Blackfriars to close for over two years

I don't think the Victoria Line will see that much of an increase, as it's really only going to be useful for those coming from the North who want to get to the western side of the circle, and almost all those passengers will I suspect already be using the Victoria Line from Kings Cross.

The mainline station is not closing so people who do not interchange to the tube will not need to change their journeys.

I think that it is the Northern that will take the brunt of the passengers who use to change onto the tube at Blackfriars, with people entering at London Bridge and Elephant and Castle from the south, and Kings Cross or Moorgate from the north. This will make the interchanges at Embankment and Bank-Monument more busy.

Just caught a glimpse of the multi-coloured 319 "Thameslink Farringdon" running with a Southern-liveried one in green. Quite a contrast.

Was funny having contractors sign into the FCC station and when asked what they're looking at get the responce to check where we've got to stick white tape over the Underground signs at the weekend!

just keeping you lot on your toes dont want you drivers becoming lazy

As a regular passenger on the District (Mile End to Victoria) I wanted to thank those on here whose efforts make my commute a pleasant one.

One small plea, if I may...it seems the District is worse than others when it comes to these re-recorded announcements and this has got worse with the current situation at Blackfriars. I appreciate the announcements are automated, but that is part of the problem: a constant stream of information about the likes of escalators Monument followed by drivers coming on to correct or repeat the information. At weekends or in the evenings you can add in the various line closures. And Cannon Street. And East London Line replacement bus services and the Thames river boat. And then of course there's the usual stop-start nonsense between Whitechapel and Monument that triggers the ear-splittingly loud posh lady who announces the bleeding' obvious (of course we're a red signal and we should be moving shortly...otherwise the driver would have said so!)

Between Aldgate East and Embankment it is like being trapped in some sort of post-modern opera featuring an incessant chorus of information. I did write to TfL about this but got the canned response about helping blind people (as if blind people aren't equally maddened by pointless or contradictory announcements).

Please tell me the announcements will be fixed before 2011! Going via Oxford Circus on the Central and the Victoria is blissfully quiet in comparison...

Station staff in most cases are sent to greet the VIP at the station too.

Would be an interesting question for a poll on here: Is TfL sprouting information polution out of every orifice?

As I mentioned earlier in this very thread, there are a load of notices in the booking on point at Upminster, next to the weekly duty allocation sheets.

These notices talk about the erection of a 'tunnel shield' "to be installed over several weekend closures", the signalling changes that will be made (station starters to become approach controlled) once the 'tunnel shield' is in place and that there will be tunnel telephones installed "along the length of the tunnel shield".

So it's a case of all in good time TMBA!

The in car line diagrams? Well that's just poor management, as is the DVA being modified to advise passengers at the station before to walk to Blackfriars then going on to announce Blackfriars as if it's still open

The weekend closures aren't specifically to do work on Blackfriars platforms, they are mainly for track replacement which is coming on in leaps and bounds, so although you see nothing work is being done.

I have now passed through on both C and D stocks. On the C, the DVA appeared not to have been changed at all but stopped working altogether after the train passed Blackfriars (eastbound). On the D, the announcements for all three stations had been aprorpriately altered.

As for "several" weekend closures, there has been only one since the last stopping train at Blackfriars yet - so we'll see what happens over the next few.

Well we can only do 5mph through there at the moment because of the short overlap on the starters. My understanding is the once the modifications are done, we'll be able to do 20mph through there - so in actual fact we'll be speeding up!

At last someone is seeing the benefits!!

I'm gonna keep repeating myself till I'm blue in the face probably, but weekend closures will continue until all of the track has been replaced throughout the entire District line. In fact the same applies to all sub surface lines. If it isn't done, you won't get S stock. Discussion on the pro's & con's of S stock are a separate thread, but that's the whole point of all these track closures.

Why couldn't they change the short overlap, instead of making the signals approach controlled? Wouldn't it then it would be as if there wasn't a station there?

One downside of this nice upgrade to the D Stock DVA/CiS is that we've lost the: "Change here for East London Line . . . . . replacement bus service" at Whitechapel !!

A bit premature i think? one step forward-two steps back!!

Ive got a picture of the ticket hall yesterday

www.flickr.com/photos/mackenzieblu/3345272132/

The former ticket hall is manned most of the time it seems by a guy at a desk for people to sign in. Like Blackfriars NR station the Tube station works seem to be 24/7.