Coronavirus Implications For London's Transport

All T4 trains are detraining at hatton cross now with help from station staff and taking stand time at T4 
edit just seen another post written same time 

The latest batch of forecasts done by HAL themselves suggest that even on an optimistic trajectory, Terminal 4 may be surplus to requirements till Spring 2021.

And a worst case? Perhaps T4 current buildings needed no further?

This is the best terminal to be out of use as airplane access to the terminal conflicts with the take-offs and landings on runway 09R-27L (not that there is a lot of traffic at present).

With most shops set to reopen on June 15th, will TFL be dropping the “essential travel only” message?

I doubt it. I think there’s an element of “see how it goes”. So far it’s fair to say trains are still generally not busy apart from at certain times, but equally there’s clearly still a lot of people not at work. It’s generally agreed that getting the masses safely back to work has to be top priority. Likewise fewer punters is safer for staff if they have to deal with any kind of incident or issue.

It is noticeable that there are some “newly returned” users around. Over the last few weeks the key workers have generally settled down nicely to the social distancing. Today on my mainline train home a woman came and sat close to me despite the 12-carriage train being almost completely empty - WHY?!?! 😡😡😡

One metre?

Might as well just say social distancing is no longer required!

We are pretty much the only country to have a 2 metre rule. There is no way that the country can be opened up to any degree whilst it stays at 2m. When shops reopen, demand for transport will increase considerably and there is no way that it will cope if 2m is retained.

Slightly off-topic (but relevant) is schools. With the current 2m rule, 8 per class is the maximum. Reducing to 1m effectively enables a normal class size.

The government will do what is has done throughout this crisis and what they allow will follow what is happening on the ground, or the press if there is enough fuss made. 

Whatever it is, I would like our track maintenance guys to start working again as we have a line littered with 20mph TSR's (Temporary Speed Restrictions) and it's somewhat tedious.

They're not not working. Priority is rightly being given to patrolling and urgent service affecting defects, and, just as control rooms and train crew depots are seeing reduced coverage through staff self-isolating, sick, or shielding, the maintenance areas are no different.

We've had a memo from "schedules" saying there is a plan that from Monday 6th July Night Tube lines Sunday service will start up at Monday - Friday times and that the Waterloo & City Line will resume Monday - Friday operation.  Its all still in negotiation but interesting.

A small update from my neck of the woods, and unfortunately it’s a rather negative picture.

The week’s timetabled service has generally been poor, with yesterday in particular being a hurrendous day - described by more than one of those operating it as “worst in career”. The combination of numerous uncovered duties and a points failure resulted in dire late running, culminating in some half-hour gaps in the central area. ER issues continue, and this now appears to have spread to control staff too. For various reasons there’s now a reluctance to reverse trains, which has made it very much harder to correct the late running arising from the disjointed service. This will in turn no doubt further fuel ER issues with train crews.

There’s been a very conspicuous increase in usage today, and it’s certainly not essential journeys. Plenty of families visible for instance, and some particular issues with people trying to take bikes on trains in places not permitted. Today’s numbers are pushing the limits of 2 metre distancing, so it’s simply not going to be viable if shops re-opening sees a surge in shopping trips. As predicted we are seeing people test the waters, and when they find that there’s no enforcement this will mean they will do it again. Many of these users also seem oblivious to distancing - where have they been for the last 10 weeks? We continue to be short on key resources, which means operating under stress.

On the positive side we may be getting some shielded staff back soon, as it seems there’s efforts being made to assess everyone on an individual basis. This seems to be facilitating a few returning to work, with social distancing being a suitable mitigation.

All in all it’s sadly not a happy ship at the moment, and without being too political a certain name and a rather nice town in County Durham is cropping up as a particular source of anguish.

Perhaps things are rosier elsewhere?!

On a more general note, more labels are going up everywhere, and work has started fitting these to trains. Some stations now have one-way systems in place. I must admit to being sceptical in some cases - King’s Cross for instance how has a rather bizarre one-way setup, which I didn’t feel particularly contributed to social distancing by forcing me to traipse round the station and be inside it for several minutes longer than I would have otherwise needed to be, especially at a time when the station was genuinely fairly empty. Again this is not going to stand up to increased numbers, and I don’t envy staff having to supervise it all.

Personal opinion, however I’m not sure operating like this is sustainable, it’s not going to hold up if numbers increase, especially with the new “extended bank holiday” atmosphere now being seen. Something is going to have to give, either more rigid enforcement of what constitutes an essential journey, or social distancing will simply wither away. Some tough leadership decisions will doubtless need to be taken to reconcile all this.

Central Line doesn't seem to be having any major problems - or at least while I've been on duty although we are able to use the W&C duties as additional spares.  There certainly are a lot more bikes than before and not where they should be and I guess that will become an issue when we get back to normal.

TfL are committed to full service in four weeks (I assume from when they got the bailout money) so it would be almost impossible to reduce the service.