We have reported previously on the ongoing problems with the resignalling contract for the Subsurface Railway (the Circle, District, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines). The contract is an important one, for it underpins much of the work currently underway on the Underground. In advance of a TfL Board Finance and Policy meeting later this week a paper on this contract has been published. We look at its contents with a critical eye to see if a sound plan for the future has begun to emerge.
It is one of John Bull’s working principles that the more boring the name of a committee, the more interesting its remit is likely to be. As if to prove the point, the Finance & Policy committee, to whom proposals to spend large sums of money have to be justified, often presents rich pickings for those who want to get beyond the hype when looking at future plans. It is another of John Bull’s principles that one should read, or a least re-read, a press release from the bottom up, as organisations tend to put the most awkward truths at the point where they hope you have, at the very least, lost concentration or, better still, stopped reading. It therefore comes as no surprise that the final item on the agenda for the Finance & Policy committee is very interesting indeed.
It is hard to imagine that even occasional readers to London Reconnections are not aware to some extent of the numerable problems that have emerged in trying to resignal the Subsurface Railway (SSR). We have covered the subject many times but, in essence, an initial contract made under PPP was cancelled for various reasons and the replacement contract for this was abandoned when it became clear that Bombardier’s theoretical claims for the product they were offering were simply not achievable in reality. Something that became obvious to London Underground when the company failed to reach even the most basic of milestones expected in the project’s lifetime. A third, and hopefully, final contract has since been agreed with Thales but the planned completion date has again slipped by a number of years. We have recently reported that completion was not expected until 2022, but now the details available here show that even this is not quite true. The project may not be fully complete until 2023 – so five years after the original deadline of 2018 for the second contract.
One could be forgiven for wondering why this particular delay should matter. Delayed signalling projects have been a firm feature of Underground times past. A nuisance, certainly, but signalling projects always get delayed. Indeed if they didn’t, Roger Ford of Modern Railways might struggle to fill up his monthly column inches as he has long provided consistent reporting on issues with resignalling schemes. Yet at the end of the day the railway carries on running and problems with signalling replacement schemes rarely hit the mainstream headlines. Indeed, from the public’s perspective it is the fact that the railway keeps getting resignalled that is apparently the problem. For they probably don’t think of a “signal failure” on a line where no replacement signalling work has been done for years as a “past investment failure” whilst they, and politicians, are quick to link signal failures to any current or recent signal replacement scheme.
The importance of resignalling
The most obvious reason to be concerned with the delay is that the SSR resignalling is important in that, combined with other works, it will dramatically increase the capacity of around 35-40% of the Underground network (the exact percentage of the network affected depends on whether you measure this by passengers, track mileage or another plausible metric). The SSR links a lot of vital areas of London – most notably many mainline termini – and is conveniently accessible in central London as it is generally located only just below the surface so tends not to involve using long escalators to access it. Therefore, a convenient SSR with a frequent service contributes to the economy of London in providing an efficient and functional means of transport in central London that can handle the required demand.
Critical path
Perhaps more importantly the SSR resignalling is on the critical path for investment – in non-project speak, that it potentially blocks the start of other work. A lot of the reason for this is budgetary. The signs are that, until the SSR resignalling is out the way, TfL do not have the billions of pounds they need to spend on the New Tube for London project. This is an absolutely vital project to replace the Piccadilly Line trains and signalling before it falls apart before moving on to the Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo & City Lines. As it stands this will likely be followed straightaway by the Northern Line (or possibly one half of a newly segregated Northern Line then the other) with the replacement of the Jubilee Line following that. If a potential delay to the NTfL were not bad enough, it is hard to envisage any extension of the Bakerloo, as planned, until it is clear that there will be sufficient new rolling stock to cover the entire extended line. In simple terms then, the SSR resignalling is not only holding up other resignalling schemes, it is also holding up progress on efforts to update rolling stock which is either already in dire need of replacement or will be so in the next decade. No wonder that the latest report, referring to the complete SSR upgrade project, states that:
The Programme is London Underground’s top priority
As is often the case, the “do nothing” option here really is not feasible. Apart from not getting the most out of expensive, newly acquired rolling stock, signalling components will inevitably deteriorate and forty years is generally regarded as the maximum desirable working life of electrically based signalling – a figure that continues to be borne out by evidence as signalling failures tend to rise in equipment of this age or older. Much of the signalling for the SSR is in fact already much older than forty years.
The other alternative of “replace like with like” signalling is also not very practical. For all the aggravation of getting a new system to work, at the end of the day any system is expected to last for around forty years so it is important to get it right. Furthermore, despite the eye-watering expense, a new technologically advanced signalling system would not cost that much more than basic traditional signalling and, combined with extra trains, is probably the easiest and cheapest way of adding capacity to the London Underground network in the places where increased capacity is needed.
A strategy for success this time?
Although the draft paper to be presented to the board may seem a little incoherent at times, it does seem to be based around a few key strategies intended to make absolutely sure that this resignalling project goes well or, in the worst case scenario, that TfL avoid the dreaded “Thermocline of Truth” and become aware of any problems in sufficient time to take action. These strategies appear to be:
- Bring forward any benefits that can be made with the existing signalling
- Minimise the project risk by critically examining what really needs to be included
- Implement continual and rigorous assessment of progress
- Follow a realistic phased implementation
We now look at these in detail.
Bringing forward benefits
The West Coast Main Line resignalling, carried out around 20 years ago, demonstrated the danger of putting all one’s eggs in one basket. The Jubilee Line Extension signalling in a similar manner really emphasised the need for a back-up plan. In the latter case London Underground had to rapidly install conventional signalling but, because this had not been envisaged, no allowance had been made in the tunnel design for suitable places to locate conventional signals with suitable sighting distances. As the SSR is not a new railway the back-up plan, if it exists, appears to be to keep maintaining the old system until such time as the new system is ready to take over.
It is clear that we can’t wait until the 2020s for further improvements to the SSR. Worse, we still don’t know with absolute certainty the timescale can be achieved – you never can be when planning to use technology that does not currently exist. What we are now starting to see are conventional upgrades to the SSR. We have already seen signalling changes to accommodate the S7 trains which are longer than the trains they replaced. Recently approval was given for a conventionally-signalled new crossover at King’s Cross to enable 20tph to be terminated there in the event of disruption.
According to the report:
Given the above commissioning dates, sufficient train availability and the necessary track works, the options being explored, subject to final confirmation, could include:
(a) Extension of “shoulder” peak period services on busy sections by up to an hour by 2017;
(b) Additional trains between Earl’s Court and Wimbledon from 2018; and
(c) Extending further east District line off-peak services which currently terminate at Tower Hill by 2018.
So the idea is to eke out the extra capacity that is still available on the current system. In simple terms this seems to mean that if something can be beneficially brought forward – even if it needs to be signalled the “old” way – then that should be done as a means of achieving a quick win.
Item (a) – Extending the shoulder peak – is an obvious thing to do and this is just part of a general trend on virtually all underground lines. Once ‘S’ stock becomes universal and ‘D’ stock is eliminated – which should happen by 2016 – then common driving characteristics of all trains should make this easier to do.
The only surprise about item (c) – extending District off-peak Tower Hill terminating trains eastward – is that it seems it will not happen sooner. Some of the previous off-peak Tower Hill terminators have already been extended, leaving just 3tph that currently terminate at Tower Hill. With no shortage of off-peak trains it is surprising that these will not be extended sooner to Barking to eliminate the gaps in the even intervals of trains.
More trains through Earl’s Court before the signalling upgrade
Item (b) is more interesting. As the report explains.
5.4.6. Work remains ongoing to ensure benefits are realised at the earliest point during roll-out, and opportunities to deliver benefits ahead of these dates are being explored. A number of infrastructure improvements will improve operational flexibility including the commissioning of additional track point work in Summer 2017 at Earl’s Court. This will reduce congestion, particularly for Wimbledon branch services.
The reference to Earl’s Court almost certainly refers to reinstating a scissors crossover to the west of the station and probably another crossover the east which were removed during a period of passenger downturn in the 20th Century. A quick look at Harsig’s website reveals the more flexible former layouts at Earl’s Court in 1936 and from 1957-1966. The diagram below has been taken from the ever invaluable Carto Metro and the likely reinstatement has been added in red.
Earl’s Court District Line layout with possible reinstated track in red
The benefit of reinstating the sets of points marked in red is that it enables eastbound trains to Upminster and trains to Edgware Road from Wimbledon to cross before reaching Earl’s Court station. This gives the signalman (or the ATC computer-controlled supervisor) an additional option that may prevent one train being delayed by another. Basically the signalman (and the timetabler) gets two bites of the cherry. They can route the Wimbleware (Wimbledon – Edgware Road) service to platform 1 and also route a train from Richmond or Ealing Broadway to platform 2. Despite not being able to do both simultaneously, this is good because further conflict at the eastern side of the station is avoided. We can assume that often both trains will be stationary in their respective platforms at Earl’s Court at the same time due to the long dwell time there. The advantage is that trains can now depart from their respective platform as soon as they are ready to go as there will not be any conflicting movement ahead. Alternatively, if the signalman realises that allocating the trains to the platforms as described will mean one train will definitely be delayed on approach to Earl’s Court, he can route them into the platforms the other way round and give one priority over the other when departing – as happens now.
This extra flexibility on the eastbound lines mentioned above does not need to be matched on the westbound lines as the westbound lines already have a diveunder present to the east of the station. The only move westbound which is not fully flexible is from Edgware Road to Richmond or Ealing Broadway but as trains are very rarely routed to do this it hardly matters.
It is fairly probable that in reality these additional trains will terminate in one of the two bay platforms at High St Kensington (a revival of something that used to happen until recently). It is also the case that until recently there used to be an all-day Olympia – Earl’s Court – High St Kensington service which was usually little used in peak hours – especially the morning peak. This was originally intended to continue after the SSR resignalling which would suggest that there is actually a little potential spare capacity here.
The major downside of the plan to run additional services from Wimbledon to Earl’s Court is that people from the Wimbledon branch do not typically want to go to either Earl’s Court or High St Kensington. These additional trains will effectively take a lot of people and dump them somewhere they don’t want to be and leave them to continue their journey on already packed trains.
Minimising the project risk
It is clear that a lot of effort has gone into minimising project risk. An in-depth review to identify the minimum scope to deliver Programme benefits was carried out. One has the fear that some things removed will be regretted later and added back in at a later date.
Things mentioned by the report that are new are:
- the Wimbledon branch of the District line, which is Network Rail managed, will now have an ATC signalling overlay rather than full resignalling (matching the established solution for the Richmond branch and consequently reducing design variants)
- Piccadilly line trains will not be fitted with new signalling equipment
- the section of the Piccadilly line between Rayners Lane Junction and Hanger Lane Junction will no longer be resignalled by the Programme
- the signalling solution for the interoperable sections of the SubSurface Railway (SSR) and Piccadilly lines will include conventional signals to allow for continued operation of Piccadilly services on these sections
- the number of planned track layout changes to be delivered by the Programme has been reduced following an extensive review
In a smart move the paper states:
In parallel to the re-tendering of the ATC contract, LU engaged Thales to undertake a series of Interoperability Trials to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing Thales’ radio-based signalling system (CBTC) across the Northern and Jubilee lines as well as understanding the implications for implementing this across the four lines.
One of the major differences between the Thales system planned for the SSR and actually in use on the Northern and Jubilee Lines is that the former uses radio to communicate signalling functions with the train and the latter two rely on loops of wire between the rails. Clearly near-continuous loops of wire risk getting damaged more than the occasional radio beacon but the loops are technically easier to install. By changing just one element of a known working system one can quickly establish, relatively painlessly, whether or not the new element is working satisfactorily. This means one can establish early on if there are any problems and, for example, if it were to cause the service on the Mill Hill East branch to be suspended it would not be a major disaster – and the public won’t relate it to the SSR resignalling project.
Continual and rigorous assessment of progress
Clearly learning from the previous curtailed Bombardier signalling project, a lot of planning has gone into integrating the Thales signal engineers with LU staff. There has also been a determined effort to get experienced LU staff onboard – basically those that worked with the Thales Jubilee and Northern Line upgrades. They will even post an LU site resident engineer at Thales’s base in Canada. The intention is clear – with Bombardier, LU engineers simply did not know what was happening. This was made worse by a lot of the development work (coincidently) also being carried out in Canada. This new approach is clearly intended to remove that scenario
There is much in the document about governance. One of the simpler items is
A “Crossrail-style” Programme Board report has also been introduced that summarises progress, performance and issues, which is issued each period.
Another item, clearly learnt from the abortive Bombardier contract, is to monitor the Thales system where a similar installation has been commissioned recently. Expect to see a lot of LU engineers making trips to Hyderabad and showing a lot of interest in both the section of the metro already completed and the work in progress.
A realistic phased (peak period) implementation
It is clear that Thales were not going to be bullied into committing to LU’s desire to try to maintain, or nearly maintain, the original timetable. The simple fact is that as the only realistic bidder they were in a strong position to resist this, regardless of any political pressure LU was under to deliver the final product in 2018, and there can be no doubt that Thales were fully aware that all the cards were in their hands. The result is inevitably an extended timetable as the table below shows.
This does show a fairly well established pattern of increasing frequency as has happened recently on both the Victoria and Northern Lines. The first stage is to take the slack out the system caused by signalling and permanent way (track) improvements. After that you run a more intensive peak timetable, but only for around 90 minutes. You do this incrementally and with the SSR already running 27/28tph it does seem logical to go to 30tph and then to 32tph. Once confident that this will work you extend the hours of operation.
