Hammersmith Dot Matrix Boards

You're glad, I'm glad, and I'll bet a pound to a penny that the commuters who regularly use that platform are extremely glad - particularly if there are delays on the District, and they want to go further than Earl's Court.

Is the new DMI a wide one or the slimmer variant?

Westbound has received the same treatment

And on the WB Picc, we would call the signaller if the description of our train was incorrect at Hammersmith. Over the past few days with the new equipment, it has been wrong more than right. Fortunately, the station staff call the correct destination either from the description on the front of the train or from Trackernet but is confusing. There is a standard announcement at Hammersmith and Barons Court stating that the description may be wrong and to check the front of the train.

I love the train describer at Barons Court WB. It amuses me to see that 95% of the time, it is completely wrong!

At Hammersmith yes

The described at SK has been broken for at least 7 years; nobody appears to be in a hurry to fix it, I'm surprised it hasn't been removed.

In the good old days with guards and platform staff, westbound trains would often be announced at Earls Court and Hammersmith as "this train f'Kew and Richmond".

Spot on as always

It may well have been updated, but they didn't actually make the data worse, it simply didn't improve. (I'm not even sure what, if anything, they had before the refurb.)

I just know that since I started using the station in the late eighties there has always been a problem of a lack of useful information when there are delays on the district line - hence the problem is ~ 30 years old.

It's particularly unfortunate at Hammersmith (and Baron's Court) as being aware that there is a long delay on the District can allow you to relatively easily use an alternative route and avoid missing connexions.


And on a general point; why would a station refurbishment affect the accuracy of the train describers? Surely that is something that depends on the signalling, not the aesthetics of the environment.

I would imagine that TD Converters are Train Describer converter unit.

As for the PIMS unit, it goes down well with lemonade.

(My background tells me that if it ends with an S it's for System...)

Passenger Information Management System

New train describers are long overdue but it's not really satisfactory to find the same problems exist with these as with the earlier dot matrix displays. If anything, these are even worse from a user's point of view. And that is what they are for, the paying customer/passenger.

The new displays carry more information, but the display screens and consequently the font is too small and the locations of the signs are simply careless.

London Underground trades hard on it's legacy of good signage and clear typefaces, but it seems not very much has been passed down.
The current standards of signage, from in carriage maps, to train describers, is a reflection on poor understanding of typography and no doubt, intervention by too many cooks who don't know how to boil an egg, but do know how to use the career ladder.

Monument is one example. It is now impossible to read the westbound District describer from the mid to end eastern end of the platform or indeed the far westbound end.

Acton Town another. Clutter blocks the view from the curved platforms and the common sense solution is to place two or three of these at points along the platform where they can be viewed without leaning out over the platform edge.

It's simple common sense to realise that if these are going to be smaller, then to inform as many as possible - the prime function of these, then there will have to be duplicates and in clearly visible positions. And that cannot be managed? Shameful, a waste of time and money for the technology invested in being able to generate better information.

One of the advantages of the older 1970s Describers that were at Hammersmith, Acton Town and the few that remain at Barons Court, is that even if you cannot actually read the thing clearly from your location vantage point, the position of the lit destination on the display soon gets learned by passengers. They are not entirely stupid - except when it comes to leaning over the platform edge looking away from approaching trains.

I for one would have hoped that someone on a fair salary would have identified the shortcomings of matrix displays and noted the better positioning, fonts and clarity of earlier displays and manage to get it right.