The New Circle

What did the DMI at the station show?

I've noticed that it seems to be more of this happening
recently
T161/2 spotted on my patch last week

Circle Line via Paddington, but it said Wimbledon on the blind. 2nd train was also Circle Line. Mine went into platform 3 at Ed Rd.

Wasn't the original T Cup/Extended Circle supposed to be Wimbledon-Hammersmith via Circle & back with just the Wimblewares covering Paddington to High St?

I was on a C stock with the new maps on saturday, and the Circle line was almost black on part of the map.

They must have changed a lot of them in the last couple of days, because on saturday, nearly all C stock that I saw had the old blinds.

It's probably just over half the fleet from what I've seen today. Given that many of the defective trains were fixed over night, opportunity may of course been taken to fit those (8) trains with new blinds as well as the scheduled stablers at Hammersmith.

Is this because they don't think they'll be needed for that long??

Management have cancelled all 5 day block refresher training for next week apparently. I wonder why that could be???!

Employee Comms sent a PDF of the revised Tube Map which now shows the Circle going to Hammersmith, and the River Thames.

Due to hit stations for display on the 11th December.

Noted today the "Circle Line via Aldgate" blind already being used despite the new blinds still having a plain "Circle Line" display.

Typcial H&C destination blind discipline (or lack of it) which has always been a problem on lines with short runs (viz ELL, Epping-Ongar, Hainault-Woodford).

What with earlier disruption at least half of the C Stock I saw at Farringdon had incorrect rear displays - Circles showing "Barking" or "Plaistow", H&C's with "Wimbledon" and District 07X set numbers.

Would it not be better to have rear screens turned to "blank" as a standard practice?

"Standard practice" is generally to change the rear end to the next destination before changing ends.

However, during disruptions where any train can make any other heading in the same direction, the very last thing we want happening is a further delay whilst the driver nips down the back and changes the blind there also. The benefits of doing so are far far outweighed by the delay caused (the train operator would, of course, be entitled to take up to 4 minutes each way. And the number of people who could see the rear of the train before they board it? Very few)

Come next week, all services will at some point within the next hour or so end up terminating, and all trains will then be updated back and front.

I don't think there is a single occasion - apart from where it involves a problem with the last 2 trains on a line - where I would have a train delayed in order to correct the rear number or blind.

But how often, except at a terminus, do intending passengers see the blind at the rear of a train?

As drivers we have had no guidance at all (at least not so far as i've been made aware) on what to describe our trains as so under the new timetable you will still see various descriptions I shouldnt wonder.

A number of drivers have said (in the messroom) that they are not prepared to keep changing the blind (some are very stiff, and since the installation of the so-called cab-cooling system it's easy to catch your knuckles on the thing that blows out air).

Another couple have (perhaps sensibly) said when they go around the inner rail, rather than use the "Circle Line to Hammersmith" description from Aldgate they will describe it as "Hammersmith via Paddington" so as not to confuse people who require Circle Line stations Bayswater and beyond who may have missed the miniscule "to Hammersmith" suffix. The same has been said of the "Circle Line to Edgware Road" description. If we use "Circle Line to Hammersmith", I have visions of Royal Oak and Westbourne Park being even busier than they are now with people crossing over to go back after realising they are on the wrong train!

Seeing as we've had no guidance on the subject - you can expect to see all sorts of different descriptions running about on the new timetable (summed up already by some drivers using the "via Aldergate" description, i've also seen Circles with the "to Edgware Road" suffix this week when they are running round!). Then of course there is also the possibility of drivers forgetting to change the blind 3 times per trip...

As for the 8 minutes, the agreed minimum time for a driver to change ends is 4 minutes. Therefore going there and back would be a minimum of 8 minutes.

Of course 8 minutes may not be enough to go one way on this new timetable when everybody is stopping to ask questions!!!

Finally, even though they have updated the blinds, they have failed to provide an updated sticker in the cab telling us the correct order of the destinations...

We try to educate all staff of the fact that our trains run forwards, and therefore anything at the back - apart from the tail lights - should be disregarded. The way in which we run our service is to utilise any train for any destination - obviously stocks cannot be mixed and matched.

To enable the rear of the train to become "valid" at all times would take one of the following:

1) Keep all trains on their exact paths throughout the day and do not re-number / divert anything. This would cause some pretty horrific gaps post-peak.

2) Get drivers to change the number and destination blind at both ends, regardless of location, whenever we reform the service. Minimum 8 minute shutdown for some of these requests.

3) Spend huge amounts of money on a fleet of trains that won't be with us in a few years, and give them electronic destination and number displays.

4) Educate everyone - customers included - that the rear of the train is just that. It's been and gone. If you're seeing the rear of the train, 9 times out of 10 it's because you've missed the train. Therefore why worry where it's going - you're not on it. Our dot matrix displays always show a destination, or they show "Check FRONT of train for destination. I have yet to come across one which says "Check rear of train for where the train went earlier, and try and guess where it's going now."

5) Let's just get over the whole rear of train thing. Next week it will be hard enough to work out where each train is heading let alone where it's been. Next we'll be discussing what should be shown on the middle cab.

As for turning blinds to a BLANK, this was tried and later removed by some smart person a few years back. It was deemed that the rear of the train should show something clearly (even if it was wrong), rather than nothing or a blind that was wound to halfway between 2 displays.