It is notable that the service via Finchley Road is also being increased in increments. This will start at 24tph (currently around 22.5tph) before increasing to 26 and finally 28tph. One can understand this being the last phase of the peak hour upgrades and it is probable that increasing the number of trains terminating at Baker Street from 10tph to 12tph whilst having 16tph continuing onward to Aldgate is going to be quite a challenge.
Off-peak enhancements
What is probably the most interesting and most curious feature of the table is the final item, which simply refers to “off-peak enhancements”. Normally this would not get a mention, and in any case why delay with off-peak enhancements? This would be easy to pass by if it were not for earlier official comments about “Once completed most Circle line customers will see a train up to every 4 minutes instead of 10.”
It is now we are going to get a bit speculative. For a start we will presume that this announcement would not be worth mentioning if it were not for it being something quite dramatic. Secondly, we are going to presume an off-peak service of 30tph. Such a frequency would not be at all unreasonable, though admittedly challenging to run all day with little slack in the system to recover from delays.
We now get a bit more speculative and presume that there is no appetite to dramatically increase the off-peak service north of Baker Street. This seems to be borne out with only 4tph proposed for Watford Junction and no increases proposed for Amersham and no increase easily possible on the single track line to Chesham. Baker Street – Uxbridge off-peak services are expected to be provided at approximately 8tph.
Now if you want to combine that service north of Baker St with a better more frequent service on the north side of the Circle Line you hit problems of integrating the train service. Meanwhile the terminating platforms at Baker Street are heavily underused. To get around this you could extend the Circle line from Edgware Road to Aldgate in the off peak. An example of the service that could be run if that were to happen is shown below.
Whilst we have had had no confirmation, official or unofficial, that this is what is planned, the consensus at LR Towers is that it represents the most plausible way forward that is consistent with recent announcements about the final off-peak service on the SSR.
The idea would appear to be quite a clever one. What it does is enable the trains to run at almost peak period frequency in the central area and on the District Line branches whilst at the same time have a much reduced and more appropriate level of service north of Finchley Road – roughly identical to the service provided today.
Passenger advantages and disadvantages
The most obvious benefit to passengers is the frequent off-peak service in the central area. Additionally, as far as passengers are concerned, the old Circle Line is effectively reinstated as it will in future be possible to make any plausibly sensible journey between two Circle Line stations without having to change. Off-peak at least, no longer will passengers south of Edgware Road need to change there. The only main downside for passengers is possible confusion when on some platforms. A westbound passenger at King’s Cross could catch a Circle Line train to Hammersmith or one advertised as “via Victoria”. Eastbound, a Circle Line train may or may not terminate at Aldgate. Metropolitan passengers on the Uxbridge branch would marginally lose out. The service frequency would go down from 8tph to 7.5tph and with it goes the convenience of an hourly clockface timetable.
Operational advantages and disadvantages
Operationally the idea is a bit of a mixed bag of benefits and disadvantages. Decoupling the need for Amersham, Chesham and Watford Junction services from the workings of the Circle Line would certainly help off-peak working. These trains would terminate at Baker Street. Reducing the number of through workings south of Baker Street would reduce the conflicting movements at Baker Street Junction to 7.5tph with only the Aldgate-Uxbridge services crossing the path of another service. However these 7.5tph, which need to be timed to fit in with what is happening in real time on the Circle Line, need to share tracks with the Amersham, Chesham and Watford Junction trains which need to run to the timetable as much as is possible.
In a similar way to the lines north of Baker Street, there may well be a conflict on the line from Gunnersbury to Richmond. The District Line trains will need to fit in with real-time running on the District and Circle Lines whilst London Overground, which shares the tracks, needs to do the utmost to stick to the timetable. Hanger Lane Junction, north of Ealing Common (where both junction and station current share tracks between the Piccadilly and District Lines) will also have the same issue.
Extending the Circle service from Edgware Road does re-introduce a potential disadvantage. To get this to work the time taken to travel from Aldgate to Edgware Road and vice versa via Victoria must be 36 minutes to nicely slot in four minutes after the previous Circle Line train. The current running time is 35 minutes and with Automatic Train Control it should be relatively easy to arrange for this to happen without delaying other trains.
Not enough off-peak S7 trains?
A potential problem with any plan to run a very frequent off-peak service is whether there are enough trains when necessary maintenance is taken into account. In this case it is worse because extension of the off-peak Circle Line service would require more trains whilst the off-peak service is already roughly 94% of the peak service. The problem is that it is the S8 stock on the Metropolitan Line that is being cut back off-peak and the S7 stock that will be given yet more work. Whilst S7 stock can (and occasionally does) run on the Metropolitan Line, it would not be possible for the longer S8 stock to run on the other lines.
Night Tube
One final item in the SSR resignalling is omitted, and that is any proposed introduction date for the Night Tube on the SSR. As it is said that this cannot be run until the resignalling work is done then this would suggest a date of May 2021 – nearly six years after it will be implemented on five other deep tube lines.
Under Scrutiny
A few years ago the New Tube for London was seen as the most important project for London Underground, with the SSR resignalling regarded as just one of many run-of-the-mill projects that were in progress. It is a sign of how attitudes have changed that it is the SSR signalling that is hitting the headlines and is under scrutiny with the New Tube for London project scarcely getting a mention. If there is a saving grace in all this then it is that Crossrail should do a lot to relieve the problems of the Sub-Surface Railway and buy a few more years to get its signalling up and working but, if the population of London increases as predicted, come the early 2020s we are going to desperately need the extra capacity on the Subsurface Railway.
London Underground, and indeed London itself, will be hoping that when it comes to SSR signalling there is no strike three.
You say s8s can’t run elsewhere on the ssr, in relation to the offpeak possible shortage of s7s. It would not be impossible with some platform work for s8s to run to barking. Probably less platform work than was required for s7s to Hammersmith. Return of the uxbridge barking service, anyone?
Cranking it up to 11 now, in order to avoid passenger confusion over the circle line being reextended over itself to aldgate, perhaps the Wimbleware service could be projected there instead.
Deep breaths…
Benedict…except…except….there’s no room at Aldgate because of the Met terminators and those can’t be all turned back at Baker St because there isn’t enough room there…isn’t that so?
Lies down in darkened room.
As part of a family of Met line commuters from Pinner and environs, I can tell you right now that this will be staggeringly unpopular in Harrow (and Herts and Bucks) if your predictions come true. Met line commuters have been getting a service that (while certainly more reliable) has more pressure on seats with the arrival of the S-stock, and have been conditioned to think-as a promise-that the problems are temporary and the SSR signalling upgrade will be the point when things get back to being better. Discovering that those seats will only carry you to Baker Street before you have to change in off-peak periods? It would feel like going back to the 80s.
If this is right, TfL have a monumental PR failure in not managing expectations. People in Harrow (and Watford and Amersham) have been sold the signalling upgrade as an improvement – no caveats; nothing worse, everything better. They’re not expecting fewer direct trains from Watford and Amersham to Aldgate, they’re expecting many more. It’s certainly possible to see this as an improvement from a journey time point of view, but admitting this now is going to seem terribly duplicitous.
@Pedantic of Purley
Very interesting write up. I think you’re “Circle Line to extends to Aldgate” is an interesting plan, and more feasible than my Edgeware Road-St John’s Wood tunnel plan.
I don’t want to go off piste so soon in the comments, but I keep looking at the old Addison Road issue and I can’t help thinking that trains linking Kensington Olympia and Earl’s Court/High Street Kenslington shouldn’t be under the Overground brand.
It makes much more sense – wouldn’t it – if the services out of Kensington Olympia to link up with the underground were run “as” an Overground link. Marching the departure times with the north- and south- departures at Kensington Olympia would make much more sense. Otherwise it’s just this random bit of the District line.
But we’re looking at 32tph on the District? Why not paint a few “S-Stock” Orange and run them at 4tph between Kensington Olympia and Earls’ Court.
In the long run, it would make a lot of sense for the casual visitor.
Wimbledon Branch:
So SWT can keep the empties back to Wimbledon via East Putney…
Off peak stock requirements:
Some of the resignalling work originally included improvements to journey times as a result of aligned track works* (which may or may not still be included or aligned given the report!) so if this is still the case combined with lighter loadings and shorter dwell times off peak, better acceleration of the new stock etc., fewer units might be needed to run the off peak service levels than you might expect.
*For example removing the bay at Putney Bridge and putting the southbound services to Wimbledon on a new through line using the existing bay platform edge to allow far higher speeds on approach and departure for Southbound services.
The Met line north of Baker St must have its challenges with four branches, and the fast, semi-fast and all station calling pattern. Then we need to consider effects of the Croxley Rail link and the vague aspiration of some to use the north curve at Watford to offer some sort of Watford /Watford Junction) to Rickmansworth (and beyond) service. So I can understand if there is a need to simplify the Met line at the southern end.
My experience is that the Waford/Amersham to Aldgate (and vice versa) services are popular in the peak . I don’t know how popular they are off-peak. The problem with terminating all Amersham/ Watford services at Baker St in the off-peak is that there will be a double-whammy. No fast/semi fast and a requirement to change.
Why does the Uxbridge line, which (except for West Harrow) has an alternative route through Central London, get the through service to Aldgate instead of Amersham (which otherwise only has a choice of two Zone 1 stations, next door to each other!)
The shortage of S7s to work the off-peak service: a surfeit of S8s and a shortage of S7s is, I would have thought, easily fixed, (provided you don’t need those S8s in the peak). However, I would have thought that, even off-peak, it would best for as many trains as possible on the busy section between Liverpool Street and Baker Street to be the maximum length that section can take (i.e S8).
I’m also sceptical about having a direct service from Paddington (Praed Street) to Baker Street and Kings Cross only in the OFF-peak – potential passengers at Paddington (which gets a more than its fair share of passengers unfamiliar with the quirks of the Underground), are likely to be even more confused than they are by the present arrangements.
Any possible confusion resulting from overlapping the not-Circle line could be alleviated by describing any westbound train through Euston Square bound for Hammersmith as a “Hammersmith and City” train. Nobody cares where it came from. In fact that might even be a good idea today.
It might be possible to terminate those extra Cirle line trains at Aldgate if you jiggle the timetable to have quick turnarounds on both services: obviously both terminating platforms would need to operate at 7.5 tph in the off peak. Is that possible? Apart from the usual issues, slow moving trains occupying the junction at the north of the platforms would be a problem here.
If more Aldgate terminators is a no go, then Moorgate might be usable instead (yes, I know that will increase conflicting moves, but it is *possible*).
“The West Coast Main Line resignalling, carried out around 20 years ago, demonstrated the danger of putting all one’s eggs in one basket”
If this is a reference to thh infamous moving block scheme then don’t you mean “The West Coast Main Line resignalling, NOT carried out around 20 years ago, demonstrated the danger of putting all one’s eggs in one basket” ?
Well if nothing else the article nicely highlights what happens when you have a massive queue of work to be done and one bit of it goes badly badly wrong. Clearly the Mayor has refused to endorse any shuffling of funding to bale out LU and it would be beyond credulity imagining anyone asking the Government to help out with more money. Therefore LU has to “live within its means” but I despair when I read things like “we must have good governance”. This is hardly anything new now is it? It merely shows the lack of governance, control and oversight that has previously existed if such prominence has to be given to it now. I see that Mike Brown has had to “get a ruddy grip” (to slightly misquote Mel G from The Great British Bake Off [1]) and establish a Steering Group. I note also that a “programme support partner” is also to be employed to make sure the thing stays on track (excuse the pun). There are so many phrases in that paper that just make me want to either scream or weep. So many cock ups, errors, bad behaviours, poor decisions. It’s awful.
I dread to think what the total financial impact will be of all of the cancelled contracts, abortive work, rework and the huge quantum of delayed benefits not only on SSR but also the Picc Line and Bakerloo Line. The project authority is going up by £1.2bn if this paper receives approval.
Clearly LU are trying to salvage something by bringing forth whatever they can but it doesn’t fix the fundamental issue of 5+ years delay to SSR and I hazard a guess at 12 years delay to the Picc Line by the time we eventually get to the mid-late 2020s when it’s upgraded. I note elsewhere in the TfL papers that a decision has been taken to replace the Picc Line’s current control room and move to a new facility at Hammersmith (I think). That shows the scale of delay if that sort of work can now be justified. It’s estimated final cost is a shade over £46m so not exactly insignificant.
The project will replace the obsolete signalling control system on the Piccadilly line until a new full signalling solution is installed under the New Tube for London Programme.
The authority sought is for the continuation of the migration of Piccadilly line control from Earls Court to a new Service Control Centre by 2019.
Deliverables are:
• Design and implementation of control system equipment to replace legacy assets.
• Design and build of the control head.
• Detail design of a new Service Control Centre and auxiliary control systems.
The designs for the Service Control Centre and auxiliaries are programmed to be completed by Summer 2015 when further funding for their implementation will be sought. The project will complete by September 2018.
I am sorry to be gloomy but I’d also point out that the new contract with Thales is not yet complete and may take weeks more to finalise. I believe the point of the paper to the Committee / Board is to effectively give a go ahead now and to establish delegation to the Commissioner for the granting of procurement, rather than financial, authority at the point when the parties are content to sign. It is no wonder that there is a reticence about the Night Tube dates given what the Chancellor and the Mayor said pre-election about Night time rail services in London arriving in 2019 and 2020. The thought that the SSR may not feature until 2022 or so hardly squares with the political statements. Whoever the next Mayor is will have a tough job on their hands delivering any meaningful improvement to LU lines courtesy of the fall out from the SSR resignalling decisions.
