reason to delay the prompt departure. Inherently all pertinent information should already have been delivered to those alighting passengers whilst they were inside the train shortly before it arrives at the stop.
Again yesterday showed variable effectiveness with on-board announcements on the Piccadilly at places drowned out by rail squeal. I guess whoever is responsible for these announcements needs to do an end to end trip on every line to identify those high noise locations and ideally trigger the on-board announcements so they do not coincide with excessive noise. They should also be forced to get out from behind their desk and witness first-hand the behaviour of passengers at every platform for a few peak hour departures - to work out what if any announcements could be improved (re-ordered - enhanced (both content and volume) or indeed eliminated) to improve passenger throughput.
However at least for me, the tube tries to get it right, meanwhile the reasonably new OHLE unit on the GWR service out of Paddington seemed to be very confused with the in carriage displays taking great delight in telling passengers we were approaching Ealing Broadway for connections to the Central and District on the approach to every station on the trip to Twyford/Reading (well at least it was still doing so when I got off at West Drayton). To my mind providing no information at all, is far better than providing wrong information - which was obviously causing great uncertainty to a group of Japanese tourists desperately trying to figure out from the hopeless on-board maps if they were on the wrong train or indeed heading in the wrong direction.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 11, 2018 16:29:41 GMT
Safety checks have been completed and the remainder of the fleet is now heading out. So does the use of the word "remainder" suggest that the unit with a missing caliper has been found and is now receiving remedial attention. As brakes probably rank high in the eyes of any rail safety body - presumably as part of Network Rail - RAIB would at the very least monitor developments. In the interim I assume the maintenance records, for at least the affected unit, will be checked to see when that component last had attention and determine if that intervention might have contributed to it becoming detached or if a design flaw lies behind this incident and might be a prelude to the whole fleet needing modifications to prevent a recurrence.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 9, 2018 19:09:55 GMT
I fully understand the need to change announcements which are no longer correct, but I am not convinced that changes need to be made simply for consistency if the underlying information remains valid. Indeed if we accept the argument that the purpose of these announcements is to assist travellers then some inconsistency may actually be beneficial.
Certainly when it comes to getting people to pay attention to safety briefings a few aircraft crews have displayed admirable individuality can still get my full attention whilst I suspect I am not alone in pretty much switching off when the staff stick doggedly to the approved script. Perhaps there is no great need for announcements to consistently use DLR or Docklands Light Railway.
As for incoherent/muffled announcements I suspect maintenance staff should be checking any reports of problems. Although I would not be surprised if some drivers have got totally fed up hearing the same announcements time and again, and may have been tempted to reduce the volume so they are no longer discernible in the cab.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 6, 2018 6:47:43 GMT
Inset - Westbury White Horse Hills Main - Met/Piccadilly before Rayners Lane
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 5, 2018 10:52:15 GMT
ethano92345 makes a very valid observation - which I do think anyone involved in TFL rolling stock procurement should be alert to.
With ever greater pressure to squeeze more trains on our existing routes - then minimising station dwell time becomes a major challenge which is not going to be helped by this sloppy design choice.
I could understand this choice for rolling stock on low intensity routes but not for rolling stock planned for use on high passenger volume routes.
To minimise dwell time often seemingly small changes can deliver big improvements - so I wonder how long before someone insists the stock is sent back to the manufacturers and modified to the sort of S8/S7 set up?
You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that you want to do everything possible to encourage people waiting outside the train to stand well to the side of the opening and let people off first - so the logical place for the external door button is off to the side of the door, with the reverse applying for internal buttons.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 21, 2017 10:34:30 GMT
Personally I think there could be real potential revenue benefit from operating Heritage services - provided LUL were able to think out of the box. Just remember every year thousands of people are happy to spend serious time and money to travel often long distances to visit a former quarry at Crich to enjoy a few hours trundling around in wonderfully restored trams. If such as et-up can be economic in such a remote location, surely something located within easy access from the biggest population centre in Britain can be viable if they start simple and build capacity as demand rises.
Earlier comments about the tube being increasingly busy are of course totally relevant.
So the only credible location for heritage service operations would be at the more extreme ends of the system and only on those sections which are or could be made effectively stand-alone and have plenty of spare capacity.
