Met main service in city

Where's my flame thrower ;D

In the halcyon days of only running the Mets in the peak (and getting the city area back to time off-peak) I would have agreed.

However, to turn an A-stock at Moorgate costs the service up to 3 minutes on both east and west. They are just too old, heavy and slow to make the move without shutting everything else down. Much better to run them onto Aldgate, or turn them back at Baker Street.

It's still only during the peak the Amersham/Watford service runs to the city anyway. When everything else runs ok, the Met does too. It does tend to get in the way of everything (and with every other train being a Met during the peak it's bound to) but on the whole the service itself performs well.

If we haven't had one in the past (which I think we have) I am certain you have a better layout ;D

It's not all that bad. The C-stock cause much less delay when using it. However, the problem lies in the signalling in the area.

On the westbound, in order to get one out of either bay road or from the main platform, the train ahead must be at Barbican. If this distance was shorter, the one out of the bay could be slid out before the next one arrives alongside in the main platform.

On the east, a train cannot leave Barbican until the one ahead is almost at Moorgate. Not so much a delay when the train ahead is heading on to Aldgate, but when the train ahead is going to the bay, it's a long drawn-out process of approach control signals, slow crossing-over and eventual berthing in the platform - after which the Barbican station starter will clear!

There is quite a long "trail" after leaving the main until you reach the bay platforms. A little tightening of the signalling here could mean getting the route back behind a bay-road train a lot sooner, and obviously clear the main.

There are plans to do a fair bit of re-signalling in the not too distant future, and maybe this will be included (though I doubt it, as most of the "improvements" will be to increase overlaps and the like.)

That is exactly what it does do. The point Citysig was trying to make is that after a train has left Moorgate westbound platform the next one, whether from the bay platforms or the westbound platform, cannot leave until the first train has reached Barbican. By the time this has happened it is perfectly possible for a second train to have fully arrived in Moorgate westbound platform and be ready to depart, meaning that it will be delayed if one is let out of the bay platforms.

I think you are still missing the point, which is that while the draw up signal OE260 does exactly what you think it does, ie it allows trains to approach signal OE26 when there is only a reduced overlap available beyond the latter signal, it is entirely irrelevant to the point Citysig was making which related to the operation of the station starters OE26,OE28 & OE29 themselves.

Now you are on the right lines.

Given what you've learned over the months, and given what's been said here, I am sure you can work out how many signals are between Moorgate and Barbican ;D

I would go into detail and re-produce a diagram of the current area, but with the present dark cloud hanging over the forum (re what we should and should not say) I will refrain from it in case a nasty person decides to target there rather than somewhere else. When they re-signal it, we'll post the old layout.