Can Power be uped on TBTC?

Ok people, hopefully we can put this one to bed.

I have sifted through all of the literature that was issued to us in Service Control, and nowhere does it mention "slowing trains down to lose/keep to time between stations."

The whole TBTC system is concentrated about maximising line capacity by being able to "automatically" control each train. The speed of each train is governed by several factors, including the current line speed, the distance of the train ahead, approaches to stations and/or crossovers, temporary speed restrictions, etc.etc. Thus by being able to control the speed accurately, trains are able to be run at much closer distances, which means more trains can be run on each section of line.

If you have done a section of line at xx speed, and yet another day did it at yy speed, it has nothing whatsoever with timekeeping, but is related to the other factors which can lead to speed reduction or, indeed, increase.

The control "loops" which form the track-based communication control with each train are purely a modern method of signalling - that is they communicate how far ahead of each train the line is clear. There is no capacity within the loops to tell a train it is running early or late with regard to the timetable. Regulation is done in controlled areas along the line, with the use of platform station starters.

Of course, should anyone have information to the contrary I would be very interested to see it, as indeed some of my colleagues would.

Metcontrol - not sure why your material doesn't touch on this. It maybe that it was felt the regulation bit was more important for the Jubilee signallers and your material focused on the interaction between Jubilee and Met. I'll have a read through on Monday and see if we need to add anything.

TBTC can definitely regulate trains against the timetable, as a later post says, by way of the System Regulation Server part of TBTC. When a train arrives at a station its journey time to the next station is calculated to allow it to arrive on time and a suitable velocity issued to it. Note the calculation is made as the train arrives so if it subsequently has an extended dwell time the train will still use the same velocity, probably making it slightly late and the system will then recalculate and either reduce the dwell (but not below a specified minimum) or speed the train up for the next station to station run.

Whilst the timetable still has a little slack in it compared to achievable run times there will still be some slower runs between stations if trains are predicted to run early (but often on the system at Neasden you can see a whole line worth of trains within 2 to 3 seconds of perfect on time running with zero intervention from staff).