Sadly the most easy to develop route for heritage service has already been lost - the old Epping to Ongar route. The cost of reinstating 4 rail operation is so vast it will never happen. However at the far end of the Met their is potential.
The most obvious is the potential for a heritage shuttle from Chesham to Chalfont assuming the old 4 car siding has not been ripped up - indeed few commuters would be upset if daily operations switched completely to a more frequent shuttle operated by a pair of 4 car heritage units perhaps the 38 stock plus renovated A stock (if the former RAT is still viable) or even something loaned back from VivaRail. If these heritage operations were confined to an effectively isolated section of track, then the cost of TBTC roll-out on the line could be avoided. The interesting question is that if heritage operations were well marketed, it could significantly add to patronage not just at Chesham which apart from a few peak hours services is pretty derisory, but generate a lot of additional tourist trips along the Met to this little visited but beautiful part of Bucks.
I always feel saddened to see rolling stock becoming static museum exhibits. Proper conservation coupled with some donated parts would give LU Museum a place to be far more visible and potentially gain a lot more public engagement. This is of course one of these if you build it they will come decisions - In the current financial climate I doubt TFL/LUL have the bravery to commit to a blue-sky project like the people who established Crich did.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 15, 2017 9:22:28 GMT
Does this mean that they have new orders from another TOC? I suspect at the moment the answer is "probably" but some elements of the media do like knocking copy stories especially when it comes to rail projects, so I suspect VivaRail and their customers are keeping very tight lipped about their plans for now. Reading between the lines - OK some may dismiss this development as grant hovering, but why bother? If the project has no realistic buyers then the bean counters would surely be pressing to kill it by now. I can't remember where but a while back I saw Quinton site visitor comments indicating that the VivaRail facility was very busy - presumably modifying D stock trains into class 230 units. Again why bother if you did not have a real customer. The initial idea was Class 230 units would have raft mounted diesel power units allowing some basic servicing to be done away from a depot. Those diesel power units were always going to be bought in as ready to install units from Ford in South Africa. But if new customers are have opted for battery power packs instead of diesel, then it makes sense that VivaRail would also want them made off-site and simply brought in as ready to install modules - which neatly ties in with the County Durham plant announcement. The fun bit now is to speculate what routes would be suitable for either wholly battery powered or battery/diesel mode. I suspect the original trial route may still end up diesel or possibly Diesel/Battery biMode operation. However now that the Greenford shuttle has been cut back thanks to CrossRail, I suspect it would be a great demonstrator route for fully battery operation. It is a nice short route which is not too challenging, complete with a dedicated platform at West Ealing where a small addition to the recent OHLE could allow ample opportunity charging to keep the batteries topped up throughout the day without affecting the freight traffic. The line currently ties up a pair of DMUs which I suspect GWR would probably prefer to allocate elsewhere, and given the mix of short platforms and low passenger flows 2 or 3 car Class 230 variants would easily handle all current passenger traffic.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 6, 2017 9:52:45 GMT
Setting aside the perpetual motion ideas, I too hope the VivaRail project proves to be successful.
Reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose are messages which should be encouraged positively not belittled as being yet another example of the North being fobbed off with London's cast offs.
Sadly my generation should be truly ashamed of the mess we have made of this planet. The iThing generation seems to largely unwilling to accept anything but the latest brand new wizz-bang, a generation quite happy to throw away perfectly serviceable stuff, resulting in vast areas being ravaged to extract fresh minerals to supply an ever growing demand for finite resources and creating a toxic rubbish legacy which future generations will not thank us for.
VivaRail shows a refreshingly frank willingness to learn from mistakes, to solve technical challenges and adapt to abrupt changes in the market which most mainstream manufacturers only offering minor variants on their core product line-up currently seem ill equipped to do.
We have growing concerns over the health impact of diesel emissions, yet plans to electrify major routes have just been kicked into the distant future meaning diesel will be the mainstay for many more years, and as for branch lines without a radical alternative they will be permanently stuck with diesel.
The modular raft approach adopted by VivaRail provides a versatile solution where owners can plug in whatever power raft they want - so batteries, or diesel or both.
