TBTC Testing

One message triggered by the new train TBTC computer, the other from the original train management system (TMS) which still annouces next station based on a crude timer.

Until the TMS software gets updated the dual annoucements are here to stay :-(

How about smaller trains then, allowing a walk-way to be built in the existing tunnels? Much cheaper

See my post in the "Central line ATP" thread. You need an unoccupied block between the trains with the Central line system.

The deskilling to me is quite scary as drivers will no longer really need to have an intimate knowledge of the line they work on. In TBTC manual mode the computer will display exactly how fast they can go right down to its method of stopping in stations. Route knowledge for drivers - signal locations, numbers, gradients, speed limit changes will be a thing of the past.

I wonder how much route knowledge DLR CSA's have because as I understand it they can be trained up in just 8 weeks and their role is similar to a Jubilee/Central line T/Op with the exception that they have to do customer service and ticket checks as well.

Hmm. Im not sure I believe you with this. The Wednesday before last I travelled on the Jubilee from Westminster to Kilburn and it raced into stations like on the Victoria/Central. Fast forward to this week and everything is at snail's pace. I'm certain that last Wednesday the trains were in ATO mode.

[quote Hmm. Im not sure I believe you with this. The Wednesday before last I travelled on the Jubilee from Westminster to Kilburn and it raced into stations like on the Victoria/Central. Fast forward to this week and everything is at snail's pace. I'm certain that last Wednesday the trains were in ATO mode.[/quote]

I don't see why you shouldn't believe it. When not in ATO don't the drivers get given a target speed - fast or slow? The Jubilee seems prone to gaps building in the service at the moment, probably because the old system is still in use north of Dollis Hill. When I got on at Bond Street once, I'm sure the train was in ATO - the driver was standing up looking out of the front the front window that is away from the controls. THere was quite a gap between the following services. The train didn't go very fast but by the time I'd reached Canada Water, the gaps had been magically evened out. Once the whole line has gone over to the new system, and once the bugs have been ironed out, you'll probably get performance like the central/victoria

Is there no incentive to install TBTC across the network? With the exxception of the Central and Victoria a standardized ATO system could be used. Even the Central could be converted to TBTC when new stock arrives and I understand this will be sooner than otherwise expected. It would also require only one system to be installed on the sections of track shared by the Piccadilly and District/Metropolitan.

Been away for a few days, which started (unusually for me) with a morning rush hour trip on the Jubilee Line on Monday, from Canning Town to Waterloo. Now as many of the team in our office had been badly held up on two of the four workdays of the previous week, I had some hope that things might be settling down and showing the benefits of the new signals we have all waited years to enjoy.

Down to the platform at Canning Town, larger crowd than normal, trains in 1, 7 and 8 minutes, so notably uneven (much more frequent going the other way). Eventually in comes the train, absolutely packed, can't have been one for a long time. Try at three doors before an appeal for space (I'm only small) gets me squeezed in to one of the single doors. PA announcement being made "If you can't board, another one right behind". Now I know my English is not perfect at times, but "right behind" does not seem to describe a train now showing as 6 minutes (which of course is only theory as it cannot have started its journey from Stratford yet). And surely after such an interval that will be equally packed. After several such announcements, and more than a minute waiting, the last time it is said there is a subtle change, to "... right behind [loudly], er - 5 minutes [sotto voce]".

So we eventually closed the doors, leaving many behind, and even more eventually started off. Of course when we got to North Greenwich, where it is mostly attempts to get in rather than out, there were notably more left behind there. At each station our driver, poor girl, has to announce (twice) the doors are closing, then there is some delay before they do close, and more delay before starting.

A announcement is made, after we start, a second later the brakes go on, and then we start again, that we are not to lean on the doors. Excuse me, but how do we avoid this when the passengers around me do little steps of readjustment and we are all squished against every surface inside?

Canary Wharf is an exodus, not as many as I would expect, and quite a few get in. After Canada Water we are as packed as ever. I notice that at every station we leave people behind, London Bridge being the worst.

It seems to have taken many minutes longer than normal to get here (in fact so much so I miss my first choice of main train and have to fall back on the second one). Notice the platform going the other way is packed, people queueing back from it towards the escalators. Up the escalators, notice absolutely nobody coming down. When we get to the top we see the barriers closed and many, many hundreds waiting to get through. The escalators on up into the main railway staton are sealed off so I have to go out into the street and walk around to another entrance. Good thing I know the way.

