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Post by commuter on Dec 2, 2018 0:28:42 GMT
No service Chalfont to Chesham shows a good service on the met. When the Pic has no service to T5, the station is shown as *Closed* but the line as *GOOD SERVICE*
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Post by goldenarrow on Dec 2, 2018 0:53:04 GMT
No service Chalfont to Chesham shows a good service on the met. When the Pic has no service to T5, the station is shown as *Closed* but the line as *GOOD SERVICE* Clearly a lag between what was happening on the ground, what was being relayed back to controllers and what was being updated online. Status board was showing Part Suspended from about 11:50 till 3-5mins before the first train was sent through from Hatton X.
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Post by commuter on Dec 7, 2018 8:07:26 GMT
<<rincew1nd>>Prior post by fish7373 has been deleted by the author, this post stated that trains would be returning to Uxbridge.>>How do you mean? It’s been running more often than it’s not over the last few weeks, the reductions in service were only temporary for short periods rather than continual over the weeks.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2018 16:24:54 GMT
Yes, the 1973s to and from Uxbridge have certainly been passing our living room window, albeit maybe not all of the scheduled service.
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Post by goldenarrow on Dec 7, 2018 17:05:40 GMT
Last Saturday there were definitely running through services for most of the day.
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rincew1nd
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Post by rincew1nd on Dec 7, 2018 19:56:11 GMT
Admin comment
I've merged the two threads we have on this topic and given the new combined thread a more appropriate title.
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Post by commuter on Dec 31, 2018 9:32:40 GMT
Sorry to dig up a thread with a slightly off topic point but it’s interesting to see how despite no Piccadilly line trains running to Uxbridge as per the timetable today (it is usual on New year’s eve that all Pic line trains reverse at Rayners) the service is advertised as Part closed, yet when the Timetable said trains would run through to Uxb and they didn’t, nothing was mentioned in the service status!
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Post by superteacher on Dec 31, 2018 10:17:33 GMT
Sorry to dig up a thread with a slightly off topic point but it’s interesting to see how despite no Piccadilly line trains running to Uxbridge as per the timetable today (it is usual on New year’s eve that all Pic line trains reverse at Rayners) the service is advertised as Part closed, yet when the Timetable said trains would run through to Uxb and they didn’t, nothing was mentioned in the service status! It’s all politics. As this is a planned closure, there’s no harm in TFL mentioning it. With the disruption caused by leaf fall, somebody on high decided to massage the truth. I’d love to have a face to face discussion with them to see how they would try to wriggle out of it. They treated their passengers with total contempt.
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Post by alpinejohn on Dec 31, 2018 14:20:27 GMT
I am sure we all like the convenience of bagging a seat on a homeward bound train all the way from central London. However even without any Piccadilly service there is still a very decent and frequent Met line service between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge complete with nice air conditioned trains.
So when there is obvious pressure on rolling stock on the Piccadilly down to leaf fall related wheel flats, it seems eminently sensible to turn back most if not all Piccadilly services at Rayners Lane. There is a huge difference between having to change trains to having no service at all in this case it is not a massive chore. People have to simply alight and board the next Met line service from the same platform whether travelling to or from Uxbridge.
Which brings me to my Boxing day trip on both of those lines with a change from the District at Acton Town where I was greeted by the sight of the rather sad looking two motive power units (4xdms of 67? stock) on the siding opposite the platform.
When it is necessary to operate a leaf fall service on the Piccaddily, rather than reduce the passenger fleet, why not kit out those MPUs with the kit that would have been previously installed into a 73 stock passenger carriage?
It looks like the kit is designed to be demountable, so presumably even if the kit can only be installed into a "trailer" coach then surely there are bits of the old tunnel cleaning unit which could be converted and inserted into those MPUs.
I am pretty sure the 67 stock cars are roughly a metre shorter than equivalent 73 stock units so length and presumably other dimensions should not be an issue. So apart from passing the baton for operating leaf fall trips from regular crews to staff still qualified for the 67s, it seems that TFL could reasonably simply adapt these DMs which should be compatible with the very basic Piccadilly line signalling, and avoid the stock shortage, cost and days required to then clean the coaches of the mess caused by using 73 stock for leaf fall duties.