I wonder if there is space to add a pantograph and power transformers to allow the battery variant to take advantage of a short spells of opportunity charging at each end of a minor route to extend their battery range. Already many minor routes terminate at stations with some existing OHLE provision so presumably it would be not be a massive technical challenge to extend the OHLE to provide a power supply on just the platform area of the minor route as well. A cost which presumably would be a whole lot less than installing end to end OHLE.
Then whilst crew take a comfort break, change ends and prepare for the return journey, 5 minutes hooked up to OHLE could recharge the batteries with enough juice to complete another out and back circuit. That would be a brilliant solution for minor routes in scenic areas where conventional OHLE can look a blot on the landscape and would also mean an end to diesel fumes.
Personally I was impressed by the demonstration unit walk-through and think it would make a pretty good unit for many minor routes journeys especially if it also offered comfortable seats.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 4, 2017 11:59:38 GMT
If you mean the metal arches over the tracks at 5.52 in this video - then I think KKC has answered your enquiry. DLR VideoI always thought those steel arches were a rather heavy duty solution to carry such relatively low weight loads but I guess they may need to be very strong to keep those panels firmly in place if they face extreme winds created by nearby tall buildings.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 1, 2017 13:33:15 GMT
Any ideas why it was there? ... Obviously sent by the Fat Controller - I am told being banished to Central Rivers or Culdee Fell is apparently the fate of all naughty engines... Probably will be allowed back once they say sorry. (or am I getting confused with naughty trucks)
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Post by alpinejohn on Nov 24, 2017 14:25:58 GMT
The issue runs wider than just the Central - and perhaps the right place for this thread is in Signalling and Track?
Inherently the curvy nature of many tube lines is largely a legacy of minimising property owners compensation claims during their initial construction by keeping most of the tunnelling under existing streets. The cost and disruption of trying to straighten out even just the most severe locations is huge especially for an intensely worked line like the Central line.
Over the years the corollary of bendy tracks and enhanced track and rolling stock wear is well known. Various ideas have been explored to reduce the overall cost - For instance I vaguely recall seeing pictures of a semi articulated 38 stock. Inherently whilst the physical space for a bogie remains little changed, the scope for radical change is limited as most modern stock has lots more going on within a typical bogie than just supporting the carriage weight. More wheels tend to be driven, all tend to be braked, most have some sort of suspension/damping, many also carry masses of cabling for power collection and regeneration, wheel slip protection and other sensors. Which is great when they all work well, but the more you jam into the same physical space the harder it is to maintain (for instance changing braking surfaces) and keep all this stuff in good order.
Inherently rolling stock suppliers have invested heavily to improve bogie and axle designs over the year and inherently make their product best suited to the majority of their customers needs. However that historical legacy means that London tube lines are probably at the most extreme end in terms of customer requirements. Inevitably developing a bespoke design to ideally suit just a handful of lines with very infrequent orders, would be a huge gamble for any manufacturer to take especially in a competitive market where they have no certainty for orders, and cost rather than quality seems to be ranked far too highly in the purchasing department.
In pure competence terms, I feel sure manufacturers could still build stuff to robust IKB(Isambard Kingdom Brunel)standards. Sadly the current political environment is increasingly headline focused, and set against a fares freeze background, there is no real prospect the funds will be found to invest in that sort of development to deliver quality which would last and last.
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Post by alpinejohn on Nov 22, 2017 12:33:09 GMT
Old stock verses not being able to go somewhere due to signal failures - I know which I’d rather have... Exactly my thoughts too. Regardless of the age of the rolling stock, if it is repeatedly let down by track or signalling faults, then the trains are not really the cause of the "misery" and people should actually be pressing LUL/the Mayor to find the funds needed to fix or better still replace whatever assets are now letting the side down - regardless of whether or not the bean counters consider them to be fully life expired. Sadly major expenditure in mostly hidden infrastructure like signalling, power supplies and track/formation does not make great tabloid style headlines unlike orders for extra rolling stock.
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Post by alpinejohn on Nov 18, 2017 7:32:06 GMT
Huh? The vast majority of underground users fall into one of those categories. And contactless is brilliant for tourists as they can just tap their card without needing to decipher a ticket machine in a foreign language. TfL are quite rightly discouraging use of paper tickets. Whilst I am sure you are right that many tourists appreciate the convenience of contactless ticketing. A good few (me included) still want to get their hands on a paper ticket if only to keep as a souvenir of their visit to some place they may never return to again. For me dusty tickets from journeys on London Eye, Emirates Airline, Paris Metro, Eurostar and Bart etc all still trigger memories of past trips which I doubt any master-card printout ever will. Please don't eliminate the paper ticket entirely.
