Staffing on the W&C

All drivers are from Leytonstone and also drive on the Central line. Actually, its not a bad little line to work on, not just sat in a dark cab in a tunnel for stop after stop after stop. Its nice to talk with passengers, build bonds with them and have opportunity to get out ;-)

Leytonstone has two Mafias, mostly the W&C is worked by people who want to work there but all Leytonstone drivers have to go down the Drain every six months to keep their licences in date and it is their responsibility to make sure they are licensed. A while ago we had a driver who refused to go down the Drain as a spare because they'd not worked there for 6 months and their licence was out of date, since then the managers have been pretty hot on making sure we keep up to date on the W&C

I managed to avoid working on the W&C for the first three years after I moved from White City, then this bloke ruined things......

The worst was we were SAs at Stratford together and he was always dodging shifts he didn't like back them

Also no ATP, it's all tripcock and train stops down there

It's quite a unique line in terms of operation and how it runs. Duties in general run along with a driver driving upwards of 2 trains a duty, on the longer lines it's generally one train in each side of meal relief. On the W&C line a driver could switch up to 16 trains in one half of driving. Trains come in and out thick and fast so you need to be quick on the ball. In peaks when we start stepping back, we have single step backs at bank and double step backs at the depot, on top of that there are the shunts on and off 3 road, then possible reformations when trains start to creep into minus time (running late, though the passengers never experience any delays due to this). Day to day running of the service is generally carried out by the drivers, with little to no interference from managers. The manager in attendance is the DRM.

Do the drivers still walk the line on a weekend to check the fire and safety equipment like the B.R waterloo drivers used do?

In BR days, we always tried to staff the W&C off the Salisbury diagrams to ensure that no one got bored, and when we handed it over to LT, they used the Central for the same purpose, because it had a high percentage of surface running as well as similar stock (although I seem to recall on this site that there were actually some technical differences - to do with braking?)

I seem to remember someone telling me that when LU took over the W&C the drivers were based at Elephant & Castle because it was the closest depot, it was only later that Leytonstone took over although the Bakerloo Line managers remained until they were replaced by DRMs in 2010 (or there abouts).

What is a Mafia?

I doubt it - the timetable shows trains taking three or four minutes (not two*) to make the one way journey. Allowing a minute for dwell time at each end that means a round trip time of nine minutes - meaning, with two single tracks, a frequency of every 4 and a half minutes or 13tph. The current timetable has frequencies down to every three minutes, or 20tph , using five trains.

The layout at Waterloo very much less than ideal for running alternate departures from different platforms.

The line is almost a mile and a half long - a two minute journey would imply a start to stop average speed of 45 mph. This seems unlikely to be achievable given the tight curves at Waterloo end and, in particular, at the mid-point of the line, unless everyone is strapped in - which would increase dwell times somewhat.

This is the sort of mathematical problem you get when you apply to work on London Underground.

A train leaves the platform at Waterloo, it takes three minutes to get to Bank, two minutes dwell time, three minutes to Waterloo, two minutes dwell time then off again to Bank.  That's a ten minute "rounder", with only two trains that's one train every 5 minutes with passengers having to troop across over the bridge from one platform to the other if they miss a train.

With the current system we have a five train service leaving every 2.5 minutes using separate platforms for arrivals and departures at Waterloo.

Congratulations, you've just halved the service!

Conversion - 60kph is 37mph, 45mph is 72kph. And note that to achieve an average of 45mph/72kph you need a maximum speed somewhat higher.

aslefshrugged - Interesting - LU definitely told me about the integration with the Central crew at the time I handed the line over to them but perhaps it took a while (and no doubt some negotiation*) to implement.

norbitonflyer There was some competition amongst the Jehus to see who could do the trip fastest. With the 1940 stock, I was told the best that could be achieved on a straight run (ie not using the Bank crossover) was 3m 35 sec. Not a comfortable ride, perhaps. Not sure what the record was with the current stock - probably around 3m 10. BTW, there was a spoof (?) "Railway Performance" article in the Railway Magazine c1956 which produced a table of comparative runs on the line of mostly around the 4m mark.

*A syndicate/mafia boss would have greatly interested ex-BR staff.

Not forgetting the stepping down of speeds into Bank platforms, falling from 40kph to 10kph and 15kph to 10kph