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Post by superteacher on Dec 31, 2018 16:17:39 GMT
I am sure we all like the convenience of bagging a seat on a homeward bound train all the way from central London. However even without any Piccadilly service there is still a very decent and frequent Met line service between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge complete with nice air conditioned trains. So when there is obvious pressure on rolling stock on the Piccadilly down to leaf fall related wheel flats, it seems eminently sensible to turn back most if not all Piccadilly services at Rayners Lane. There is a huge difference between having to change trains to having no service at all in this case it is not a massive chore. People have to simply alight and board the next Met line service from the same platform whether travelling to or from Uxbridge. Don’t think anyone has a big issue with that and the reasons for it. However, the point is: The lack of Uxbridge trains during the leaf fall issue wasn’t advertised. Quite a lot of the Uxbridge trains were reversed at South Harrow, leaving Rayners Lane with a very sub standard service. Which again wasn’t advertised.
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Post by philthetube on Jan 1, 2019 8:19:35 GMT
I would suspect that passengers would actually benefit from cancellation of Picc services from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge during leaf fall as this should make it possible to run a much more robust service to Rayners Ln.
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Post by superteacher on Jan 1, 2019 9:00:24 GMT
I would suspect that passengers would actually benefit from cancellation of Picc services from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge during leaf fall as this should make it possible to run a much more robust service to Rayners Ln. Agreed, but would only work if it was built into the temporary timetable. Maybe it’s something that will be looked into?
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Post by commuter on Jan 1, 2019 12:10:46 GMT
I would suspect that passengers would actually benefit from cancellation of Picc services from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge during leaf fall as this should make it possible to run a much more robust service to Rayners Ln. The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service.
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Post by superteacher on Jan 1, 2019 16:47:28 GMT
I would suspect that passengers would actually benefit from cancellation of Picc services from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge during leaf fall as this should make it possible to run a much more robust service to Rayners Ln. The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service. I think his point was that with a little planning, the temporary timetable could have been set up like that. For much of the time, it wasn’t even a half service to Rayners, what with other cancellations and delays. One evening, there was an hour gap, and still it was a “good” service!
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Post by spsmiler on Jan 1, 2019 17:52:44 GMT
I am sure we all like the convenience of bagging a seat on a homeward bound train all the way from central London. However even without any Piccadilly service there is still a very decent and frequent Met line service between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge complete with nice air conditioned trains. So when there is obvious pressure on rolling stock on the Piccadilly down to leaf fall related wheel flats, it seems eminently sensible to turn back most if not all Piccadilly services at Rayners Lane. There is a huge difference between having to change trains to having no service at all in this case it is not a massive chore. People have to simply alight and board the next Met line service from the same platform whether travelling to or from Uxbridge. Which brings me to my Boxing day trip on both of those lines with a change from the District at Acton Town where I was greeted by the sight of the rather sad looking two motive power units (4xdms of 67? stock) on the siding opposite the platform. When it is necessary to operate a leaf fall service on the Piccaddily, rather than reduce the passenger fleet, why not kit out those MPUs with the kit that would have been previously installed into a 73 stock passenger carriage? It looks like the kit is designed to be demountable, so presumably even if the kit can only be installed into a "trailer" coach then surely there are bits of the old tunnel cleaning unit which could be converted and inserted into those MPUs. I am pretty sure the 67 stock cars are roughly a metre shorter than equivalent 73 stock units so length and presumably other dimensions should not be an issue. So apart from passing the baton for operating leaf fall trips from regular crews to staff still qualified for the 67s, it seems that TFL could reasonably simply adapt these DMs which should be compatible with the very basic Piccadilly line signalling, and avoid the stock shortage, cost and days required to then clean the coaches of the mess caused by using 73 stock for leaf fall duties. I wonder if the only reason that this is not possible is 'money'?
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Post by Chris M on Jan 1, 2019 20:40:50 GMT
I think his point was that with a little planning, the temporary timetable could have been set up like that. For much of the time, it wasn’t even a half service to Rayners, what with other cancellations and delays. One evening, there was an hour gap, and still it was a “good” service! I think the key issue is that whatever service is running TfL need to tell passengers the truth about it.