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Post by alpinejohn on Nov 5, 2017 11:58:57 GMT
So this "project" is now in its death throws and almost to script politicians are busy playing the blame game rather than actually figuring out a way to bridge the funding the gap (puns intended). So perhaps it is time to see what ideas this forum can offer to fund this project, such as.. If the good people of Watford really want this project and are so hacked off with traffic jams in their town, then perhaps the Mayor of Watford should take a leaf out of Mayor for London's playbook and introduce some sort of congestion toll on the affected roads. If congestion is really so bad, then establishing a flat £10 per trip toll for the next 30 years should be enough to underpin sufficient additional loan financing to get this project back on track (oops sorry). Normally a simple toll will inspire a lot of traffic diverting to other routes to avoid the toll booths. However last time I was in Watford it seemed railway arches already formed an effective barrier forcing most traffic under a few bridges where a toll can be collected from all motor vehicles. Adding a toll would have the additional advantage of discouraging a lot of the current traffic and probably speed up local bus services, increase bus patronage and even save polar bears. Sounds like a win, win, win So that's my contribution - What other funding solutions can we come up with?
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Post by alpinejohn on Oct 24, 2017 7:47:07 GMT
So it looks like NR are at last committing enough resource to actually deliver the Goblin electrification project next spring.
Which prompts the obvious follow on question - how much extra is this going to cost? I think the original contract with Murphy was for £56m. But the subsequent overrun and finger pointing accusations about stuff being badly designed suggests the eventual bill will be a whole lot more. Indeed once the lawyers get involved you can almost guarantee it.
So who ends up paying?
NR (who eventually recover it from Track access charges)- so passengers, tfl (who eventually recover the cost from fares) - so passengers, or was this a fixed price contract where the contractor picks up the overrun?
I spotted a recent contract award in Global Rail News which makes an interesting comparison:
Munich - Zurich line
I sometimes feel the fragmented rail structure is not delivering best VFM. On the face of it for €13m(£11.6m) the Swiss/Germans can retrofit OLE to 38km (23.6miles) of railway. Meantime in London we spend £56m to install OLE on just 12 miles of Goblin. OK I acknowledge this is not a very fair like with like comparison - Goblin needed serious civil engineering for clearances on bridges and tunnels but then again the Swiss had to rebuild two stations to allow clearance for high speed through services and they contend with serious eco restrictions - where even a minor oil spill results in big fines for the contractor.
Are we being taken for a ride? pun intended
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Post by alpinejohn on Oct 15, 2017 10:26:02 GMT
Will Four evenly spaced wider Single Leaf Doors per car be employed on the New Tube for London perhaps? So with orders for more of the current design pretty much dead, I guess it now becomes legitimate to discuss the merits of new deep tube NDT stock in this thread as it presumably becomes the prime candidate for additional capacity of these lines or indeed wholesale replacement and probably some intra line shuffling to eek out whatever residual value may be available in stock withdrawn from which ever line gets NDT first .. I really hope LUL have learned the costly lessons of the past, and completely rule out any proposal for single leaf doors. As we seem to be moving towards ever more intense timetabling, to extract maximum capacity from the current lines, the impact on dwell time of single leaf doors would be increasingly serious. Fundamentally the opening for entry/exit becomes available earlier with double doors - likewise closing time is shorter for the same size opening and those seconds really count, as they expensively found on the 83 stock. So assuming LUL/train manufacturers are not planning to try out some radically different door mechanism (linear motors springs to mind) potentially capable of ultra fast opening I think single doors would be a retrograde step - even if would be reminiscent of a "turbo-lift" from Star Trek.
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Post by alpinejohn on Oct 14, 2017 8:31:39 GMT
Thanks DStock7080
That information rather confirms where the plan for extra trains is headed.
With the World Class Capacity team also seemingly being reassigned, it demonstrates that the need to tighten the TFL purse strings goes beyond just deferring(abandoning) the additional trains idea.
A few years from now, hindsight (and passenger data) will doubtless show just how astute this decision was.