I note also that the maintenance of the SSR system is being contracted out. I don’t know what applies on the Jubilee and Northern Lines but that must put LU maintenance staff in line for outsourcing / transfer or the sack. Can’t see the RMT liking that one very much although the current approach is to pretty much ignore the RMT these days and just plough on regardless.
One key point to make about the suggestion that fewer Met trains will run through off peak. Apart from the frustration of passengers on the Amersham and Watford lines there is the not insignificant problem of interchange at Baker St station and the lack of accessibility. I suspect a proportion of people with disabilities or who just struggle with stairs and difficult step heights / gaps cope by having a through train at Baker St and then can use accessible stations elsewhere to travel onwards. By reducing the options and leaving people to cope with the exaggerated stepping distances on the through Met tracks at Baker St or the dreadful interchange you may be failing a segment of society. You may also deprive them of easy access to Thameslink and Crossrail at Farringdon. I can see that one turning into a political hot potato very very quickly indeed.
[1] bet you never expected to see that show quoted on here!
@Pedantic of Purley
Regards Earl’s Court, the points from Wimbledon branch into pfm.1 will be reinstated but the other show in red on the diagram, to the east of station, will not be installed.
There is already a route from pfm.1 to Gloucester Road and installing points in this area would remove the facility to reverse trains in the ‘yard’ (EB>WB) to the east of the station. There is just room to reverse an S7 in this ‘siding’ without interfering with EB movements
[Thank you for the info. I have amended the diagram and modified the text to reflect this. PoP]
@Dstock7080
“Regards Earl’s Court, the points from Wimbledon branch into pfm.1 will be reinstated but the other show in red on the diagram, to the east of station, will not be installed.There is already a route from pfm.1 to Gloucester Road ”
I’ve copied the diagram I have from a CAD printout of the London Underground
http://www.ukfree.tv/styles/images/2015/new-earls-court-1.png
and I have marked on the “red line” to link Eastbound from Wimbledon (next to 5B/5A).
However the link the other way -shown as 8A/8B on the diagram seems to be already there.
@Anonymous, 15 June 2015 at 16:00
“The West Coast Main Line resignalling, NOT carried out around 20 years ago, demonstrated the danger of putting all one’s eggs in one basket” ?
Well there has been ongoing resignalling of a conventional sort at various sites along the WCML over the last 20 years, both renewals driven and tied in to major remodelling of stations and junction layouts starting with Euston and including Rugby, Bletchley recently, and work ongoing around Stafford.
With no suitable working technology on the table and the clock ticking inexorably, a series of conventional signalling schemes were required in a great hurry to allow some of the remodelling aspirations to take place on the WCML. Decisions to implement this contingency ‘Plan B’ were made far too late to meet original timescales, but even if a mature main line TBS technology had been available off the shelf from the beginning, it is doubtful there would have been sufficient time in the programme for all the site specific development and design work required. Those in charge had convinced themselves the non-existent new technology would not only be cheaper, but be quicker and easier to configure and install than conventional signals.
Byway, Walthamstow Writer,
I can appreciate the points made but lets keep it factual. All the off-peak Watford trains currently terminate at Baker Street so there is unlikely to be uproar there because the situation will be unchanged. The only new off-peak terminating trains (assuming, of course, all this is correct) are the Amershams and the Cheshams. Harrow-on-the-Hill will still have a through train every eight minutes.
Anyone who has a disability making changing trains difficult and who does not have a through train will have the option of changing at Harrow-on-the-Hill where changing is normally cross platform.
True, there will be losers north of Harrow-on-the-Hill but this will be only 4tph. We will have to wait until later to see how easily and conveniently they could change to or from an Uxbridge through train.
I suspect any disadvantages that there may be will be more than offset in benefits of the proposal. A more frequent off-peak service possible throughout the rest of the SSR benefitting many people. The pseudo-restoration of the full Circle Line, at least off-peak, will, I suspect, be popular politically given Assembly Members’ views when it was proposed to give get rid of it. One AM in particular does not seem to have given up on the dream of restoring it.
Briantist,
Thanks for diagram. Yes 8a/8b are already there but quite a distance from the complementary set of points 12a/12b. If you look at Harsig’s historical diagram there was a similar set of points closer to Earl’s Court platform which I thought may be advantageous to reinstate. However, as Dstock7080 points out there are disadvantages in doing so. These I had not realised.
@Mark Townend – and even more strikingly, those in charge chose TBS “because it both new and emphatically not what the Board wanted to do” – so John Edmonds at the time. “We are the future” as the RT slogan had it. How we laughed at the time; how we laughed much longer when they went down…
@ PoP – fair enough. I still think Baker Street needs a massive overhaul though and shoving SSR trains through it at the rate envisaged is likely to completely overload access to / from the w/b Circle / H&C platform. A single fairly narrow staircase is just ludicrous for the numbers being handled either peak or off peak. The rest of the station is also well below par for a place with 28m jnys per annum (2013 data).
I think restoring the Circle Line off peak but not in the peaks is likely to draw criticism. The question will inevitably be asked why can you do it at 1500 hrs but not 1600 on a working day? I know an answer can be given but the average person won’t be convinced – especially after spending £5.4bn!! Ironically I recently got caught out because for some reason the Circle was doing a Circle and I ended up in entirely the wrong bit of Paddington (the Lawn) and had a ridiculous walk compared to the one I assumed I’d have from the H&C. That’ll teach me to pay attention to the engineering works notice.
The SSR really does provide ample temptation to reach for the crayons whilst bemoaning infrastructure choices of times past- imagine if the flyover at Warwick Road went over both the West Ken tracks for one- but the temptation must be held at bay lest one propose ripping up significant parts of London just to install a four-track Circle. Ahem. Great article as always. With the stock, is there scope within existing tenders to order further S7 (subject to budgets) or would a further tender be required?
I do wonder at what point it becomes unavoidable to knock through the platform 4 bay to enable more services to terminate in platform 3 without conflicting movements. It’s less of an issue when everything terminates (and obviously a non-issue when everything runs through), but given the plans seem to be a mix of through-running and termination then how many TPH can the bays realistically handle alongside a high-frequency through service?
@mr_jrt
Of which station do you speak, please?
[Based on content and his raising this in the past I can be confident he is talking about Baker Street. PoP]
Walthamstow Writer,
I would argue Baker Street needs something doing to it regardless of the finer details of the SSR upgrade. 4 tph extra off-peak terminating there isn’t going to make much difference.
Having a different peak-period service to the off-peak one isn’t ideal but, at worst, it is a case of a few notices stating “when no through train beyond Edgware Road is shown, take the first train there and change”. Furthermore, regular peak-period passengers tend to know what they are doing and would not be easily confused. This is less true in the off-peak when people may well expect to be able to get a train beyond Edgware Road but can’t.
At least Baker Street feels like a logical place to terminate trains with plenty of onward connections. Edgware Road feels like a place in the middle of nowhere that is used simply because a historical quirk meant that it acquired two otherwise useless platforms.
I also appreciate the difficulty of getting the message across to the public about why the same arrangement cannot be implemented in the peak period. However it is a lot easier to explain that there is a maximum number of trains that one can run between Baker Street and Moorgate and in the peak hours something has to give than it is to explain why it is problematic to keep going around continuously in a circle – especially as that is what used to happen. It is also easier to explain that the two terminating platforms at Baker Street have limited capacity but in peak hours one needs to run many more Metropolitan Line trains to Baker Street and they have to terminate somewhere.
@pop
“Furthermore, regular peak-period passengers tend to know what they are doing and would not be easily confused. This is less true in the off-peak when people may well expect to be able to get a train beyond Edgware Road but can’t.”
Aren’t we confusing averages and absolute numbers here? The regulars do not replace the occasional travellers in peak hours, they are additional to them. Although heavily diluted by the regulars at peak times, I would have expected there to be just as many people unfamiliar with the system to be around then as there are in the off-peak.
Would it not be easier to just extend the Wimbleware services to Aldgate in the Off peak. Then you’d have no confusion in regards to the Tube Map.
@Rational Plan
Why would extending Wimbledon services rather than Circle services to Aldgate be any less confusing, or indeed more useful? If anything, it would be more so as there would have to be a green-dashed(off peak only) element to add to the existing Neapolitan ice cream colour scheme along the north side of the Circle.
My own favoured solution would be for the existing Circle trains* to be extended from Edgware Road to Barking, and the existing H&C trains to terminate at Edgware Road instead (extended to Aldgate off peak if there is capacity). Thus you restore the through service between the west and north sides of the Circle. The short Hammersmith-ERD service can simply be shown as short workings of the Hammersmith – Circle – Barking line.
*or the Wimblewares, it doesn’t really matter which. The REALLY important question, of course, will be whether the combined Hammersmith-Circle-Barking line would be yellow or pink, and what to do with the other colour!
@Theban – Sorry mea culpa, PoP is quite right, I was referring to Baker Street.
@timbeau – “and what to do with the other colour!” – now, THAT is crayonism…
Is there any reason not to reinstate off-peak fast trains on the Amersham/Chesham branch? There must be very few people travelling from e.g. Amersham to Pinner. I can understand the Watford branch being all-stops, since Watford is a destination in its own right (not to mention connections to the GWML); but why not make the Bucks branch always non-stop? The few people who are doing Amersham to Pinner can change at Moor Park or Harrow.
While people from distant Buckinghamshire might miss their through trains to Aldgate, it seems far more reasonable to have through Circle lines trains extended there from Edgware Road in the off peak instead, seeing that the former is basically a commuter line (and a historical quirk) whereas the latter is a means for people in central London to get around.
At the moment, between Edgware Road and Baker Street there is a real need for more capacity, as the H&C trains are increasingly busy (Westfield having an effect) and there is little spare capacity by the time they reach Edgware Road for all the people dumped off Circle and Wimbleware trains. Once Crossrail opens, a large number people will still need to use the SSR lines to connect to the major termini and Metropolitan lines, and in some ways it will be the Central Line and Bakerloo (from Paddington) that will benefit most.
Andrew M,
This was covered in our look at the Metropolitan Line in 2013. The text after “The Controversial Change” paragraph heading explains the background. Since nothing has changed, or will change, I see no reason why LU will alter their stance on this.
I think this will forever be controversial.
@Mikey C
“Once Crossrail opens, a large number people will still need to use the SSR lines to connect to the major termini and Metropolitan lines”
Not sure about that – if you are coming in to Paddington on Crossrail, the Bakerloo Line interchange will be more convenient for stations as far as Great Portland Street (well, Regents Park) or for Baker Street you could stay on the train for one more stop and change at Bond Street, rather than faff about with the Circle Line.
Likewise, change at TCR for the Euston Road area (even GtPtSt is just round the corner from Warren Street).
For Kings Cross, a change at Farringdon will probably be quicker.
@timbeau, 16 June 2015 at 16:07
Not so much for those arriving from the west ON Crossrail, but for those arriving on longer distance GWML services that terminate at Paddington, the circle/H&C will still be an attractive option for getting across to the Euston/Kings Cross area and will nicely segregate those passengers from others going to West end and City who will either continue to use the Bakerloo or switch to Crossrail. Can’t see many people continue walking over to Lancaster Gate though for the Central.
This is all very interesting and if everything works perfectly all of the time, no points failures, no passenger actions and no emergencies, absolutely wonderful. What about dealing with the flat junctions all over the Circle Line first before all this innovative, expensive technology is introduced. Superimposing 21st century technology on basically Victorian infrastructure could lead to interesting results.
Just thinking it through again about the issue of Paddington-Kings Cross on the Circle line, at least until Crossrail 1 and 2 have opened.
There is a more direct way to deal with the issue: how about running some extra shuttles (coloured Pink, I guess) that run from King’s Cross to Paddington?
The run would be 15 minutes (an extra two minutes for the turnaround). But you could do this with a couple of trains and get another 4tph in each direction.
The trains would need to run on to Royal Oak to use the points there to change direction back.
I’m guessing this is something the automated DLR could do easily, but might be a bit of technical challenge.
Still would address the pre-Crossrail capacity issues.
@mark townend
Indeed, those on terminating services will still prefer the Circle to get to Great Portland Street etc, but there will be fewer people than before because there will be fewwer terminating services.
@Briantist
If there was capacity for an extra 4tph between Paddington and Kings Cross (and in particular over the flat junction at Baker Street), LU would run an extra 4tph. But there isn’t, so they don’t.
Indeed, if you start terminating trains on the running lines at those locations, the time spent “tipping out” would actually reduce capacity, even on that section, let alone between KX and Liverpool Street.
lionel15,
Removing flat junctions (if it were possible – there is an awful lot of other infrastructure down there) would probably not reduce the incidents of points failures, passenger actions and other emergencies.
The expense of removing flat junctions would make the resignalling seem like an absolute bargain.
@PoP
As I said several times in the period surrounding the release of that article on the Met Line: the lack of off-peak fast wasn’t that controversial until the Dec ’12 timetable changes a year after their removal – swap back the respective positions of trains passing through Chalfont & Latimer to how it was three years ago, and the complaints would turn to congrats on making travel from Zone 9 better.
As Amersham is, by some way, the busiest station north of Harrow, this isn’t some piddly provincial concern, but the source of most of the complaints about Met line timetable changes.
How much real demand is there for City trains from zone 9 in the off peak? It always seems to me that this is a thing that people feel that must be there in the same way that they claim that their local is an essential “community asset” while they sit at home with a bottle of supermarket plonk.
