Eastbound train describer at Hammersmith

I had exactly that explanation from a friend of mine who's a Central Line driver.

But after I had mulled it over I realised it didn't really answer the question.

Whilst I understand that the system is not particularly sophisticated and I've always told people that there are ordinary minutes and 'London Underground' minutes, this doesn't explain several aspects of what is happening, here.

1) Why does the indicator always initially say it is an Upminster train when it is frequently not?

2) Why does the time disappear first before the whole message vanishes. (In the same way as it does at most other station directly before the train appears.)

3) How does the phantom train manage to completely vanish from the system. i.e. the train that eventually arrives has a different destination and appears to be 4/5 minutes further back down the line.

4) As there seems to be a 'reporting point' that yields a 'within 4 minutes' message, why does the phantom train never trigger this?

5) Why does the 'real' train - the one that arrives roughly within the specified time - never trigger the "1 Min" message. It always goes directly from "within the next x mins" to "train approaching".

6) Why have LU never done anything about this recurring fault that persistently gives passengers entirely spurious information. (It's particularly annoying if you are unaware of the problem because it can mean that you don't catch a Piccadilly Line train and change at South Ken because you expect a train that will get you directly to Victoria within a minute.)

Everyone else knows that you lot are too busy getting up to rumpty-pumpty to need or want a train anytime soon.

I wouldn't rely on GPS, either - here in SWT territory, for some weeks, we were told that the Portsmouth train in which we were sitting was for Goring-on-sea...

Well at long last Barking has got train indicators, which can show the next three trains on the eastbound, the signs are on both platforms as trains open doors on both sides (except for trains going into Barking sidings).

Not sure how many trains can be shown on the westbound platform.

So if I understand you correctly the system is triggered when a train passes Turnham Green, but is set to tell hemmersmith the train is one minute away, and then times down to zero - although the train will proibably only be at Stamford Brook by then.

But what if there is another train already between TG and Hammersmith? Is this lost to the system as soon as the next train kicks in at TG? Or does it pop up again nearer Hammersmith and overwrite the one that was triggered at TG?

The cable was replaced around 2003 / 2004 T/D drums still exsist we have at Earls Court for trains coming up from Parsons Green and another at Turnham Green for trains coming up from Gunnersbury. The only spares for these are coming from the Northern Line as they are getting some new system. The east end of the District has a new PLC system yet to work 100% whilst from Whitechapel its back onto the convential system with code holding sets recievers etc. The recievers a Hammersmith have the ability to hold 99 trains (from memory) and the dot matrix system just gets it info from the main train describer equipment as its basically over layed onto it. The way you have described your problems with the boards at Hammersmith is in such the way it is designed but there should not be any phantom train but the steps in which you have stated is correct. Other sites on the line except the newer boards or the east end of the line all use the same equipment to power and control the board hence they will show the next 3 trains and the actual minutes when triggered by various track circuits. The only fault on them signs recently was that the E/B Picc sign was showing a Earls Court (District T/D) instead of a Arnos Grove. With Hammersmith to reboot the system all 4 platforms power down and after approx 4 minutes spring back into life, only trouble is when this is happening you may find the boards will show phatom trains until it picks the right one up again. And if the T/D is wrong at Hammersmith for what ever reason its not the signaller who puts it right it will be the programme machine (automatic signaller) actually changing it. When these signs do failure / show wrong info station staff do report these and usually it just takes the reboot to kick it back into life again but if its more then that usually it will be fixed by the next day. Its very rare for signs to be not working for days but Mile End W/B was faulty for approx 3 months whilst aquiring a spare part remember the dot matrix system itself is over 25 years old in most places and things do break.

@ rdm

Turnham Green w/b > I think that semaphore board was still there in 1965/6 at least. There were only 4 possible destinations on it (2 were obviously Richmond & E Bdy) and l cannot remember 2 of them but they might have been Northfields & Hounslow West. They were then worked by a very pretty young lady, new to the job, who, as you say, had to look for the headlight code as the train approached then pull the correct semaphore arm down accordingly. E/b was a lightbox, l feel certain

Yes, that's cropped up a few times. Always gets a few funny looks from the passengers!

The Northfields description is usually for a Richmond train it comes up as it has lost a code cant remember exactly which one but say a Richmond is AB then a Northfields is A hence lost the B code. What signallers used to do down the east end would be for a Circle which stated at Barking if it was going via Tower Hill it would be given a Putney Bridge or if it was going via Liverpool Street give it a Baker Street description. It would be the same as a Olympia train it would be given a Putney Bridge description because the system has never had a Olympia programmed into it but this could only be changed at Earls Court to Olympia it would of been given a Putney Bridge just so the programme machnes would route the train in FCFS (First Come First Serve) mode as this purely works off the trains description.

More then likely to be scrapped they weigh a fair bit