I am intrigued to know what lies beneath those bold statements about how the Elizabeth Line will impact travel patterns. I vaguely recall earlier articles suggested that Crossrail (aka Elizabeth) would be overloaded almost as soon as it opens, and not so attractive for existing Jubilee passengers after all.
It is interesting they choose to single out eastbound passengers? Assuming we are talking about daily flows that only equates to diverting the passenger equivalent of 10 full jubilee trains across the entire day - which is far less than the potential daily carrying capacity of the abandoned "deferred" additional train order.
Hence I hope someone in TFL towers is working on plan "b, c, d...", as the train manufacturers will presumably focus all their attention on preparing tenders for the new deep level stock, and won't want the current manufacturing jigs jamming up valuable production line space (unless they are suitably incentivised). So once the current tenders for extra trains expire, the potential for a follow-on order for the current train design probably goes too.
Hey Ho. Its done now and just like MLX, its probably time to close this thread too and move on.
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Post by alpinejohn on Oct 11, 2017 19:23:11 GMT
Confusing possibly - illegal seems unlikely.
The overarching project covers a lot more than just orders for extra rolling stock - so it presumably still needs to be considered at the meeting. I recall that signalling improvements were also expected to be a significant factor in improving capacity on these lines. That work may still be happening - even if extra trains needed to extract maximum value from the improved signalling has been "deferred for now".
The fact remains that if TFL cannot make a decent economic case to buy extra trains now, then in the current financial climate with fare income continuing to be constrained, the chances of the economic case ever improving - are essentially nil!
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Post by alpinejohn on Oct 11, 2017 7:59:59 GMT
As others have pointed out, given the progressively reducing forecast service life of the additional stock, if you cannot agree to buy them now, you never will - as the maths just gets worse and worse. So its dead Jim!
What those press statements do not acknowledge is that by working the current fleet harder - maintenance bills and in service failures are probably going to ramp up. However as that is a problem which will come to a head a few years from now, I guess like most politicians - they rarely care about leaving a mess for their successors?
So extra rolling stock, joins the MLX(Met line extension) project as yet another sacrifice needed to funding the great "fares freeze" re-election ploy.
However unlike MLX, anyone commuting on those lines at peak hours will tell you - extra trains are needed! Hiding behind the fig-leaf of Crossrail is straight out of the Yes Minister book of politicians distraction techniques.
Sadly for London - these "do nothing" years won't come back. The real shame is that major projects needed by London get abandoned or kicked down the road - which could have been funded with sensible fare increases. Hey ho.
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Post by alpinejohn on Sept 27, 2017 15:57:39 GMT
But in our caring and inclusive world - knowing when a station is relatively quiet or crazy busy is actually of real value to people afflicted with Agoraphobia or versions of Asperger syndrome. Not all handicaps are physical. Having once witnessed a friend have a total panic attack due to serious crowding trying to access Wembley stadium, I can see the value.
I agree it seems OTT for the station status to major on this, but I think it should still merit a sub page somewhere on the general TFL Tube information. My gut feeling is that for most stations once the critical data has been captured it will remain fairly consistent for typical weekdays/weekends so hopefully will not pose an immense maintenance burden.
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Post by alpinejohn on Sept 26, 2017 7:00:35 GMT
Its not just politics.
Inherently the current service status information is inevitably subjective when it comes to minor issues (a faulty escalator - an individual closed station access etc - if trains are however running where do you say things are or are not good?)
I seem to recall something similar happened with old A stock trains when during severe winter rail frost once Northbound trains stopped at Preston Road they just could not re-start towards Harrow on the Hill (note the name!) - Thankfully the message got to the signallers and after a couple of trains stalled on the Northbound tracks all northbound services went up the fast track to Harrow on the Hill. Passengers wanting Preston Road and Northwick Park were then told to switch to Southbound services which were able to call. Inherently services were still running and even for the skipped stations passengers were still able to get to their destinations just with some inconvenience. Personal experience on the line indicates the moment you move down from "Good" you start to divert passenger flows to other routes (so Jubillee gets hammered) which given how crowded most routes are at 16:45 is not something you want to do lightly. Especially if the affected line was still getting its passengers to their destinations.
