Drawback to TBTC?

Power failures cause suspensions on all lines!

I do suspect that it'd be a power failure at NSCC that's caused it, if that's the problem, though!

One speculating may link the two together...

No service for the rest of the night now between West Hampstead-Stratford....thats confirmed by service control.

This also affected the première of Arthur at the O2 which led to journalists and guests using the Clipper service and local Greenwich bus routes to get home!

Yea - the rest of us were on the boat from Waterloo!

AIUI from the canteen it was a traction earth problem at Canning Town that knocked out the entire traction section thus zilch to do with TBTC power or NSCC power. It does fit in with the ES report of some kind of cover falling out of place. Going into speculation mode, something hanging from a train could have caused damage in several locations, or multiple earthc, in turn a need for complete inspection ? Of tracks and trains too.

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Nick

The BBC's report :
"Colin Howard, London Underground's Chief Operations Officer, said"
Dont they mean Howard Collins? ;D

And of course Boris thinks its totally unacceptable again
De ja Vu?

I'd imagine that 2 hours included a lot of waiting time!

Possible DD forum information in todays Sub-Standard? About the reversing facility?

Thry do seem to take much longer dealing with problems than was the case a few years ago. On the Central yesterday, the train at Leyton which had the fire alert caused a suspension of service between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone. Fair enough, the issue needed to be investigated by the LFB. But the service message was misleading, stating that the service was only suspended between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone. This implies that passengers could get at least as far as Leytonstone, but trains were just held in platforms on the approach to Leytonstone for over 40 minutes, at least on the outer rail of the Hainault loop.

It is now common practice to hold trains in platforms and then move them up a station at a time when there is a problem ahead. I agree with this, since it is far better than letting trains sit in tunnels. But, it seems, they don't always act quickly enough to reverse teains, and get them out of the way.

Service update 18:31 just come in:
Suspended between London Bridge and Stratford, with severe delays on the rest of the line due to a faulty train at Canary Wharf.
Ouch.

Probably.

Last time I was down Stratford Market Depot we were getting a train out of one of the shed roads and the I/Op basically said something along the lines of hoping for the best when he was starting the train up. That's all very well – the TMS will only ever make so many alarms about so many problems. If it is something like a cover about to fall off, the TMS probably wont say anything until the last possible moment!

One of the worst things about TBTC I think is the fact that trains are allowed to draw up so close, even when there are such serious problems. I thought the whole point of TBTC and splitting the line up into 5 areas was so that if one section is affected, a shuttle service could run in the remaining sections. At least that's what they sold to me in training. When you're supposed to book off at 2225 and you're still on the front of that train 4-5 hours later, I'd certainly be asking questions. Detrainments shouldn't be taking 2 hours either – if there is a problem, recognise it and deal with it. I don't understand why LU feels the need to pretend they're not there and reprimand those who decided to take action for the sake of the passengers.

As for Boris; part of the problem with him is that he believes what his people/advisors tell him, regardless of whether or not those things are true. A few colleagues and myself happened to have a word with him when he was passing through the station and he seemed genuinely concerned about the issues we were raising and fired an email to the line manager asking him to sort it out. Next thing I know, the duty managers are down on us, telling us that we should be keeping schtum about our issues! It makes me angry how we're not allowed to be transparent, let alone honest, about real issues in this company without being reprimanded..

While senior managers spending time on the front line is a very good thing, doing it incognito is much harder than one might expect.

In about 1999 I was temping, and one of the jobs I did was four days in corporate hospitality at Royal Ascot (I was behind the scenes basically just opening bottles of champaign and finding ice to keep it cold). There was one person there who was a "trainee manager", and aside from the camera crew following him round (for "Back to the Floor" I think) it was obvious that he wasn't (he knew too much about some things and not enough about others).
I didn't know any of my colleagues and didn't know anything about the job - the same can hardly be said for LU station staff, so it will be even harder for him, especially as at least some staff will recognise him.

Even spending a shift with a CSA without pretending to be who he isn't would open his eyes though. I spent about 10 minutes early afternoon yesterday chatting to the staff member on the gateline at Highbury and Islington. Even in that short a time you start to see what the job entails, and from other occasions I've spent chatting to other staff I know that I didn't see anything of significance.

Personally, I think that every senior manager should as a matter of routine, spend an absolute minimum of one shift per month on the front line and be treated as if they were any other member of that grade (including pay). Don't roster them as additional staff (if possible) so that they don't get a false impression. Obviously you can't make someone a t/op in that limited amount of time, but they should shadow a t/op from the start of a shift to the end of it - if the jobs goes up the wall and the t/op doesn't make it back to the depot until two hours after they were due to finish then the same goes for the senior manager (and they don't get any more opportunities to phone their partner to tell them they'll be late than does the t/op). Not just senior managers, every manager should do the same.

Additionally, for every board and senior management meeting one member of frontline staff from each discipline (e.g. 1 from stations, one from trains, one from a depot, etx) should be randomly selected to give a presentation on how it is on the front line so there is no filtering (see below, with apologies for the language) through the ranks.

You were probably looking at me standing on the platform at Shadwell DLR station at about 6.30 last Thursday evening. I had got on at Canary Wharf to go to Holborn, through Bank, but the DLR train stopped every minute until it got to Shadwell, when after a further long wait a thoroughly incoherent announcement said we should all get out. Even after we had done this, and our train had gone on with no passengers to somewhere, the train that was sat right behind waited several minutes before coming in to the platform. In the end I went to Tower station and the Circle Line.

A couple of things about the DLR (probably written in the wrong place). Firstly, when the Jubilee line breaks down (daily occurrence last week), then within 30 minutes the DLR, supposedly an alternative to Canary Wharf, is quite overwhelmed and comes to a stop. Not just crowded, but stops working (like this example). Secondly the announcements made at such times are so useless and unhelpful, even more so than on the proper underground. I wonder why this is.

Oh, by the way, when I got to Holborn I finally met, being late of course, with friends visiting from Russia, in one of those hotels in Southampton Row. It was the end of their week's visit. They were absolutely amazed at the disorganisations they had encountered on the London Underground, compared to their many years of experience of the Metro in Russia.