Si,
But to repeat what was said before, the swapping around of trains only affects Amersham and Chesham. Important to the people who use (or would use) the Metropolitan Line at Amersham I agree but in the bigger scheme of things not that significant. Also, if just considering LU entrance and exit figures, Rickmansworth is actually busier than Amersham. Amersham by LU standards is a very quiet station. The fact there are stations that are quieter still nearby does not change this.
In terms of the presumed 2023 off-peak changes, these may upset those north of Harrow-on-the-Hill but if you compare Amersham Entry and Exits with any station on the Circle Line you will see how relatively unimportant this all is. Even Great Portland Street manages getting on for double the total number of Amersham users (not just the LU ones).
@ Peter C – probably not many, but it’s not just those two stations that will lose direct access, but 10 – OK, not busy ones.
However, even then it’s not about this (though it’s where the noise will come from). It’s a question of whether there’s enough people who would like to travel from Bayswater, etc through Edgware Road without changing to reduce the
—
@ PoP
The NR (growing massively post Dec12 with LU figures dropping slightly) at Amersham takes usage to 4.168m if you add the data for the two last available years. Ricky’s combined figure is 2.974m. NR figures went up at Amersham in recent years because off-peak Mets get overtaken (OK, the Dec 12 timetable had them arrive the same time as the Chilterns, now you get to Harrow a minute or two earlier).
And while it is a change that affects just two bottom-50 LU stations (I think TfL’s accidental tactics to get Amersham passengers to take Chiltern has pushed out of the busiest 220 LU stations) isn’t in doubt. I never said that the awful timetabling north of Chalfont was an important issue – only that it is actually what the controversy about stopping trains is actually about, something that you have constantly downplayed as you assume that Amersham/Chesham matters is just for Amersham/Chesham and not for London Reconnections.
That the issues around service pattern on the North Circle are way more important isn’t in doubt. However with an ‘Amersham’ hat on, there’s still no reason why north of Chalfont has to be so bad and its a change that would cost next to nothing to fix.
—
Both of you will note that I didn’t bring the assumed Baker St area changes into this – just the real reason why ‘all-stations’ trains to Herts and Bucks are actually controversial. Actually it was others like timbeau (from SW London) and Walthamstow Writer (NE London) who talked about the loss of through services from outside the GLA boundary.
I think extending the Wimbleware services to Aldgate seems like a better idea than extending the Circle line services there. This service will be easier to understand for passengers (no worrying about whether the first or second loop). Few passengers from the south-circle will want to travel to the north side via High Street Ken. While there are many passengers from the western branches of the district who would want destinations on the north circle. Indeed, it could mean many passengers at Earls Court transferring onto Wimbleware (or Wimblegate) services rather than most of the passengers from the Wimbledon branch leaving the train at Earls Court for destinations on the southern circle.
As a matter of interest, why did Amersham (as opposed to, say, Chorleywood, or Aylesbury) become the limit of electrification in 1960?
@Wimblegate = 16 June 2015 at 21:11
Few passengers from the south-circle will want to travel to the north side via High Street Ken.
Source? …. or conjecture?
Victoria-Paddington?
I suspect, too, that the Circle Line still serves its original purpose for those encumbered with heavy baggage and are transferring between London Termini and do not wish the hassle of long walks, escalators engendered by using the deep tubes. (But that is just my suspicion)
John UK:
Er…Victoria to Paddington is unaffected by choice between Wimbleware or Circle.
@John UK
For the purposes of the Wimblegate’s assertion, Paddington can be considered to be on the west side of the Circle Line, not the north side. Victoria-Paddington is currently a viable route, and would remain so, whatever happens to the Edgware Rd terminators.
If I were going from Fulham (say) to the northern side of the Circle I wouldn’t go via Paddington. Piccadilly from Earls Court to Kings Cross or Northern from Embankment is usually quicker. Even Baker Street via Westminster is not much further.
It is correct the radio system gets rid of the track loops but I believe the plan is to put a balise of some sort every 25m i.e at the same spacing as the loop crossings on the Jubilee / Northern. That makes around seven thousand installed in the 4 foot. I have also been told they have a 10 year battery life though it is not clear if this is 10 years sitting on the shelf or 10 years when being read by a train every couple of minutes. So one has a massive replacement programme before year 10. Also of course will tags of the same type still be available after 10 years bearing in mind the life of consumer electronics is around 9 months and falling ?
Getting radio coverage without gaps will also be a challenge – the original Storno radio was known for communications blackspots though part of this was due to the frequencies being shared with local taxi firms.
Lots of challenges ahead.
@timbeau – from Fulham to Kings Cross, using Wimbleware/Circle is a more pleasant journey in bigger trains and less walking to change trains and to get out of Kings Cross.
Without the enforced change at Edgware Rd, it would be even better. It may not be quicker than switching to the Piccadilly, but it’s nicer.
This change seems similar to when I suggested using Moorgate instead of Edware Road with its inhospitable open platforms to terminate Circle Line trains . However, Aldgate has its problems re curved platforms, difficult access and as one could say ” If you want to end your journey I would not end it here…!”.
Sit on the platform at Euston Square and the number of Metropolitan Line trains compared to Circle and H&C is soon noticed and the reality is after Kings Cross they are often over half empty while trains on both other lines are packed tight and it’s nothing to do with one less carriage. It’s simply that just like Thameslink trains from Wimbledon loop running north of Kings Cross the Metropolitan Line serves users with a per chant to write to certain papers not usually read by the crowds to East Ham on packed H&C trains.
I often use this route to Barking but even if a Barking train is shown I often catch Metropolitan Train to Liverpool Street given the mass of empty seats safe in the knowledge that Barking train won’t overtake mine ( well until City Widened Lines are converted into 4 track route between Farringdon and Liverpool Street ….).
Personally I would prefer an enhanced service on Hammersmith and City Line between Hammersmith and Barking which could more closely match the service provided by District Line on south side of the circle line.
While the opening of Crossrail at Farringdon Station will allow passengers who now change at Liverpool Street to use Farringdon further reducing use of Metropolitan Line trains .
@Timbeau
Good question.
Rickmansworth (the former limit) is an obvious location – stabling, reasonable limit of urban services, etc. However IIRC, the need for new stock for the Chesham services was one factor that came into the equation – it was cheaper to resume the pre-war plans to electrify to Chesham and use the new standardised A-Stock (and accordingly, also to Amersham as a sensible major railhead a short distance from the Chesham divergence). The sums to electrify all the way to Aylesbury just didn’t add up, so BR took full ownership of the assets beyond Mantle Wood Junction…
@An Engineer, 16 June 2015 at 21:52
“It is correct the radio system gets rid of the track loops but I beleive the plan is to put a balise of some sort every 25m i.e at the same spacing as the loop crossings on the Jubilee / Northern”
Seems excessively dense spacing for plain line between stations. I agree such precision is desirable through platforms to allow closing up with one train following in whilst the preceding one is still departing, but under no circumstance will trains be following so close when at line speed in the tunnels between stops. The Victoria Line DTG signalling uses transponders at up to 130m apart (shorter in stations) but technically they can be up to 280m so the system can cope with one failure to read without falling over.
As to battery life, usually passive balises do not consume any of their own power by being read by a passing train – all the power required for that is broadcast by the train and reflected back to it. The battery in a balise is likely to be there only to maintain the encoded data held within the device in the memory system.
passengers from the south-circle will want to travel to the north side via High Street Ken.
The fastest route from Victoria to Heathrow should be via Paddington, as is Victoria to Reading. I suspect CrossRail might increase even further the number of passengers who would want a good Circle line frequency round the west end of the loop.
@mr_jrr…..Interesting that it was a stock issue which drove electrification beyond Rickmansworth. I also thought it was money (or to be more precise the lack of it) which stopped the four rails going all the way to Aylesbury. The idea of transferring everything beyond Rickmansworth to BR (i.e. including Amersham and Chesham services) was never seriously entertained back then? Probably just as well really.
Imagine though if BR had managed to shut Marylebone in the 1980s…..then we might have seen electric Met trains come to Aylesbury, as I don’t think BR would have wanted to continue providing an isolated diesel shuttle service between Aylesbury and Amersham. It would have been weird though, seeing the London Underground serve the heart of deepest, darkest rural Bucks!
The track loops on the Thales system serve two purposes…….two way transmission of data and position. Position is determined by crossing the wires in the loop every 25m. Crossing the wires creates a null point – a momentary dead spot – which the system records as ‘another 25m travelled’ which it can compare with its own assessment of how far the train has travelled (speedometer and accelerometer). In the SSR system the radio replaces the data function of the loops and the balise replaces the absolute position function. It is comparatively straightforward to change the medium through which the vital information is conveyed to/from the train. It is not easy or desirable to change the fundamentals of how the core system works and this system requires an absolute position every 25m.
Comparison was made with the Victoria line. This indeed needs balises less frequently, but its core operating system is completely different. Part of the difference is that the VL system is a fixed block system relying on track circuits or axle counters for normal train separation function whereas, in most circumstances, the Thales system doesn’t need an independent detection system. There is a very large number of track circuits on the Victoria line, occasionally as many as 8 in less than 300m to allow small separation at busy stations!
Sadly the long held objective of no track mounted signalling trackside is still some way off but there is no doubt that the radio/balise system will avoid some of the ‘loop knitting’ at complex junctions. This is a smaller problem on other railways as they don’t have to contend with the fourth rail.
Before someone suggests it, about once a generation LU examines the feasibility of converting the third rail and after seeing what’s involved, puts the notion back on the shelf!
@Anonymously – I suspect that there was a whole host of reasons,not just the stock on the Chesham branch (after all much of the other steam-hauled stock was pretty aged by 1960),which drove the timing and extent of electrification. One important issue was the steady run down of Marylebone, another the switch by BR to diesel loco haulage. No doubt, Alan Robinson,whose memory goes back further than mine, will comment,but BR certainly seemed at the time to be working towards retaining just an Amersham-Aylesbury shuttle.
BTW, if you find the idea of LU continuing to serve leafiest Bucks odd, remember that once it went all the way to Verney Junction and the Brill branch was still served until closure by Met Class A tanks and some really elderly stock in full LT livery until closure. (Until the dismantling of LCBS, many of us were used to seeing LT livery on buses in quite remote country villages – the 387 in darkest NE Herts or -a full red-liveried example -the 175 to Passingford Bridge -spring to mind).
@Graham H
The 465 still manages to get deep into the Surrey hills. https://goo.gl/maps/z6kEQ
Electrification to Amersham just because the Chesham stock was getting long in the tooth seems a bit of a sledgehammer/nut situation. Given that part of the Met’s network was to be handed over to BR anyway, surely one of the LMR’s shiny new diesel units (later known as class 115) could have done the job?
Presumably Sarah Siddons and her brothers and sisters working the Aylesbury trains as far as Rickmansworth were getting a bit past it by 1960, but again diesel units could have covered those duties. Would they have been allowed to go through to the City? Diesels continued to work between Kings Cross and Moorgate until the late 1980s, (even steam was occasionally still seen on the Widened Lines until the mid sixties) but whether they would have been permitted between Baker Street and Kings Cross I don’t know. Even if diesels could go no further than Marylebone/Baker Street, it seems that through working to the City was not sacrosanct in 1960 – at least not for Aylesbury, Great Missenden and Wendover, so presumably then, if not now, they could have got away with depriving Amersham, Chalfont and Chorleywood as well.
@
@100andthirty, 17 June 2015 at 08:11
I understand what you’re saying there, and it makes perfect sense, especially for a limited early pilot scheme on the Jubilee or Northern to retain the 25m spacing throughout – to avoid the significant change in existing train and infrastructure controls, but one of the beauties of balises is that they can be encoded with data about how far it is to the next balise (or two). So a mark 2 development of the Seltrac system COULD conceptually incorporate variable spacing of balises. On the Chesham branch for example, it’s ‘one engine in steam’ – do we really need a balise every 25m on such a single line?
Mark Townend,
On the Chesham branch for example, it’s ‘one engine in steam’ – do we really need a balise every 25m on such a single line?
Presumably the conventional answer is “yes” because the train needs to know exactly where it is in order to run at the exact speed permitted (to the nearest 1km/h) for that exact section of line.
@Mellvyn
“. If you want to end your journey I would not end it here…!”.
Perhaps it is precisely because most people have left the train before it gets to there that Aldgate is a good terminal point. Think of it as a turnback siding which happens to have a platform next to it. It’s a more convenient turnback than Moorgate is, or Liverpool Street was, because the siding is in the middle, so reversing trains do not have crossover movements with the Circle Line trains (they still conflict with Barking trains, but they would do that at the other two sites too)
“Sit on the platform at Euston Square and the number of Metropolitan Line trains compared to Circle and H&C is soon noticed”
Off-peak the Met trains should be 50%
“the reality is after Kings Cross they are often over half empty while trains on both other lines are packed tight and it’s nothing to do with one less carriage”
It’s not to do with where they have come from, and everything to do with where they are going. From Aldgate eastwards (and Tower Hill westwards) three quarters of the available capacity is taken up by the District Line. Consequently only a quarter of the capacity on the north side of the Circle can go to Barking, and another quarter round the corner towards Embankment. The other half therefore has to terminate in the City. Where they have come from is academic – the Barking and Circle trains are going further, so they will be used more than those only going to Aldgate. That would be the case even if all trains through Euston Square had come via Edgware Road and none from the Met main line – 50% would still have to terminate at Aldgate, and be less busy than those going further.
“Just like Thameslink trains from Wimbledon loop running north of Kings Cross the Metropolitan Line serves users with a per chant (sic, I assume you mean a penchant) to write to certain papers not usually read by the crowds to East Ham on packed H&C trains.”