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Post by alpinejohn on Sept 7, 2017 14:13:10 GMT
The scope for further service enhancements is helpfully listed in Snoggle's post on 2 Sept.
This got me wondering whether the current Network Rail planning process/model is defective. It seems that somewhere in the process, disruption of customers is not being given any, or perhaps enough weighting, so customers end up enduring closure after closure.
Since its transfer to Overground - Goblin has obviously been a victim of its own success, and seen serious passenger growth.
Just to deliver 4 car electric services, customers have already been subject to a protracted line closure last year, with a long string of shorter closures happening this year culminating in an extended month and half closure running into next year. That seems more than enough inconvenience and disruption to expect any group of fare paying passengers to tolerate. and yet...
In our increasingly connected world, mobilisation costs form a major component of many infrastructure enhancements - so it makes sense to make best use of those resources once mobilised. In a growth environment, if or when it really becomes necessary to disrupt customers, it probably makes sense to consider optimum use of that period of disruption, especially if significantly more than just the minimum enhancement can be delivered at only minimal additional cost/delay.
I am rather disappointed to see Snoggle suggesting that passengers face the prospect of further closures for additional platform extension work if current traffic growth continues and justifies a move to 5 car trains on the line. With all the recent disruption of GOBLIN closures, it seems crazy that NR were not forced to make even passive provision to allow a seamless switch to 5 car trains without the need for further closures. I would be astounded if that switch will be long delayed, given the recent go-ahead for the Riverside extension which will bring massive demand from the new build workforce and subsequent residential development in the new Riverside community.
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Post by alpinejohn on Aug 12, 2017 7:58:04 GMT
Mayor Khan announced yesterday, that from 2019, he wants to extend 4G cover (and possibly 5G ready) throughout the Tube and TFL (so presumably bus and Overground services too). This seems to follow on from the planned Elizabeth Line provision.
So is this really a good thing?
Am I the only one to wonder if providing passengers on the tube with a new distraction is a positive development - especially on already crowded platforms and escalators?
I also wonder if this initiative is less about "enhancing the customer offer" and more about tapping into a massive source of new funding.
Think about it - users (passengers) will presumably want the system to be free for users on their particular network - so effectively pointing to a fully common carrier system which will need to be funded, owned and run fairly and independently. However just like the above ground bidding wars for 4G wavelengths, mobile phone networks might engage in a furious bidding war if it allows them to exclusively own/install the underground systems, and to at least for a fixed period, prioritise or exclusively serve their own network customers and thereby putting their network at massive advantage going forward? Hopefully OFCOM will be watching this idea closely.
Being a bit of a luddite I admit that I rather enjoy the point near East Finchley when the Northern plunges underground ending all those annoyingly loud mobile phone calls. Stop this world I want to get off please.
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Post by alpinejohn on Aug 5, 2017 7:12:35 GMT
The Planning Inspectors report has some interesting detail on why this short line is going to cost so much.
An interesting observation in response to one of the objections - confirms that the line may eventually get 5 car trains if justified by demand. Given the "demand" linked to the proposed 10,000+ new homes at Riverside are still a good few years ahead, I hope that if 5 car trains is indeed TFL's plan, that then they find some way to suitably incentivise (bribe) the manufacturer to keep the production jigs to enable them to cost effectively create some additional trailers 10-15 years from now. It would be really sad if by the time TFL are ready to order the additional carriages for the line the infrastructure needed to build them has already been turned into tin cans.
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Post by alpinejohn on Aug 2, 2017 16:00:24 GMT
You are onto something there trt. As you and indeed I suspect Mayor Khan realise the real benefits for this project will fall to Watford and its environs, so if they really want better transport, then its their pocket that needs to find the missing cash for the current project to proceed.
Just reinstating the old Croxley Green line without the viaduct link seems an ill thought through plea to reinstate an economic Albatross which BR was very pleased to let wither on the vine. One might indeed speculate what really lies behind this idea emerging now. Did the planners give unwise assurances to developers about the new link to trigger the recent wave of new building near the proposed route?
Sadly the overheads of heavy rail means you need to be able to garantee it will see strong and predictable patronage to be viable - especially on a route which is largely doubled by a regular subsidised bus service which but for a few trips per day is rarely full. The fact some of the right of way may be available for free is only a marginal plus as clearly the old route is still going to need massive and costly renovation without the viaduct. Just look at some of the web-blogs and you will see much of the old infrastructure is in a dire state which in the current H&S environment cannot be sorted with a few gallons of weedkiller!