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Post by rincew1nd on Jan 1, 2019 21:15:14 GMT
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 2, 2019 9:15:43 GMT
I am sure we all like the convenience of bagging a seat … snip … When it is necessary to operate a leaf fall service on the Piccaddily, rather than reduce the passenger fleet, why not kit out those MPUs with the kit that would have been previously installed into a 73 stock passenger carriage? It looks like the kit is designed to be demountable, so presumably even if the kit can only be installed into a "trailer" coach then surely there are bits of the old tunnel cleaning unit which could be converted and inserted into those MPUs. I am pretty sure the 67 stock cars are roughly a metre shorter than equivalent 73 stock units so length and presumably other dimensions should not be an issue. So apart from passing the baton for operating leaf fall trips from regular crews to staff still qualified for the 67s, it seems that TFL could reasonably simply adapt these DMs which should be compatible with the very basic Piccadilly line signalling, and avoid the stock shortage, cost and days required to then clean the coaches of the mess caused by using 73 stock for leaf fall duties. I wonder if the only reason that this is not possible is 'money'? I doubt the cost of modifying passenger service vehicles for leaf fall use would be materially different from the cost of utilising the MPUs which have been pretty much sitting idle for ages to do the same task with the same kit. It would however avoid the obvious adverse impact on the passenger fleet availability which given the testing and subsequent cleaning required would probably extend significantly beyond the actual leaf fall operation dates. I suspect what we ended up with was simply a result of perverse budgeting incentives. When you realise you need to buy something, but find the capital budget is tight, it must be very tempting to fund it from the operational budget instead. However that sort of decision takes no account of the adverse impact on passenger fleet availability at a time when it is always likely to be under stress due to wheel flats. Hey Ho. We have this solution now - and I am confident Piccadilly line users can look forward to encountering exactly the same issue year after year at least until the new wonder trains finally get built and come into service - so a good few years yet.
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Post by andypurk on Jan 3, 2019 2:05:53 GMT
I would suspect that passengers would actually benefit from cancellation of Picc services from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge during leaf fall as this should make it possible to run a much more robust service to Rayners Ln. The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service. I don't see the problem with reversing a train every ten minutes at Rayners Lane. The layout for reversing is the same as at Harrow & Wealdstone, where the Bakerloo manages. However, the timetable isn't setup to facilitate a ten minute reversal. The Rayners Lane terminators seem to spend longer than ten minutes in the siding, whilst the Uxbridge Piccadilly trains run past in either direction. A leaf-fall timetable could be devised to take this into account or, maybe with stepping back, the 'Uxbridge' trains could reverse in the westbound platform.
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Post by superteacher on Jan 3, 2019 7:48:58 GMT
The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service. I don't see the problem with reversing a train every ten minutes at Rayners Lane. The layout for reversing is the same as at Harrow & Wealdstone, where the Bakerloo manages. However, the timetable isn't setup to facilitate a ten minute reversal. The Rayners Lane terminators seem to spend longer than ten minutes in the siding, whilst the Uxbridge Piccadilly trains run past in either direction. A leaf-fall timetable could be devised to take this into account or, maybe with stepping back, the 'Uxbridge' trains could reverse in the westbound platform. In the days when the Picc only served Uxbridge in the peak, Rayners Lane regularly reversed trains every 10 mins. However, recovering delays has always been an issue on the line so extending every other train to Uxbridge enabled a longer turn around time at Rayners, thus aiding service recovery. I doubt reversing regular trains in the westbound platform would be encouraged as it could delay the Met services, which nowadays have a 8tph service.
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Post by commuter on Jan 4, 2019 18:06:38 GMT
The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service. I don't see the problem with reversing a train every ten minutes at Rayners Lane. The layout for reversing is the same as at Harrow & Wealdstone, where the Bakerloo manages. However, the timetable isn't setup to facilitate a ten minute reversal. The Rayners Lane terminators seem to spend longer than ten minutes in the siding, whilst the Uxbridge Piccadilly trains run past in either direction. A leaf-fall timetable could be devised to take this into account or, maybe with stepping back, the 'Uxbridge' trains could reverse in the westbound platform. Yes this is exactly the problem and what I meant. You could reverse extra trains there but they would then be running significantly early for the eastbound trip.
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Post by philthetube on Jan 5, 2019 10:03:48 GMT
The issue is/was, that Rayners Lane wasn’t set up to handle a train reversing every ten minutes, accordingly the Uxbridge trains were reversed and set to lay over via South Harrow Sidings for their Eb trip (or even Northfields Depot). Therefore, South Harrow to Rayners had half the usual service. I think his point was that with a little planning, the temporary timetable could have been set up like that. For much of the time, it wasn’t even a half service to Rayners, what with other cancellations and delays. One evening, there was an hour gap, and still it was a “good” service! This is exactly my point, doing this would have triple benefits as it would leave spare stock available to replace that with flats, it would keep pic stoc away from some of the worst areas for slippery track, which the S stock handles so much better and would allow the S stock to run at line speed instead of crawling along behind picc stock running at reduced speed because of the trac condition.