I would agree with you there – but Blackfriars is the analogue for Baker Street, and Kentish Town for Aldgate. I think you will find that the Thameslink trains that terminate at Kentish Town are quieter through the core than those for Luton and Bedford, for the same reason that White City trains are quieter than West Ruislip trains, and Barking trains quieter than Upminster ones. It has nothing whatsoever to do with where they have come from.
Electrification to Amersham and Chesham was part of the 1935 New Works programme, so it was then that Amersham was set as the limit. The scheme than include quadrupling all the way to Rickmansworth. I don’t know what the then target date was (presumably mid 1940s) – obviously events intervened, but I imagine part of the drive to push the scheme forward in the mid-late 1950s was the need for stock replacement on the Met.
@Graham H
Apologies to all for the length of this comment, but I happen to have the 10 page London Midland business case for the replacement of the Marylebone steam services by DMUs, which is relevant to the debate about railway investment choices north of Harrow then, and now if a Watford Junction-Aylesbury etc service is foreseen, so adds some further points alongside GH’s remarks. Of course the moderators might prefer to locate this item elsewhere – eg into the Marylebone closure article – and reference back to it here.
The LM dieselisation was to be complementary to the LT scheme (Commission minute 12/1000 of 12th March 1959). The business case was presented to the British Transport Commission on 3rd July 1959 by the LMR General Manager, with reference CO.345.5.14 (88).
The core of the passenger benefit case (not quantified, of course, in those days) was that “the present steam stock operating these services [taken over by LMR on 1st February 1958] is old and not very comfortable”. It was the subject of many complaints. “The new diesel services would provide a considerable degree of modernisation in an important and influential area of London and its surroundings”. There was a revenue case justified by a market research exercise to extend first class facilities to the High Wycombe route, largely served then by second class only stock.
4-car DMU sets making up to 8-car trains were recommended, with 140 cars of which 120 (30 units) would be in peak service, leaving 5 units spare. Peak service frequencies from High Wycombe would be about every 10 minutes, with some trains starting at Princes Risborough or Haddenham.
On the Aylesbury via Amersham route, a 15 minute peak frequency was proposed with trains only serving “Harrow-on-the-Hill, Chalfont & Latimer, Amersham and all stations to Aylesbury”. Note that LT would provide the only trains serving stations including Moor Park, Rickmansworth and Chorley Wood. [In practice, the new service did call at ‘Chorley Wood & Chenies’ station when it was introduced in 1962.]
Offpeak services would be hourly on each route. In 1959 an approx 45 minute interval service was operated in the offpeak to Aylesbury. “This service cannot be commercially justified and the present proposals provide for an hourly service”.
Also interestingly, development of any outer-suburban diesel service north of Aylesbury, say as far as Brackley, was not discussed, although that could have offered 90 minute timings to London. This paper would have been an appropriate moment to have considered such an option, with the proposed acceleration of the stopping service to Aylesbury, to just one hour, from 83-90 minutes. However the initial run down of the GC main line was already planned for November 1959, when the fast long distance trains were withdrawn.
For the new DMUs, extensive platform lengthening was required to enable 8-car train operation. This was not recommended to be carried out at Wembley Hill, Sudbury and Harrow Road and Sudbury Hill “as these stations are under examination for closure”. Separate parcels trains would continue to run on both routes as the DMUs would only be timed for half-minute station stops.
The Regional Accountant had done his numbers. Capital costs for all elements incurred by all partners (LMR, WR, LT) would be £2,378,000 less a gross replacement cost of assets displaced of £1,097,357 (already on the BTC books), leading to a net additional capital outlay of £1,280,643.
Operating costs were estimated as only £7,000 pa extra with a more frequent diesel service (£448,300), compared to the present steam services. Annual train miles would rise by 299,200, to 1,461,400. The operating costs included an additional £51,200 net interest charges. Additional passenger revenue was put at £45,000. Existing gross revenues were NOT stated, therefore the exercise was largely one of showing the net change in BTC outgoings from the dieselisation proposal.
For that purpose, the baseline return on additional outlay was counted as £38,000 (45k-7k) from improved revenue, plus the £51,200 net increase in interest which, this way round, counted on both sides of the books! The resulting figure of £89,200 showed a 7% return on capital outlay. If it had just been the net extra revenue which counted, that would have been only a 3% return, however that was not stated in the business case. Nevertheless the report commented that “the above scheme does not show an attractive financial result”.
Additional stroking of the numbers was then adopted. The report noted that “in the London Transport Executive scheme for terminating services at Amersham it was estimated that an additional 220,000 train miles would be incurred by British Railways and an estimated additional cost of £90,000 per annum (which equals £105,000 at current levels) was offset against the anticipated savings”.
Possibly – I haven’t seen the paper for the LTE scheme – this would have provided for a higher frequency service between Marylebone and Aylesbury in the offpeak, which this paper says was uneconomic and would instead be run an hourly service. 220,000 train miles equates with return workings on Monday-Saturday only, to another 10-11 trains a day, each way.
“If this [the net costs of the 220,000 train miles] is taken into consideration in conjunction with the L.T.E. scheme for widening the line to Watford South Junction and extension of electrification to Amersham, the net financial improvement is as follows”:
Estimated increase in net revenue from L.T.E. scheme – £122,000 pa
Foregoing estimated additional cost not now required – £105,000 pa
Estimated net financial improvement for L.M. scheme – £ 38,000 pa
Total net financial improvement for combined schemes – £265,000 pa.
So it was recommended to proceed with the scheme. “Provision has already been made for the expenditure in the Works and Equipment Budgets, and the 140 diesel cars are included in the 1959/60 building programmes for construction at Derby”.
What do we make about all this today? Line traffic is still not high, as the Aylesbury via Amersham route currently has a quarter-hourly peak and half-hourly offpeak service, so remarkably close to the 1959 thoughts, where there was consideration of the right offpeak frequency! It can’t be often that a 55-year old business case still is broadly relevant. Does that say a lot about the travel habits of Chiltonians and the limitations of housing development in much of the AONB protected catchment?
What about Watford Junction-Aylesbury, then (mentioned in the Croxley Link article)? Possibly the case might be made for the MK-Aylesbury service to run not on via the High Wycombe line (the present thinking), but to be rerouted to Watford Junction as a new service overlay which opens up direct travel possibilities between Watford as an interchange and employment centre, the Chilterns catchment and the enlarged town of Aylesbury, and with a Chilterns and Aylesbury to MK service in the opposite direction? Just a thought.
@etr220-indeed, the extra spans on many of the bridges to accommodate the additional tracks were there many years in advance (eg at North Harrow) although I seem to recall that they allneeded replacement by the time the four tracking actually occurred!
More generally, the resilement from the outer reaches of the Met, which happened in 1936, seemed to be part of a general tidying up process,inclding the transfer of freight and the “mainer” line steam locos to the LNER -I guess the New Works programme was the complement to that.
@timbeau -:-) Yes,the 465 seems to be the last surviving major red extension in to the non-rurban countryside (need to check the status of the 84 and 242,however…
84 and 242 are both now commercial non-TfL routes. There are some TfL routes which still stray well out of Greater London though – the 81 to Slough, 405 to Redhill, two routes each to Watford and Borehamwood, three routes to Debden, and four routes to Staines. There are also some quite bosky bits within Greater London of course, like the 166 through Chipstead
From the board paper
“9.2 An additional S Stock train is also required for the Croxley Rail Link project ”
Does this mean that the extra S8 will now be ordered to get 8tph through to Watford Junction (rather than turning 1 back probably Rickmansworth)?
@timbeau 10:32
Another problem with the eastbound Metropolitan trains is that they stop at the “wrong” platform at Baker Street, the vast majority of users there seem to go to the Circle Line platforms which are more ‘intuitive’ especially for visitors.
@Mikey C
Short of replacing platforms 2 and 5 (if I’ve got the numbers the right way round) with a new platform east of the junction, or right-hand running so that eastbound Met services call at platform 3, I can’t see how that issue can be resolved.
Perhaps an obvious point but if extending the circle (or whatever line is chosen) at the expense of the Met in the off peak, how do you suddenly revert to the requirements for the peak service if trains are then out of place (which presumably would not happen if it was the same service but merely less frequent)? Though general travel in the peak evening on the Met would be northwards, surely there is a need for some trains to be heading down the line as well to make up the return service. Or is the idea that the Met trains are gradually formed with arriving circle trains at, say, Aldgate so it becomes a gradual handover from off peak to peak (which may not work anyway because of the difference in S7/8 trains). I can see the idea being of benefit at the week-ends but in the week it’s going to get pretty complicated and not just for the passengers.
@Pedantic of Purley, 17 June 2015 at 10:24
Presumably the conventional answer is “yes” because the train needs to know exactly where it is in order to run at the exact speed permitted (to the nearest 1km/h) for that exact section of line.
I agree if we use the current system with just the loop transitions replaced by beacons that say ‘hey i’m a beacon’ and nothing more on being passed by a train. Beacons (balises) can report much more static data though, not least their identity and a means to determine their position relative to other balises nearby on the network. In ETCS, other older ATP systems, and presumably the VL DTG, Trains ‘dead reckon’ their position between balises using odometry in order to determine their safe speed envelope. Mainline ETCS Level 2 typically uses a plain line balise spacing of 500m which is considered sufficient for correcting the odometry with some margin for a misread. Balises can be spaced more closely where required for precision around platforms and junctions.
I accept Seltrac isn’t ETCS, but only being able to determine distance travelled and thus position in the network by incrementally counting anonymous 25 metre chunks of railway seems not to be exploiting fully the potential of the balise, and there must be some ID data passed from the balise in order for the train to be able to confirm progress and release track behind it. If the on-board ATP control absolutely needs positional updates at 25m intervals, then those could be dead reckoned and issued as required by a more sophisticated on-board positional system between more widely spaced physical balises. Perhaps only the physical balise updates would be relied on for track clearance purposes, but that’s almost certainly OK for capacity requirements in most plain line areas and the precision could be improved by having more physical balises around busy stations and junctions where required anyway.
DTG Distance to Go-Radio, Invensys’ (ex-Westinghouse) proprietary signaling technology
@LBM
. . . all owned by Siemens now.
DTG was the original first choice for the SSR under Metronet. That was superseded by Bombardier offering their own Cityflo. Bombardier, itself a partner in Metronet, had subcontracted the signalling work initially to Invensys, still trading under the Westinghouse brand back then I think.
@Wimblegate
“a better idea than extending the Circle line services [to Aldgate]. This service will be easier to understand for passengers (no worrying about whether the first or second loop).”
easy – clockwise train is called a Circle until it gets to, say, HSKen, then becomes an Aldgate. Anticlockwise the transition from “Circle” to “Hammersmith” can be made between Tower Hill and Aldgate.
@Mark Townend
“On the Chesham branch for example, it’s ‘one engine in steam’ – do we really need a balise every 25m on such a single line?
Only being able to determine distance travelled and thus position in the network by incrementally counting anonymous 25 metre chunks of railway seems not to be exploiting fully the potential of the balise, and there must be some ID data passed from the balise in order for the train to be able to confirm progress and release track behind it. Perhaps only the physical balise updates would be relied on for track clearance purposes, but that’s almost certainly OK for capacity requirements in most plain line areas .”
It’s certainly more than enough for the Chesham branch, as capacity is limited to one train anyway, and there is never any need to release track behind the train. You just need a balise at the braking point approaching each end of the branch.
@PoP
‘the SSR resignalling is on the critical path for investment – in non-project speak, that it potentially blocks the start of other work.’
I can’t see a real critical path in the project as an isolated whole. Certainly parts of the project may well be critical to LU systems in that an incremental improvement to one part affect the need for improvements to other parts to cope with the increased capacity demanded as a result of the first improvement. The SSR resignalling project is altogether too big to deal with either in isolation or as as single entity. The same can be said for NTfL. LU can only treat its system as a whole system even when parts are capable of operating (or failing) individually.
It may well be that the SSR resignalling project may be now so far behind the improvements to other parts of the LU system that the need for parts to be put into effect is now critical to the whole. This is not a reason to do nothing else which is what seems to be being said.
‘A lot of the reason for this is budgetary.’
This sounds like an artificial critical path designed by those who like to keep purse strings tightly closed. (What! Cynical! Moi!) I could imagine that that is what you are implying but I would need to write between the lines to verify this.
@timbeuau/GH Don’t forget Bluewater (even though we all want to) – served by 96, 428 and 492 and a good 6 route miles from the GLA boundary. The 465 manages not much more, at about 8.5 miles, admittedly from the RBK salient into Leafy Surrey.
@Saintsman: I believe that the extra S8 for the Croxley Link was included in current S Stock build some time ago, potentially in time to be constructed with the other S8s.
@RayK: yes, I think it is all about the purse strings. If the treasury only allow LUL to invest a certain amount capital each year, and the cost has skyrocketed, then LUL will have to commit more years-worth of allowance to get the resignalling done. This will push other investments like further into the future.
@Mike P- is Bluewater that leafy?(I must confess that I really had in mind only those red routes that went into truly rural areas; things like the 81, for example, don’t really leave the built up area/Brown belt,whereas the 465 gets into rural villages like Mickleham*)
*Good pub there, BTW [..and that would be a good note on which to end leafy bus digressions, please. Malcolm]
Mark Townsend, PoP.