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Post by alpinejohn on Jul 30, 2017 5:35:25 GMT
I thought the plan was 2 wheelchair bays in each train? You may be right - that certainly reflects earlier reports in rail media. In the current financial climate the idea of committing to more work than strictly needed on fairly old rolling stock seems quite unlikely. I am sure that since the 72 stock were launched there have been a lot of technical developments especially in electrical gear. This may allow far more miniature equipment to perform the task which previously needed quite bulky equipment to be stored under seats, so by a combination of miniaturisation and juggling kit around within a car they could probably remove whatever is under a couple of seats on just one side of a car to create a flat space for wheelchairs or standees. I guess if they now think it is possible to do this trick in every car in the train the result would be a significant increase in the crush load standing passenger space even if it means reducing the seated capacity of each train. Certainly like most lines the 72's can be rammed during some peak hour journeys so perhaps this is what they intend rather than just a typo?
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Post by alpinejohn on Jul 26, 2017 8:06:27 GMT
I like the left field solution but in the current HSE environment I somehow doubt third rail will be even a temporary answer for GOBLIN especially as the rolling stock already on order for GOBLIN is designed for OHLE(over head line equipment).
However your out the box thought process does remind me of an interesting conspiracy theory perspective I heard recently. Perhaps one might suggest the NR delays are actually very intentional and specifically designed to kick the project beyond Brexit at which point the UK can take a fresh look at the current - arguably excessive electrical clearance/separation requirements and potentially adopt rather more UK suited solutions taking due account of the significantly tighter loading gauge on most UK routes. If permission for tighter clearances allows you to dump most of the massive cost of raising or replacing bridges or lowering track - suddenly a whole lot more electrification projects can be done affordably - not just GOBLIN.
Inherently there are numerous structures on the West Coast route where OHLE clearances are lower than currently required for new projects like GOBLIN and thus far I have yet to see any real evidence of staff or customers being killed or injured by these sub-standard installations (excluding the Darwin awards - train surfing imbecile).
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Post by alpinejohn on Jul 18, 2017 7:33:41 GMT
Whilst the "NR mess" view may indeed be justified - it raises a heap of consequential questions for users and does not absolve TFL from reworking their roll-out plan to reflect the new reality - this project is going to over-run and probably by many months if not years.
The current "TFL Planned Works Calendar" only shows a single GOBLIN closure this weekend with nothing else planned during the remaining weeks covered by the calendar(to mid October). This seems rather worrying. A trip down the line shows there is still masses of OHLE (Over Head Line Equipment)infrastructure missing/to go in, be suitably knitted together, tested, signed off and energised before any of the new electric trains can be brought into use to begin operator re-training over the route.
The only good news for GOBLIN was a report in one of the rail magazines that NR had somehow secured a waiver which means for now the limited clearance bridge will not need to be raised and the OHLE can indeed be safely threaded under the current bridge.
It will be interesting to see whether come Monday, the route is lined end to end by a forest of brand new OHLE masts ready for the knitting train to appear a week or two latter to install all the missing cabling and get the project back on target. Somehow I doubt it.
Sadly NR are getting so much grief about the delayed Great Western Mainline electrification project that it has now become their prime focus for staff and resources - and with diesels now operating again on GOBLIN, I suspect it has slipped towards the back of NR's priorities.
So do we know whether the current depots are physically capable of supporting operations of the existing fleet and storing an incoming tide of brand new and presumably much longer EMU units? Or will they be heading straight into temporary storage somewhere?
Does anyone know whether manufacture of the new EMUs is on time?
If the line is not ready is there scope for the new units to be temporarily redeployed? - It seems a waste to have brand new kit sitting idle especially as the manufacturer will presumably want to be paid on delivery - even if TFL have not got a line to use them on.
Once the OHLE is complete on the line, roughly how long will the staff retraining phase take, before GOBLIN can begin using the new EMUs in public service? I guess TFL will choose a soft launch for the new EMUs as most new kit seems to take a good few months to bed in, and for any teething problems to emerge and be fixed.
Interesting times ahead.
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