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Post by motorman on Jan 5, 2019 22:01:34 GMT
My long term memory is that when the Met service to Uxbridge ran every 15 mins in the off peak, there were two Picc terminators at Rayners Lane for every Met. That would have meant a terminating Picc every 7.5 mins at Rayners Lane back in the 70's. Is my memory warped?
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Post by superteacher on Jan 5, 2019 22:54:26 GMT
My long term memory is that when the Met service to Uxbridge ran every 15 mins in the off peak, there were two Picc terminators at Rayners Lane for every Met. That would have meant a terminating Picc every 7.5 mins at Rayners Lane back in the 70's. Is my memory warped? One of my old working timetables from the mid 70s shows 6 tph reversing at Rayners Lane.
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Post by roverlei on Jan 9, 2019 18:26:53 GMT
I used to hate the idea, but I'm now coming around to thinking that it would be more reliable to run a shuttle service on the Piccadilly line Uxbridge branch, with a dedicated number of trains simply going up and down from Acton Town. At least then we'd know at all times how many trains were available and we'd not have to tolerate such a shambles as we do every leaf-fall season.
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Post by superteacher on Jan 9, 2019 19:08:42 GMT
I used to hate the idea, but I'm now coming around to thinking that it would be more reliable to run a shuttle service on the Piccadilly line Uxbridge branch, with a dedicated number of trains simply going up and down from Acton Town. At least then we'd know at all times how many trains were available and we'd not have to tolerate such a shambles as we do every leaf-fall season. I’m sure this has been discussed before on the forum. However, can we not discuss it in this thread as it’s off topic. Thanks.
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Post by alpinejohn on Jan 9, 2019 19:50:27 GMT
I am fairly sure the new trains will come with some sort of wheel slip protection which should significantly reduce or largely eliminate the leaf fall issue?
However even if the new trains are perfect from day one (which remains to be seen) that improvement in performance on the Piccadilly is still a few years ahead. So it is not unreasonable to think is there anything else which TFL could be doing to mitigate the problem until then.
Earlier in this thread the idea of turning most services at Rayners Lane during leaf fall season was aired and appears to offer fairly immediate advantages of reducing Piccadilly track mileage at a time when serviceable vehicles are likely to be in short supply, with the side benefit of allowing the S8 services, which apparently are better equipped for poor rail conditions to make better progress. The idea that someone at TFL towers might be charged with devising a special leaf fall season timetable, like they do for the Met, does not seem entirely unreasonable. Whether or not that leaf fall timetable might be best achieved by using a small fleet to shuttle between Rayners Lane and Acton Town is presumably something the planners can weigh up at the same time. What people want is trains and reliable frequency.
However perhaps the most worrying announcement made by TFL recently was the decision to shelve plans to replace the Piccadilly signalling system - which already seems to be responsible for an awful lot of service issues - indeed far more than due to defective trains due to wheel flats. Personally I would prefer to be on board an old train making good progress than a fancy new one which has ground to a halt thanks to faulty signalling.
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Post by superteacher on Jan 9, 2019 20:11:41 GMT
Have the 1973 always had this problem at leaf fall? The reason why I ask is that I cannot recall it being mentioned prior to 2016.
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Post by goldenarrow on Jan 9, 2019 20:55:57 GMT
Have the 1973 always had this problem at leaf fall? The reason why I ask is that I cannot recall it being mentioned prior to 2016. I used the Uxbridge branch of the Piccadilly every working day for over a decade and can't remember it getting that bad until 2016. There were a few curtailments from Ruislip every now and then but I think the unseasonal weather we saw that year coupled with the stocks life cycle (however well that was managed I simply don't know) had an almighty impact. The only disruption in recent years leading up to 2016 was the lack of available train operators (again, don't how how genuine that reason is) or the usual forms of disruption resulting in gaps in the service.
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Post by 1018509 on Jan 9, 2019 21:37:12 GMT
The trains are heavier after refurb and are worked a lot more than when new. Also in as delivered condition they were fitted with wheel slip/slide detectors but it didn't work and it was removed.
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