PoP has it right. That’s exactly what I was trying to explain. I can easily envisage a signalling system that does all that Mark suggests. However, the fact is that Seltrac doesn’t work that way and it isn’t going to change on SSR. Its core technology is still based on the systems originally supplied in Toronto and Vancouver in the 1980s. Yes it has moved on and now runs on industrial PC platforms and even some parts run on modern (with a hint of irony) Windows XP platforms, but the core is still the same expecting an absolute position updatd every 25m. As I said before, to allow trains to run safely with no track based detection, you do need to know with confidence where the trains are and with metro style acceleration and braking rates, the accuracy of tachometers to estimate the position is not enough. Main line railways can supplement this with all sorts of tracking devices such as satvnav, not available to underground railways. Therefore balises are useful but I accept that having 40 per km is a lot.
The Victoria line system does provide maps of balise locations on every train, and thus knows where to look. This could allow for areas such as the Chesham branch. Equally, the balises could be programmed to advise the location of the next one (although I haven’t thought though how that would work for bi-directional travel). Indeed the Central Line ATO has a variation on this theme; a platform area communicator at each station sends data to the train about the way ahead. So all things are possible. I will come back though to the fact that LU is buying Seltrac, possibly the the most successful Metro TBTC system so far. LU can’t affort to be innovative, after having cancelled two previous signalling contracts, both of which would have worked eventually.
Moorgate terminators too? They have 4 platforms!!
Stuart1976,
Moorgate has, I believe, currently two platforms available for terminating trains. They are not ideal because they are not between the running tracks as at Aldgate. Thinking of terminating trains at Moorgate tends to miss the point though because there is a limit to the capacity between Baker Street and Moorgate which is a bigger issue.
etr220
Yes.
Even as a 12-year-old, it was obvious that the “Met’s” loco-hauled stock was more knackered than the Quint-Arts on the Chingford line, in say 1958!
@ Ray K – surely the point about “critical path” is that TfL / LU cannot afford to do anything really substantive in terms of line upgrades until the SSR work is done. It’s late, its costs have increased and there have been abortive costs from abandoning previous contracts. We also seeing TfL have to spend on interim “fixes” on Picc Line control centre and 72 stock “keep it going” works that wouldn’t have been done if the upgrades had run broadly to time. TfL have to fund all those consequences within the fares and capital grant settlement it has to 2021.
Having dealt with multiple LU budget “crises” in a past life it’s not the case that anything artificial is going on here. There is only so much money available in any one year and people have to trim programmes to fit in. Something like SSR resignalling, once fully committed, will crowd out other spend although TfL use the concept of “overprogramming” to deal with variability in project progress allowing funds to be released if budgets won’t be spent as expected. You can see what happens from reading the quarterly TfL Investment Reports.
@100andthirty, 17 June 2015 at 22:18
Main line railways can supplement this with all sorts of tracking devices such as satvnav, not available to underground railways
Although much of the SSL network is on surface once out of the central area.
. . . the balises could be programmed to advise the location of the next one (although I haven’t thought though how that would work for bi-directional travel)
A balise could advise distance/position of next balise in both directions (all directions at a junction), and the train, knowing which direction and route it is travelling could choose the appropriate one.
Presumably for a four rail power system the balises will have to be offset from the track centre position. A centre position as favoured by ETCS and our UK legacy TPWS and AWS would require centre conductor rail gapping. On the Wimbledon and Richmond District branches centre the relatively small number of TPWS and AWS ramps do have centre conductor rail gaps, but gapping every 25m would be absurd.
Offset balises offer the opportunity to fully directionalise them like traditional trainstop devices, so only the next balise distance for the applicable direction (for all routes at Junctions again) needs to be encoded. If you were going the other way you’d be interrogating another balise.
Are the multiplicity of positional balises also required in the overlay signalling areas on the Wimbledon and Richmond District branches? Presumably the Watford area via the Croxley Link will also be an overlay area.
@100andthirty, 17 June 2015 at 22:18
. . . and even some parts run on modern (with a hint of irony) Windows XP platforms.
I think that was the last gasp of the long running NT codebase, for which many safety related systems were written and certified for emergency services dispatch systems, medical systems, even military software.
There was a big stink surrounding Microsoft operating systems just after the millennium, more about XP replacing NT I think, as it introduced a lot of new code for all the consumer usability features that couldn’t be explicitly turned off. There was a very controversial never published report around the time by the HSE in conjunction with some MOD oversight body that criticised MS heavily for not having allowed independent experts (under some very strict NDA clauses no doubt) to examine the entirely secret operating system codebase for use with certain safety related applications, and even more heavily for not allowing them at that time when the company was forcing so many professional customers to switch to a significantly re-engineered and as far as they were concerned untested product. The report recommended a migration to Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, where a very small nimble operating system could be custom-built for the application without all the bells and whistles of a full consumer product, and the full codebase, much smaller then Windows, would be under direct scrutiny and control. Microsoft relented eventually, allowing independent experts access to the code. Perhaps XP became so engrained partly because it was proved by that code review process, and many subsequent years’ operating experience, that it could continue to run all those legacy systems properly. The end of XP support has restarted the whole circus again. My advice? get off the MS upgrade bus and go Linux (he said hypocritically typing on a Windows machine!) .
Mark,
The existing RFID tags that cover the LU network are sited below centre conductor rail.
You just offset your tag reader on the train and angle it down. Works for the trains that use these tags for Engineering purposes (a tachometer and tag reader combined with a map let’s you automatically give the geographical reference for for the data type train collected). A pair of readers (one each side) is likely to be more reliable, but some systems only use one.
Assuming Seltrac balise performance is comparable to the existing tags, being under the con real shouldn’t be a big problem. It also has the added advantage that it stops the tags being a trip hazard, and reduces the chance of them getting damaged as the con rail protects then from boots, dropped tools etc.
@Londoner
That’s very interesting thanks . Going by the ETCS Eurobalise, which is very low profile, I would expect a similar Seltrac device might also be accomodated beneath the power rail if the comms work over the distance. It’s certainly nothing like the size of TPWS/AWS equipment.
The ones out there at there on LU at the moment are about the width of a smartphone, 50% longer and ballpark 20mm high. Pretty low profile.
Then mounted on a bright orange metal square to allow you to bolt them down to a sleeper.
The tags are neither what would typically be considered active or passive in the consumer world, but a halfway house called modulated backscatter – battery powered to switch a transistor which is used to modulate (absorb/retransmit in a pattern) the incoming electromagnetic wave back at the reader. The battery then lasts a long time (ten years) as you don’t need to power a radio transmitter, but you have quicker response (and I expect more to the point, longer range) than a conventional passive device.
*modulate and retransmit
With reference to the comments about spacing of the transponders / use of GPS etc. Lots of things could be done but don’t forget the idea is that it is ‘the same as the Jubilee & Northern Line systems’. As soon as you start changing the spacing / going to other position methods you have even more safety software to rewrite and validate.
Also the further apart your transponders are the larger the accumulated errors will be between recalibration so all the safety and stopping distances need to be longer.
I am not sure if the transponders will be able to fitted directly on the sleepers due to the positioning tolerances – the need for inter sleeper spacing may require something similar to the mounting brackets used for TPWS aerials.
In terms of using GPS don’t forget the American military have the right to turn it off or reduce the accuracy if required. Can you imagine trying to tell customers the railway can’t be run as the GPS has been turned off and we have no way ( at least in months timescales) of fixing it ! Also GPS is very sensitive to local interference – it is quite easy to buy GPS jammers and stop the railway. Military systems for jamming GPS are effective over 10’s to 100’s of miles.
The control of GPS by the US military is one of the reasons why Europe is developing it’s own satellite navigation system.
As someone who grew up in leafiest Bucks I find the current service level quite remarkable. I have not used it for many years, but is 6 trains per hour off peak at Chorleywood justified (we had but 2)? Four of those are what we would have called slow Met services which anyone with any sense would have avoided. The seasoned travellers took the diesels anyway. Running 2tph all the way to through to Chesham seems really extravagant. Does anyone have experience of ridership on these off peak services?
What is needed is the complete removal of the Met services from the northern circle. This could be achieved by [Sorry, uncosted line proposal removed. LBM]
@An Engineer – I hadn’t checked on the progress of Galileo for a long time, but apparently it should be capable of service next year. So finally the “but the Yanks can turn GPS off” argument should diminish in validity. Although what would happen if the UK leaves the EU I don’t know!
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4717_en.htm
@LBM
[Sorry, uncosted line proposal removed. LBM]
But what was it? It seems to me that it would have been better to allow it to show and respond. We have people who can say with some accuracy what something will cost. Will we ever know what it was?
@Deep Thought, 19 June 2015 at 14:23
I hadn’t checked on the progress of Galileo for a long time, but apparently it should be capable of service next year. So finally the “but the Yanks can turn GPS off” argument should diminish in validity. Although what would happen if the UK leaves the EU I don’t know!
One can always use the Russian GLONASS system as well. I was reading a consumer camera drone review recently and was surprised to see it’s positional systems had been upgraded to use both GPS and GLONASS for “even greater accuracy”. I wouldn’t trust any of these systems an inch though for positive comfirmation that a train’s rear had completely cleared a junction say before moving points. Although there have been various research projects with universities worldwide, as far as I know no commercial proposals have ever been made to use satellite navigation techniques for signalling safety functions, except for a very sparsely trafficked rural Swedish system where the absolute minimisation of expensive trackside equipment was the overriding concern.
Note Seltrac doesn’t even trust its own positional system sufficiently to allow junction route release to occur solely on it’s authority. The system also employs short axle counter blocks through junctions which must be clear before points are allowed to move. Long plain line fixed blocks sections are also implemented between stations and junctions using the same axle counter sensors for degraded mode operations should trains lose constant communications with the loop (traditionally) or the replacement radio system. If subsequent trains are both communicating normally, the second train is allowed to enter the long block section “permissively” and follow the forward train as closely as the ATP allows it. If the forward train has lost contact, the follower must not enter until the long fixed axle counter block has been cleared. I assume this is how the overlay areas will work but without the “permissive” ATP facility. It might be sensible to consider the whole branch network beyond the central area and the Metropolitan/District trunks out to say Harrow/Hammersmith/Barking as an ‘overlay fixed block area’ but without all the lineside signals (where they’re not needed for shared running with SWT, Overground, Chiltern (and short term Piccadilly)). It’s not neccessary to provide a system that could run 36TPH on sections that will usually only ever see a maximum of 8TPH. Short full ATO sections could still be provided where desired for closing up through stations.
@RayK, 19 June 2015 at 14:47
But what was it?
The concept of an additional Metropolitan Crossrail isn’t new and has been discussed before. Suffice to say the idea would be to link the line via a new central London tunnel to some unspecified southern/south eastern group of services on the surface main line network. Details of precise routing and which services could be linked are unimportant to this discussion and subject to endless possibilities, but the importance to other remaining SSR services would be that with the flat junction and Met services removed at Baker Street, the north side of the Circle could concentrate on becoming an efficient East-West inner distributor with a full 36TPH through service along its entire length between Edgware Road (and the two Paddingtons) and Liverpool Street (and the two Aldgates).
[Thank you Mark, more eloquent than I could explain! LBM]
@Dan, @RayK, @Mark Townend : crayonism
When Mike snipped the details from Dan’s proposal he was following established London Reconnections policy, with which I completely agree and all moderators will implement it in exactly the same way.
But we need to acknowledge that the policy is just a little bit weird, and does contain an element of rough justice. On most categories of comments, adding well thought out detail is a plus point, and is encouraged. But in the specific case of proposed new railway lines, detail (precise lists of stations, destinations etc) is actively discouraged. Compare Mark’s general description at 14:47 – rightly praised by mods – with the treatment we earlier gave Dan (I know you can’t see it, but he gave a detailed and plausible list of where the line might go).
This apparent inconsistency can best be explained as being the pragmatic way in which we try to keep the wider reaches of crayonistic fantasy away from these pages. Any particular post which falls foul of this process may actually be perfectly sensible, or it may represent the said wider reaches, or it may be anywhere in between. (In the particular case of Dan’s post, there is a bit of a clue in Mike’s use of the word “sorry”).
I must admit, without having read the original post, that this was a harsh case where the initial premise was a reasonable point to make but was probably taken too far. A bit frustrating because I wanted to comment on it but I understand and agree with the reason for the snip.
So let’s see if this gets through (moderators are not above moderating other moderators) …
I think the idea of giving priority to the Circle Line over the Metropolitan south of Baker Street is an interesting one. I suspect it can be justified off-peak. However, unless a lot more infrastructure is built, we have the situation in the peaks that:
a) The 28 (ultimately) Metropolitan Line trains to Baker St would have to terminate somewhere and if you continue to only have two terminating platforms at Baker Street then you, realistically, have to terminate at Aldgate which means that to make way for that the Circle Line has to terminate at Edgware Road – thoroughly unsatisfactory though this is.
b) There is a lot of commuting demand from leafy Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire into the city and it would be undesirable to force many city workers to change trains for no good reason.
Longer term (think Crossrail n where n is a positive integer > 2) one can look at possibility of extending the Metropolitan Line south of Baker Street in a new pair of running tunnels. This has the big advantage that one could instantly make good use of the train paths free by extending the Circle and Wimbleware service from Edgware Road to Aldgate (and in the process remove a flat junction). It also means you could run longer trains on the modified Metropolitan Line.
Of course all is developed from the presumption that we have guessed correctly what the current plan is. No-one has told us we are wrong but then no-one has told we are right either.
@PoP The 28 (ultimately) Metropolitan Line trains to Baker St would have to terminate somewhere and if you continue to only have two terminating platforms at Baker Street…
If you terminated all Met trains at Baker Street, surely you’d have all 4 platforms to do it on, which must be just as possible as any service that’s possible with 2 platforms at Baker Street and another 2 at Aldgate?
