TBTC Testing

I was referring to the passenger service TBTC testing that was supposed to happen today.

Can TBTC somehow affect old signalling too? It seems to me that recently trains started to run much faster between Baker Street and Bond Street (southbound).

It shouldn't take as long as it did with the Central to get the ATO up and running. On the Central the ATO was a completely separate box on the train that needed to have its software sorted out after the ATP was up and running.

With the Jubilee the ATP and ATO are integrated into one box on the train so ATO operation, that has already had some good test results, should be out in passenger service quite soon.

That was Saturday, we went on it on Sunday. Is this the first time with the new signals?

Train came into Canning Town, we boarded, then a delay of about 2 minutes before departure. Not a very auspicious start.

Couple of things we noticed along the way. Firstly there seems a distinct hesitancy now between the train stopping and the doors being released. maybe about 5 seconds per station. Multiply that by the number of stations along the Jubilee and you get quite a delay. A more trivial aspect is that all the Next Station announcements are now made twice, not once.

From approaching Southwark to arriving at Waterloo took us between 10 and 15 minutes. Stopped twice in the tunnel before Southwark, and then a long delay at the platform as well. So the total travel time to Waterloo alone was way longer than it normally is. And now we have to trudge on indirectly to the West End.

Not putting up with that again on the way home. Came back on the District and the DLR.

I am just surprised that the "successful" weekend seems at variance with each of the detailed descriptions of journeys given above. Did this conclusion come from the "Good Service" message department?

But then if "successful" includes a three hour late start, which completely disrupts anybody who had to get to their work on that day, I suppose further comments are superfluous.

Believe me when I say, If you had seen how many failures there were when trial ops first started, you would deem this weekend just gone a success!

Although it may not seem that way to passengers, southernrover is right, even a couple of months ago the (relatively) small number of minutes of delays clocked up over the weekend would have been unthinkable. Although I admit there's some way to go yet before you would want to let the TBTC loose on a weekday morning peak service.......

SRS = Schedule Regulation Server.

To me, CMS is 'Content Management System' - in its simplest form, used to power websites (CMSs in this sense include e107 and Wordpress, but there are others!)

Am curious to know how the experience of TBTC was this weekend... An improvement on last Sat I hope?

No trains ran in TBTC passenger service this gone weekend.

There wouldn't happen to be TBTC testing today in service would there? There seems to be a constant stream of signal failures or failed trains today.

Just keeping you all up to date with our weekend rides on the Jubilee. Here we go this afternoon, off from Canning Town to Bond Street

Came down from the DLR onto the Jubilee platform at Canning Town, and noticed some long intervals, like more than 10 minutes, in the frequency. Anyway, eventually the train comes in, we all board, and it sits there.

Then comes the splendid moment. A lady on the PA makes an announcement that train services this weekend are suspended beyond Waterloo. This is immediately followed by a gentleman on the PA announcing that due to a problem at Waterloo, trains are suspended beyond London Bridge. At the end of that the driver makes an announcement to us all that due to this issue further along the line, the trains will be turning round at North Greenwich.

You have to admit that having three separate announcements, each with a different message about how far trains can get, is something unusual.

The sensible thing to do now was get out and go the other way up to Stratford, so we can get the Central Line from there. Next train to Stratford in 11 minutes. So a good chunk of the afternoon spent admiring the Canning Town surroundings.

When we get out at Bond Street we hear that because of a "signal failure", the Jubilee Line was now suspended between North Greenwich and Stratford. Just missed that then.

Sat having a chat with my hairdresser, in a place near Bond Street. She lives down towards Crystal Palace, poor girl, and so comes to work through London Bridge. Except not at weekends it seems. Said she was fed up with the constant disruption to her coming to work at weekends, with no Jubilee Line, and was thinking of changing jobs as she can see no end to it.

So it seems the "new signals" means no service to get to the West End at weekends until goodness knows when, inability to put out meaningful non-conflicting messages any longer, worse handling of problems when they arise, disorganisation whenever I try and travel, and people having to quit their jobs. You boys (it must be men) who put this whole scheme together should be ashamed to draw your salaries every month.

For the first time in my life today I got off a tube train because I wasn't enjoying the 'environment'. I took the Overground from Shoreditch High Street to Canada Water where there was a Jubilee Line train waiting to take me back to my hotel at Waterloo.

I walked the length of the train twice whilst it was sat in the platform; trying to find a doorway with space for me on the train. An announcement was made that the train was being held because of "blocking back for a reversing train at Waterloo".

After a little while the train left (with me squished into a doorway) we stopped on the approach to London Bridge, waited at London Bridge, waited a bit longer, got a bit hotter.

Set off, stopped. Set off again, stopped. Set off again, slowed, stopped *very* prompty#. Waited. Waited. Felt sick. Waited. Moved. Stopped. Moved. Felt even sicker. Stopped at Southwark. Dived off the train. By the time I got off I felt so queasy I decided to 'surface' and walk the last bit to where I am staying.

All the public information proclaimed there to be a "good service" on the Jubilee; I didn't feel "good". I fully accept that there needs to be trial operations, but IMHO it seemed that either:

1) The signalling couldn't cope with the timetable
2) The timetable wasn't written with the signalling in mind.

Either of these points I would have though would have been identified during the period(s) of non-passenger trial running.

PK

#as promptly as when I was on a MerseyRail service that passed a signal at red and was (intentionally) tripped.