So that's life on the Jubilee Line a few weeks after all the investment is turned on. Yes, the trains are slower than they used to be (especially getting the doors closed and starting) and are less regular. As others write, yes, they do jiggle around with the brakes on-off-on-off (great when you can't even reach one of the handrails). Yes, I noticed too they don't line up as well with the doors on the platforms as well as when the drivers did it themelves (train seems to stop a bit too soon). Yes, many people are left behind on platforms.

And this is what we had four years of no weekend trains for. Oh well, only another eight years to wait for Crossrail to come through.

+1

(and no, I haven't mis-posted from the Quiz section!)

I have to say that I'm still with Diana on this: it's people like her that experience it first hand when things go wrong: having 8-minute gaps between trains in rush hour, people being left behind from platforms or even stations and then having to pay for this privilege. If there were any private companies that gave service like that, they'd probably be out of business by now. That said, I'm certainly not attaching blame to the front-end staff who have borne the brunt of the problems for the last few years.

I assume Diana's point was to balance out the (perhaps?) too positive view of the upgrade now that it's seemingly permanently live and give it from a daily user's point of view. Hopefully the people in charge of implementing the upgrade are noticing what Diana and other have said about gaps in the service, lining up the PEDs properly, arbitrary speed restrictions for no apparent reason and trying to rectify it, etc. Even drivers on the Jub pointed out that at present it's probably no faster end-to-end, but does have potential to be good. Let's hope that 'they' are also learning huge lessons for the Northern upgrade, which I doubt it very far down the road (and in a thread somewhere a couple of years ago I offered to give someone on the forum my house if it was completed for the then target of the Olympics ).

One could argue that people are attacking the system not the disease, but who else is there to hold accountable? No one.

But Diana, you can say good things occasionally too.

sw206 is right. This project is very, very difficult. You start with an old system (LU standard signalling) that was modified with Westinghouse additions for PEDs and future ATO, you add a different contractor (Alcatel) to put in the control equipment at Neasden, you then change the management at LU (company plan) and then do it again with the PPP, you then split the engineering on the same railway (Metronet and Tube Lines) and then you introduce a new signalling contractor (Thales) to supply the ATO and the same contractor but different division to resignal Neasden depot but to a different spec. and you change the management again halfway through the project (Tube Lines bought by TfL). Then you've got "old" trains to retrofit whilst in service (oh and you lengthen them in the middle of this). You try to do all this whilst running a train service and then you wonder why you get problems. You couldn't have made this up. I think the people trying to get all this to work deserve our support, even if they don't always get it from their political management.

Eventually is the word for it unless they sort out platform entry speeds. It took 2 minutes from "train approaching" to train berthed in platform at Canning Town westbound last night. Previously this would be closer to 30 seconds.
Speeds into PED stations didn't seem so bad, but un-edged platforms felt glacial.

Perhaps if you've been reading through this thread rather than bickering you might understand that the old system is still in use on part of the Jubilee Line hence the gaps in service and that some trains are running in TBTC and some are in ATO hence the differences.

The system isn't complete until late spring 2011 according to TFL so please, useful books like the one you just wrote are best written to TFL.

Additionally, there is a "Rant Area" on this forum, I think you would be better off creating a thread in their about the Jubilee Line.

Cheers.



It won't be sooner than expected. They will be used for 35 years which is the Design Life.

Why else would they have just spent millions of pounds on the new Siemens bogies (I prefer the term subframes)? Additionally the new windows, lighting, seats, end of carriage panels including windows etc.

Which could equally be a sign of a culture of incompetence?

Still it will be nice when the new system is up and running, and we can all get on a tube at Canada Water without waiting for 3 to go past, absolutely packed (and the tubes at Canada Water in rush hour are as busy as anywhere - there literally is no space to squeeze anyone in at many of the doors as they were packed at London Bridge, and filled more at Bermondsey). This is particularly a problem now with all the Overground passangers coming.

And it would be nice when getting to canary wharf that the platform doors would open every time, rather than leaving you pulling at them desperately