Harrow-on-the-Hill - New Train Describers

The light boxes were totally not working even when a train was due with green signal.

Drawings suggest the light boxes are due to go. Shame in a way but of course they don't show more than one train, nor the time until its arrival.
Location of the new DMIs has them hidden behind the light boxes when you come down the stairs, so the light boxes must be going surely.

Was it a permanent fault or just a 'feature' that Chesham as the destination couldn't show Not Stopping at North Harrow to Northwood, but Amersham could?

Sorry to see the old displays go.

About 10 years ago some football fans smashed one of the panels at the top of the stairs.

I got a temporary repair done with perspex and opaque vinyl on the inside.

This was supposed to be there until a new glass panel was made. Should have taken a few weeks.

The perspex was still there the last time I was used the station.

I do hope that these will go to Acton.

1960/61 I believe. Certainly that was when the current train described system was installed on the Met line.

Thanks for the photo Knap.

Interesting that it merely states "Chiltern Railways Service". Presumably the system is unable to differentiate where the Chiltern is going beyond Amersham?

Until the route is selected by the signaller for which platform the train will go into the system does not know which platform it should display the information so as belt and braces it will show it on the other platform

Earls Court works in the same way but it leaves the platform number blank until the route is selected except if a train is coming from High St Ken or West Brompton

I would think that when they were setup in the 1960s there were only two through trains each way per day (in the rush hours) to Chesham. The rest of the day the shuttle did the service. There was no need to show alternatives as they were always fast to Moor Park.

I cannot recall whether before then there were train describers at HOTH. It was actually quite simple way back then, brown trains went to Watford, red trains went to Uxbridge and if there was a loco on the front it was Aylesbury fast to Moor Park! Steam trains from platform 1 went to the wilds beyond Aylesbury. At least that was the general idea, at times of disruption it did go all wrong and involved a lot of shouting, announcements and running about!

John

Yes there was the occasional Brown train to Uxbridge, mostly I think to cover for stock shortages. I don't think that it was regularly timetabled, but maybe one particular train for a few days.
When I travelled via HOTH to Pinner on the old stock pre-widening, if a train ran into Plat 3 then it had to go up the mainline, there was then no crossover from P3 to the Uxbridge line, but P4 could run to the mainline. P4 was usually for the Uxbrige 'red train' service. If a 'brown train' tipped up in P4 there would be lots of shouts of 'Is this for Watford?'.

The first picture shows the display on platform 1 showing a Chesham service. At the same time platform 3 also showed the second train was for Chesham (2nd blurred picture). Platform 1 then just showed "London Underground" then showed Chiltern service. (3rd picture). It listed the stations the train would call at through to Chalfont & Latimer then said "and all stations from Amersham". So not saying if train is for Aylesbury or Aylesbury Vale Parkway.

Platform 2 does not have a display. The only place you can go to from platform 2 is Marylebone but perhaps it would be useful for passengers to know a train is due and also details of trains not to board (rusty rail services) or during engineering when trains can reverse.

I understand the limitations of the systems cause the problems plus the different systems used by TFL and Network Rail. But it can be confusing for the non regular passenger.

Why don't the displays just say (All) or (Semi-fast) next to the destinations like at displays on the Met Line?

Incidentally, a while back now, some electronic bus information was installed in Harrow Bus Station. I hope these recent improvements is a sign of things to come.

After reading the comments here, I cannot see how these new describers are an improvement unless they can accurately show the destination, stopping pattern and platform. It seems that the only real benefit is the time to arrival seeing as the same train could be displayed on platform 1 and 3 etc. Hopefully these are just teething problems.

Whilst they are far more modern, the old light boxes were far easier to read at a distance as you could often tell what was being displayed due to the position of the words displayed.

Is it not possible to have the light boxes work in conjunction with the new describers? Earls Court manages this just fine?