Isn’t the problem more that Baker Street just wouldn’t be able to handle the additional interchange crowds?
Given platform height issues, I keep thinking the only plausible long-term solution involves swapping the Uxbridge-Acton Town and Ealing Broadway-Acton Town tails of the Piccadilly and District Lines.
This would have the advantage of allowing the reduction in numbers of the existing Piccadilly Line fleet, accomodated by buying more S Stock.
There would still be a short stretch of signal interworking between the Piccadilly and District Lines, but that can probably be managed more coherently than very long stretches…
There’s actually probably enough room to quad-track through Ealing Common one way or another (tunnel?) which would truly eliminate the interworking.
Nathanael,
We’ve been through this many times. Especially here. As far as I am aware the plan described for the reasons stated is still the plan and nothing substantial has changed – but more trains will go to Wimbledon.
The problem with most suggestions including yours is that they do not address the fundamental problem of increasing capacity on both the Wimbledon and Richmond branches which is where it is needed. Evenly spreading it out to replicate the proportions down each branch today is not the desired outcome so any proposal that does that is unlikely to solve the real problems.
The Other Paul,
Regarding terminating all Metropolitan trains at Baker St. Almost exactly as you describe. Which is why I was careful to write if you continue to only have two terminating platforms at Baker Street.
The other problem is an extremely articulate, well-organised and well-connected (in terms of human contacts) part of the country that would fight the proposal all the way. They might not be big enough or powerful enough to stop HS2 (though they had a jolly good try) but they would probably put up even more of a fight on this issue.
@ PoP – trying to keep my box of crayons under control I think there would also be a massive challenge in trying to construct a new CR(whatever) station somewhere in the Baker St / Marylebone area. The depth needed to get under or round the tangle of tube infrastructure in the area would be considerable. Untangling Baker Street station itself is no small task either. Also the residents, not least of Chiltern Court at Baker St, are not without influence either. They’re the “inner city” version of the Chiltern residents you rightly say would mount the barricades to preserve their through Met service to the City. If we ever get to the point of doing something with the “main line” artery (Met / Chiltern) from NW London it’s not going to be an easy task sorting out the approach to Central London. PS – that’s not an invite for squadrons of crayons to speculate on the possible options or to design a new station complex.
Walthamstow Writer,
Easy solution regarding the Metropolitan Line and Baker Street under Crossrail n. Don’t go there! I think you will find a tube station nearby that offers one alternative. Other locations are available. I suspect that for most Metropolitan Line users Baker Street is not the final destination and they wouldn’t care where the replacement goes so long as their journey is quicker – or at least not slower.
The Chilternites, as well as everyone reading and posting here, will be long gone before Crossrail >2 is built. London will be very different. The City may have relocated to OOC, Croydon or Frankfurt by then.
Therefore do nothing or ignore the north westerners. Where is a dictatorship when you need one?
@pop
“Easy solution regarding the Metropolitan Line and Baker Street under Crossrail N>2. ”
There have been many proposals in the past, including diversion of Chiltern services (at least the High Wycombe ones) via the New North Line to join Crossrail (although Tring has been the more recent front-runner to mop up the “Paddington terminators”) or via a spur at West Hampstead into Thameslink (although the Canal Tunnel and Wilberforce Junction) will now use all the available capacity through the core. Other impractical proposals from long ago to take Chiltern or Met services out of Baker Street have involved diversion at Finchley Road to Edgware Road (which got as far as remodelling the latter station) or (before it was taken over by the Combine and extended to Camden Town instead) to Euston and an end-on junction with the CSLR!
@ PoP – well yes there are always options but the whole area around Baker St is not exactly badly off nor without influential residents. Obviously TfL or whoever can make commitments and try to build as considerately as possible but not with zero disruption or noise. Depending on where any future route may go you then run into significiant issues with other lines that have been / may have been built. You surely can’t put CRx at Tottenham Court Road despite the obvious interchange attractions. How deep would it have to be? Tens of metres presumably making it difficult and expensive to build and not without very significant issues about evacuation times from platform to surface.
PoP & others
Indeed a “Metropolitan & Great Central Joint” Crossrail … emerging somewhere in the vicinty of Lewisham is a recurrent proposal & appears in several of the immediate post-WWII offical plans.
I have always assumed that this would be “CR3” myself, but, when is a n other issue – probably about 100 years after the original one, namely 2046, when I will be 100 (!)
On the topic of terminating the Metropolitan line at Baker Street or otherwise giving more priority to inner London travel, another reason TfL would surely not do this (other than issues of cost and practicality!) is that it would demonstrate to commuters from outer London and beyond that TfL could not be trusted to protect their services if they were allowed to take over more lines (to Kent for example).
Brockley Mike
Apart from historical precedent, where the line from Baker ST wa originally a small branch, but swiftly became the “main line”, certainly from 1898 onwards, with the joining-up of the aforementioned Met&GCJt lines ….
Given that Edgware Rd is in the middle of nowhere, Baker Street has much better connections, and there is capacity between the two, what would be the benefit of continuing (some/all) Edgware Rd terminators to Baker Street? This would require a new through WB platform to the south, with the current WB platform becoming the terminating platform, but if there is space for that, what would the costs and benefits be?
And on the Circle Line, was is the benefit of showing trains to Hammersmith as Circle as opposed to Hammersmith & City. For inner circle stations, wouldn’t it be better to show all trains that go off the circle in the colour of wherever they go (District to Upminster and via Earls Court, H&C for Hammersmith and Barking, Metropolitan via Finchley Rd) and show all trains that terminate on the circle as Circle Line only as soon as they hit the inner circle (e.g. District to Edgware Rd & Tower Hill, Metropolitan to Aldgate)?
How about telling the Met commuters that in exchange for terminating all the trains at Baker Street, they get the Tring branch of CR1, (which surely must happen anyway) and a new interchange station replacing Northwick Park (not too expensive, on the surface). That should keep everyone happy.
@Christian Schmidt – Unless the above ground buildings are being redeveloped, creating a new sub-surface platform is one of the harder construction jobs, much more difficult than creating a new deep-level tunnel. So unless there happens to be space available, adding another platform to Baker Street is probably a non-starter. The only reason trains terminate at Edgware Road is because there were already spare platforms.
The SSL resignalling is already expensive enough, so the challenge here is to improve services without major station reconstruction projects. If anyone can figure out a way of doing it, I am sure TfL would be interested in hearing about it.
Jim Cobb, Christian Schmidt
The idea of an extra platform as suggested by Christian has been proposed by many people many times varying from crayonista fantasists to serious professionals – here and elsewhere. I have never seen it taken further to suggest how it could be done or any idea of cost. The Marylebone Road is six lanes wide at that point and the pavements are quite wide too so it would be interesting to know if buildings would actually be affected. I suspect there would a considerable issue with utilities but that should be solvable at a price.
A further problem could be that this would mean that in the morning peak there would be three rather than two terminating platforms at Baker Street with passengers wanting to make onward journeys – I suspect relatively few end their tube journey at Baker St. Whether Baker St could handle the build up of passengers and subsequent dispersal is a factor to be considered – mind you, one could raise the same issue about Edgware Road.
As with most rail networks, the next step after ‘maxing out’ the signalling system would be to remove conflicts at flat junctions. It’s pretty obvious, though, that ‘re-doing’ places like Praed Street, Gloucester Road, Earl’s Court, the Aldgate triangle or Baker Street is either too expensive or too difficult to implement. The next logical step would then be to simplify the route structure to eliminate conflicts at junctions. This increases the number of available paths overall, but forces interchanges where it was previously possible to travel directly.
If we were to go down this route, I think the most logical places to split the network would be down the lines of the old Metropolitan and District companies. The problem is, though, whether (a) there is enough room to build properly sized interchanges to handle the number people interchanging; (b) the cost of all those people interchanging outweighs the benefit of having more capacity overall.
@Straphan
“I think the most logical places to split the network would be down the lines of the old Metropolitan and District companies.”
That would only eliminate the two flat junctions in Kensington (trains from Wimbledon going no further than High Street Ken, and trains on the western side of the Circle terminating at South Kensington (or probably Gloucester Road, since the spare trackbed at S Ken is now occupied by the escalators for the Piccadilly Line)
It does nothing for the main pinch points at Edgware Road, Baker Street (both entirely Metropolitan) or Minories (always jointly owned).
@timbeau: I was looking at breaking the least number of through journeys – perhaps the answer lies in splitting the service elsewhere.
Clearly making Circle/District trains terminating at Paddington rather than Edgware Road would be better operationally, but the interchange between the two Paddington sub-surface stations is not really acceptable.
straphang / timbeau,
Well you could get rid of a few more flat-junction conflicts, e.g. Edgware Rd by running westbound trains towards Notting Hill Gate and have terminating eastbound trains restarting as westbound H&C. And at Minories if each leg has the same 30 tph, everyone can just turn left. Some interchange would be involved, but operationally simpler it is…
straphan
As with most rail networks, the next step after ‘maxing out’ the signalling system would be to remove conflicts at flat junctions.
Conventional thinking with conventional signalling on surface routes, maybe. If we presume that the SSR signalling upgrade works as planned then you already have 32tph max. There are currently no plans to get any line above 36tph so at most you would get 4tph through expensive elimination of flat junctions.
I think we further have to consider the possibility that by optimising trains at junctions the signalling can do a lot to reduce the flat crossing conflict. At the end of the day you will still have junctions with protective overlaps of some kind and speed restrictions because you can’t have straight track in every direction at a junction and you can’t cant the track to optimise it for two converging or diverging routes simultaneously. I would therefore seriously query how much any junction separation would achieve.
On the SSR I think there is also another possibility for marginal increase in capacity and that is elimination of SDO. Passengers unfamiliar with the Underground can delay a train for a few seconds because of this but that is enough. Plus, of course, in order to minimise dwell time, passengers should “use all available doors” and therefore conversely it makes sense to maximise the number of available doors for passengers to use.
Another possibility, mentioned before, is, rather than attempt to maximise the junctions, is to eliminate the junction altogether. As far as I can see the only real possibility is Praed St where a short section of quadruple track from Praed St Junction to Edgware Road would open up all sorts of possibilities (with no 32tph constraint at Praed St Junction). I suspect this is unrealistic but more realistic than eliminating conflict at that or any other subsurface junction.
@Christian Schmidt
“Edgware Rd by running westbound trains towards Notting Hill Gate and have terminating eastbound trains restarting as westbound H&C. ”
Sorry, that wouldn’t work, because the flat junction isn’t at Edgware Road but a little further west at Praed Street. And the constraint in that area isn’t the Praed Street junction anyway, it’s the one to the east of Edgware Road, at Baker Street. The double track section between Praed Street and Edgware Road copes fine. The only reason half the trains have to terminate at ERD at all is because they can’t go beyond Baker Street (because of the Met services pinching the paths), and ERD is the last place they can turn back (not possible at Baker Street on the Circle/H&C).
@PoP: I think you are placing a lot of faith in the ability of automated operation to increase capacity across flat junctions. But even with ATO the system will still need to compromise a fair amount of capacity for the sake of safety. And while ATO will remove the variability in driving characteristics, there will still be a lot of scope for delays occurring at the platforms as you try to cram the masses into the trains in the peaks. Unless this is planned for through the use of large amounts of slack in the timetable, I doubt higher service frequencies will be sustainable on a day-to-day basis.
As for SDO, what chances are there for platform lengthening at places like Baker Street (Circle/H&C platforms) or Barbican (due to become a Crossrail interchange)?
Straphan,
I never indicated whether I had faith or not in automated operation to increase capacity across flat junctions. I did state If we presume that the SSR signalling upgrade works as planned…. It was what I said it was – a presumption.
It will be interesting to see just how sophisticated the signalling is. Given that the speed of every train should be known in real time, the worse case distance needed for a safe overlap could be very dynamically calculated. Potentially there could be very little sacrifice of capacity for safety. We shall have to see just how advanced the system will be.
We know elimination of SDO at Baker Street is possible because originally platforms 5 and 6 were to be lengthened to avoid it. The sheer cost and the belief that they could live without it caused the idea to be dropped. Incidently, a lot of SDO on the District Line will go once the D stock goes because the only reason the S7 stock cannot use all the platform is because of the platform monitors located on the platform.
Ignoring the question of suitable rolling stock, is there anything to be gained by swapping the Jubilee Stanmore branch with one or more of the Met branches to reduce the load on the SSL at Baker Street ? This would the relatively easy to do as the two lines run together above ground.
Answering my own question, I have had a quick look at the TfL station entrance/exit figures and I suspect the answer is no. The 4 stations of the Stanmore branch have a total 15.28m, whilst the whole of the Met north of Harrow (ie. excluding the Uxbridge branch) has a total of 20.64m for 12 stations. That doesn’t sound like enough of a difference to make it worthwhile. Also, I don’t suppose many of the current users of the Met want to head towards Waterloo and Stratford any more than they want to change at Baker Street.
Rather than swapping Met and Jubilee, I have seen a proposal – I have no idea whether it’s a crayonista or something more concrete – but it was to run the Jubilee to Harrow on the Hill as well as Stanmore. The issue isn’t capacity, as many Jubilee trains reverse at Wembley Park or Willesden Green. All it needs (!) is some adjustments to track layout at Wembley, platform height adjustments at surface only platforms and of course TBTC loops to Harrow….and some more trains. Now, isn’t TfL about to invite tenders for some new trains for the Jubilee and Northern lines?
@100andthirty: I would want to ask whoever made this proposal just what problem it is intended to solve.
