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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 18:41:55 GMT
Noticed this a few times, but the TFL site often reports things such as:
Northern line - severe delays between Morden and Kennington only due to a signal failure.
My point is - there is no way that there could only be delays to that section of the line without a knock on effect on the rest of it. OK, they could easily run more trains round the Kennington loop without too much fuss, but the Bank branch would be affected more because there would either be blocking back, or knock on delays from trying to reverse trains via Kennington siding. The Charing Cross branch may also be affected because at this time of day, many trains are heading to Morden to stable, and it may not be feasible to turn these trains at Kennington due to the driver booking off at Morden.
So to cut a long story short, I don't see how they can only announce severe delays on that section of line, without a mention for the rest of the line.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2008 18:47:52 GMT
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 18:51:10 GMT
Bear in mind though that the times to arrival on those boards are based on how far the train is away from that location. When there is a signal failure, a train one station away may be shown as arriving in 2 minutes, whereas in realilty it's being held at a platform for ages. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2008 20:34:12 GMT
What you'll probably get is initially something like severe delays between Morden and Kennington due to a signal failure at.....(insert location eg. Tooting Broadway), then once the signal failure has been cleared will probably change to minor delays on the whole of the line as there will be a knock-on effect to the whole service. Or if the failure goes on for long enough, severe delays between Morden and Kennington, minor delays to the rest of the line, or indeed severe delays to the whole line.
Does that help clear it up at all?
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 20:41:06 GMT
Yep - I understand how these things work, but I believe that with a signal failure at Kennington (which is the cause of this evening's "severe delays"), the knock on will be felt pretty much straight away. Only on lines which have branches operating a lower frequency service can the delays only be confined to that branch. It's been 90 minutes now since I first saw the "severe delays" display, and it's still only mentioning severe delays between Morden and Kennington. There is no way that the rest of the line isn't affected after this amount of time.
EDIT - It must be bad, because they are accepting tickets on Southern!
EDIT 2 - There are now trains reversing at Charing Cross - a sure sign of trouble!
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 20:48:04 GMT
Another interesting one - Piccadilly line - severe delays between Acton Town and Heathrow / Uxbridge due to a signal failure at Holborn. Explain that one please!
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Post by c5 on Jan 4, 2008 21:01:03 GMT
Another interesting one - Piccadilly line - severe delays between Acton Town and Heathrow / Uxbridge due to a signal failure at Holborn. Explain that one please! most likely they have run out of Train Operators due to late running and most of the service is being turned at Acton or Northfields. The service between Hammersmith and Wood Green is probably not as bad. I suspect there is a fair bit of blocking back into Acton WB |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2008 21:03:37 GMT
Yep - I understand how these things work, but I believe that with a signal failure at Kennington (which is the cause of this evening's "severe delays"), the knock on will be felt pretty much straight away. Only on lines which have branches operating a lower frequency service can the delays only be confined to that branch. It's been 90 minutes now since I first saw the "severe delays" display, and it's still only mentioning severe delays between Morden and Kennington. There is no way that the rest of the line isn't affected after this amount of time. EDIT - It must be bad, because they are accepting tickets on Southern! EDIT 2 - There are now trains reversing at Charing Cross - a sure sign of trouble! Sometimes the initial message doesn't get updated. I think you're right after 90 minutes (assuming a signal failure has been going on for 90 minutes) the whole service will be badly affected. Reversing trains at Charing Cross doesn't necessarily mean disaster (unless the points fail to normalise afterwards....), if you pick the right trains Charing Cross is a pretty handy reversing point for late loopers. I can't answer your question about the Picc, I've never worked on the Picc but it does sound a bit funny to me. With regard to the Northern though, I do know what I'm talking about (allegedly!). Sometimes messages get put out wrong - and sometimes there is pressure to advertise a good service. |
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 21:12:18 GMT
It's a sad world where pressure is put on to advertise something which is not the case. And it's not those who make these decisions that have to face the passengers!
With regard to Charing Cross reversers, I know it's not disastrous, but merely an indication that there is some late running, which I'm assuming may be due to the signalling problems, although not necessarily.
Just looked of TFL site - now advertising minor delays throughout the line due to a signal failure at Kennington. Doesn't use the word "earlier", so I assume the problem is still there.
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Post by c5 on Jan 4, 2008 21:19:08 GMT
Yep - I understand how these things work, but I believe that with a signal failure at Kennington (which is the cause of this evening's "severe delays"), the knock on will be felt pretty much straight away. Only on lines which have branches operating a lower frequency service can the delays only be confined to that branch. It's been 90 minutes now since I first saw the "severe delays" display, and it's still only mentioning severe delays between Morden and Kennington. There is no way that the rest of the line isn't affected after this amount of time. EDIT - It must be bad, because they are accepting tickets on Southern! EDIT 2 - There are now trains reversing at Charing Cross - a sure sign of trouble! It is not actually a signal failure though. It is scanning/indication failures (or was earlier). So the Service Operators (and Controllers) cant actually see the trains. Not knowing the area or room at all I don't know how this will affect the service! |
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Post by c5 on Jan 4, 2008 21:22:42 GMT
It's a sad world where pressure is put on to advertise something which is not the case. And it's not those who make these decisions that have to face the passengers! With regard to Charing Cross reversers, I know it's not disastrous, but merely an indication that there is some late running, which I'm assuming may be due to the signalling problems, although not necessarily. Just looked of TFL site - now advertising minor delays throughout the line due to a signal failure at Kennington. Doesn't use the word "earlier", so I assume the problem is still there. There is often pressure on the Service Controllers from on high to put a line back to Good Service or to be economical with the trusth as to the cause of the delays message. Sometimes there have been suspensions or 30 min gaps and Good Service has been left out. Then they are always trying to go back to Good Service even if it is not good at all (often using Trackernet, which is often no good during service disruption or a failure). There was an article in a recent staff propaganda corporate brainwashing magazine about the people that look after the information from a network point of view. It said if you don't feel the message is right, then phone the Network Ops Centre up. No telephone number was provided though ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2008 21:34:34 GMT
It is not actually a signal failure though. It is scanning/indication failures (or was earlier). So the Service Operators (and Controllers) cant actually see the trains. Not knowing the area or room at all I don't know how this will affect the service! I'm not at work so I don't know exactly what is going on. However with a scanning failure it's most likely set so that everything off the Charing Cross branch is going round the loop and everything to/from Morden is on the Bank branch. That's the off-peak service pattern anyway, however it does remove some flexibility with regard to service recovery...and I'm assuming given severe delays were advertised earlier there's still some delays to recover. It also means that control room staff can't see exactly what is where and what's going on. I remember we had a loss of scanning at Moorgate a few months back, it was set for through running, and then the NB starter failed.....problem being we had no indication of anything wrong until a train op called up asking why he was being held. |
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Post by Tomcakes on Jan 4, 2008 22:45:01 GMT
What is the point in saying "good service" if it's said despite things being completely up the spout?
I counted three times that I was told there was a Good Service on the Metropolitian line between arriving at Kings Cross on the met and leaving on the Picc...
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 23:29:29 GMT
The Met is now showing "severe delays" due to a signal failure at Farringdon, along with the Circle and H&C. I don't see why this should be affecting the Met badly, since they can just suspend from Baker Street to Aldgate?
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Post by Dmitri on Jan 4, 2008 23:37:23 GMT
It said if you don't feel the message is right, then phone the Network Ops Centre up. No telephone number was provided though ;D ;D ;D I've been told of a shredder with 'For complaints and proposals' written on it ;D. |
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Post by superteacher on Jan 4, 2008 23:43:05 GMT
What is the point in saying "good service" if it's said despite things being completely up the spout? I counted three times that I was told there was a Good Service on the Metropolitian line between arriving at Kings Cross on the met and leaving on the Picc... A pity that the people who make these ridiculous assessments of good services don't have to travel on their so called good services. Or maybe they do, and have their head buried so deeply in a certain place that they cannot see what's in front of them! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2008 9:45:23 GMT
Many's the time a good service is advertised on the H&C sometimes with up to 30 min headways on the branch. If they're not prepared to tell the truth they'd be as well not advertising any kind of service and letting the punters take pot luck when they get to their desired line.
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Post by Chris M on Jan 5, 2008 12:24:53 GMT
I was on one of the Hammersmith branch stations (possibly Shepherd's Bush) once, one platform was advertising a good service on the H&C the other was advertising minor delays on the H&C. I heard both about 4 times waiting for a train!
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