@Jim Cobb, 22 June 2015 at 20:55
I rather like the idea of combining the Uxbridge line with the Jubilee Line as shown here:
http://www.townend.me/files/metropolitan.pdf
The Uxbridge Jubilee Expresses would switch to the outer fast lines at a rebuilt West Hampstead:
http://www.townend.me/files/westhampstead.pdf
At Wembley Park they would switch to the centre pair with a similar arrangement and take over local calls to Harrow on the Hill. All platforms thus served would be adjusted to the lower tube vehicle height and this would solve the platform height issue on the route section between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge shared with the Piccadilly. On the fast lines between West Hampstead and Wembley park the Jubilee Uxbridge Expresses would interrun with Metropolitan services but there would be no shared platforms so the height issue would not be a problem.
From Uxbridge, this would add three stops as far as Baker Street (West Hampstead, Swiss Cottage, St. Johns Wood) but could in mitigation also offer the benefit of direct services to parts of the west end, the south London terminals and Docklands. Whether or not the Jubilee could cope with the additional passenger load is another matter, but a lot of passengers already transfer between the lines at Finchley Road so it might reduce platfrom crowding there. The Met would lose the stops at Preston Road and Northwick Park which would speed up the off peak journey from Harrow on the Hill and beyond.
@Straphan
I know it’s not the same but Tramlink manages some rather close running by ensuring speed is low when approaching a tram with priority because a) it is crossing in front, b) it is in front on the same lines or c) if approaching a single-line section presently occupied by a tram in the reverse direction. Like you I have doubts whether automatic signalling will by sophisticated enough to achieve a similar result on SSR or Tube but Tramlink shows that safety considerations can still allow very close running if we presume like PoP says that automatic signalling offers an ideal outcome.
…places like Baker Street (Circle/H&C platforms)
As I understand it, the problem there is that the entire underground structure of platforms 5 and 6 is listed and considered a major piece of rail heritage, which coupled with the need to run a very busy railway through it severely limits the scope of what can actually be done.
I believe platform extensions westward are considered feasible but expensive; I imagine at some point we will see them along with the lifts that were previously proposed at the western end. Doing anything over or under the structure, for example to improve the constrained Eastern access to the westbound platform 6, is probably out.
I believe the escalators to the Jubilee/Bakerloo lines block the lightly-used overbridge at the Western end from being connected Northwards to somewhere useful in the ticket hall, though possibly some kind of expensive reconfiguration could resolve this? The previous proposal for step-free access to platform 6 via four lift rides and the length of platform 5 was somewhat unsatisfactory.
Malcolm,
I would want to ask whoever made this proposal [extending the Jubilee Line with a new branch from Wembley Park to Harrow-on-the-Hill] just what problem it is intended to solve.
The problem this is intended to solve is the very real one of how to terminate 36tph on north end of the the Jubilee Line without rather pointlessly sending every train to Stanmore. At 36tph it gets very problematic terminating some trains in the siding at Willesden Green or Wembley Park. For a very detailed description of the problem read Mike Horne’s article on the subject.
One consequence that would probably please as many people as it would annoy would be to remove Preston Road and Northwick Park from the Metropolitan Line and thus speed up many journeys. It would, of course, potentially significantly slow them down for users of the these two stations.
I gather it was looked at by London Underground a couple of years back but I have no idea how serious that was. Note that the problem to be solved was not to relieve either the Jubilee Line or the Metropolitan Line south of Baker Street. I think it was presumed that the effect on this would be very small. Virtually no-one would catch the all-stations Jubilee Line from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Baker St and beyond. It is likely that most passengers from Preston Road to central London would change at Wembley Park for a Metropolitan Line train and and those at Northwick Park might either change at Wembley Park or Harrow-on-the-Hill (which would also give them the option of a faster train into Marylebone).
I very much doubt that this would ever happen because of the inevitable co-ordinated opposition that such a plan would provoke.
[Met tunneling proposal snipped. LBM]
@timbeau
Sorry for the delay getting back here, I’ve had a horrible “dry socket” toothache and didn’t want to take it out on anyone online.
“Indeed, if you start terminating trains on the running lines at those locations, the time spent “tipping out” would actually reduce capacity, even on that section, let alone between KX and Liverpool Street.”
I’m not sure you would need to worry about “tipping out” if the train is actually just going back straight to a platform. The normal worry would be taking passengers into a siding or depot.
Looking at it practicably, there is a depot at Hammersmith so the “extra” trains could come out of there. However to get the turn-around times with the current (S Stock) trains would require extra drivers to be waiting on the platform to take the trains back. But given the 34tph turnaround that can be done at Brixton looping two trains between Royal Oak and King’s Cross just to relieve the dangerous full platform at Kings Cross seems worth another try.
Another variation on this would be to send some of the “almost empty” Metropolitan Line trains on a little peak-time diversion down to the Hammersmith Depot. They could find their way back to Baker Street via a reverse at King’s Cross later in the day when things are quiet? Just an idea.
Briantist,
I don’t really understand what you are saying but, just to pick up on the last point, even if you sent an S8 stock empty down to Hammersmith I think it would cause chaos. The track circuit sections will be optimised for S7 stock. I think you would have considerable problems in reversing at Hammersmith. An S8 would probably foul the points at the end of the platform. I don’t think you can get to the stabling sidings* without reversing in the platform first or shunt neck first and in any case space is incredibly tight in the stabling sidings.
* My understanding that the former depot is now reduced in status to stabling sidings with the depots being at Barking and Neasden.
@Briantist
(Hope the tooth’s better)
“I’m not sure you would need to worry about “tipping out” if the train is actually just going back straight to a platform.”
A terminating train on a running line is always going to increase platform occupancy time, and thus cause delay to following services because
1. more people will be getting off
2. the driver has to change ends
3. the train has to travel in the “wrong” direction on the running line for at least its own length in order to cross over to the other line.
These things may happen in a different order, depending on which platform it reverses in. Sorry, but I don’t think this would work unless you can reinstate the middle platform at Kings Cross, (the original eastbound, converted to a short-lived bay in 1941 when the station was moved to its present location and a new eastbound line put in (using a disused tunnel which had provided a connection to the Widened Lines tracks) and now part of the passenger circulation area) .
(The bay track is shown on the last (“current”) Kings Cross diagram here
http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/hammersmith.html. The layout is the same as in 1941 except for the removal of this bay.
@ PoP at 00:36
Another alternative for the Jubilee line would be to employ a ‘Barking’ style solution where a reversing dead end platform is provided beyond the end of the main station island. This isn’t ideal as entry would be slow speed and passengers would have to walk two train lengths to the exit, but it is possible and at least any passengers wanting to continue beyond the terminating point could walk along the platform (and not have to cross over bridges as at North Greenwich).
The problem with implementing this between Finchley Road and Wembley Park is, most of the stations are immediately north of a road bridge that would block any southerly reversing platform extension. You are therefore left with only two places to do it: West Hampstead and Dolis Hill where there is no bridge.
Practically, there would have to be some track slewing at both and there is relatively (but not much) more space generally at WH. Dolis Hill would likely require some form of offset platform to the north too with an element of the southern end of one platform lost similar to Clapham Junction P1/2.
The traffic figures suggest Dolis Hill would serve more people at the preceding stations and effectively extend the WG terminators, WH may require less stock! Swings and roundabouts that would need a proper assessment along with a spatial check. But if feasible the solution would likely be cheaper than other more major works.
Anyway, back to the SSR…
@The Passenger
Reversing the Jubilee is off topic, but we seem to have got onto it by some sort of natural progression. I am going to indulge myself by writing a comment on this off-topic digression. I will be virtuous, but not quite yet.
I am also going to further indulge myself by a bit of speculation based on a study of to-hand internet resources, rather than the rather more satisfactory use of existing local knowledge and a site visit. Again not recommended, but lots of people are doing it.
The obvious (to me) improvement in Jubilee-turning in this area goes like this. At Willesden Green there is a platform 1 on the westbound met line, not normally used. “Simply” (that word again) divert the westbound met line round the back of this platform (there does seem to be room without bumping into the Chiltern tracks). Then repurpose the face of platform 1 for non-turning westbound Jub trains. And repurpose platform 2 (currently westbound Jub platform) for turning Jub trains. It already shares an island with platform 3 (southbound Jub) , so all southbound Jub passengers can be sent the same way from the booking hall. And this new turning platform (2) even has a ready-for-use overrun and/or cripple siding, in the form of the existing turnback siding. Bob’s your uncle.
(I will be virtuous, tomorrow).
@Malcolm
Not without rebuilding the road bridge there isn’t. 🙁 …room behind the platforms, probably, but I suspect there few viable ways of removing that bridge support to make room for the additional track that would be needed short of rebuilding the whole thing…
…regarding the Jubilee’s capacity for turning services, hopefully I’m not tempting fate (so I’ll consciously omit details) but I’m still of the opinion that fiddling with the Met needlessly is probably the wrong way to go about things – there are rarely any cheap wins these days regardless of what you change, so you may as well do something worthwhile and try to solve several problems if you’re spending the money. If you really need to reverse the Jubilee trains out of the way short of Stanmore then you have a suitable branch already there that won’t massively overload the line with a deluge of new traffic – the Chiltern line from Neasden to Sudbury Hill.
A large chunk of this stretch of line was laid out for 4 tracks, so in theory there’s the raw surface alignment required for taking those unwanted stations off Chiltern’s hands and solving a problem for the Jubilee without crazy costs being incurred. Sure they have famously poor usage now, but I suspect that would change were they a few much more frequently-served stops from an interchange with the Met at Neasden (rather than your only destination being Marylebone at 1 or 2tph)…and after all, why would you head north to Rayners Lane on the Piccadilly to reach HotH (or indeed, south into London via Acton) when you could just head straight for Neasden?
Not to mention, Neaden is likely to become a even more of a hub should the Dudding Hill line get a passenger service restored by LO as I suspect platforms would be built at Neasden rather than the old Dudding Hill station site…
@mr_jrt – the slightlypuzzling thing about the whole debate is that many of the options being put forward as alternatives to Stanmore involve branches that are nearly as long as the Stanmore branch itself,yet merely rearrange the existing revenue -so, running costs (ie train mileage) remain much the same, revenue ditto, but on the capital sid, there are new sums varying from smallish to huge, depending the number of flying/burrowing junctions required.
Graham H,
I am not sure what you were implying but I don’t think anyone was suggesting swapping the Stanmore branch with anything else – just augmenting it. However, I tend to agree that there would be a lot of expense for what, to some extent, would be a deckchair re-arranging exercise.
Given how delayed resignalling has become I think the only sensible solution is to live with the plans we have got for the foreseeable future rather than delay things further. If the fabled Crossrail n ever takes over the Met, and possibly the Chiltern Line to Aylesbury Parkway (and beyond?), then one day in the distant future one could truncate the Jubilee at West Hampstead or Willesden Green and return the Stanmore branch to the Metropolitan although the Metropolitan might be called Crossrail n by then.
@timbeau
Re: Peak hours Kings Cross to Royal Oak 4tph shuttle
I was actually thinking of a solution that can cover the years until Crossrail 1 opens, so doing any major engineering work is out of the question.
I was thinking, in response to “the driver has to change ends” that this would have to be done by having more drivers than trains. This would give the “spare driver” 15 minutes to get in position. At each end the train would stop, and the spare driver would get in the reverse cab, and then take control of the train. When the train is running back the other way the first driver would get out and wait for the incoming train.
I get the point about more people getting off: however most people will be detraining at Paddington and getting on at Kings Cross. I also understand the point about blocking the other direction which isn’t too much of a problem at 12tph Royal Oak and might be at Kings Cross.
I still think that this could relieve the dangerous overcrowding issues on the line during the morning peak at least. It clearly would just need to be a few-years stop gap until Crossrail opens and the signalling upgrade work is done.
[Readers can judge for themselves (without putting the answer here) whether or not you have answered timbeau’s point about the effects on train throughput of reversing any train in a through platform at Kings Cross. Meanwhile let’s move on. Malcolm]
@PoP – sorry, I’d thought that the objective was to send half the Jubilee service to somewhere else on the grounds that Stanmore didn’t justify 36tph and that the debate was where that somewhere else might be. If that somewhere else was nearly as distant as Stanmore, then it would be difficult to see what the savings would be. Clearly, turning short at one the Jubilee’s present intermediate stations would be much better, but whether that is operationally feasible given the frequency of the service is unclear – presumably not, otherwise it would have been the preferred option.
As I understand it, the problem is that turning short causes delays because of the time needed to “tip out” on the running lines, because the reversing sidings are beyond the stations. It is thus preferable to turn round almost anywhere else. There are three options
1. The “do nothing” option: Send everything to Stanmore. Costs nothing, but saves no mileage.
2. Send the some trains down another branch (I was interested to see that the original 1938 layout allowed Bakerloo trains to go as far as H-o-t-H). Saves no mileage, so only preferable over (1) if it solves another problem, or increases ridership, on the branch in question. All these proposals would cost money in rearranging layouts
3. Remodel a station on the existing route to provide a terminal platform. Would also cost money, but unlike (2) it would save some mileage.
Is there space to take a bite out of one of the Jubilee platforms to make a “Clapham Junction” style bay?
@Theban: Trams have a much shorter braking distance and are driven on sight. I’m afraid this is an apples and pears comparison…
@PoP: Irrespective of what technology we use to separate trains from each other, with the current arrangement of routes on the SSR the timetable will still need to be planned with the constraint of conflicting junction moves first and foremost. I have not played around with timetabling the SSR, but I wager the time reserves required to achieve parallel moves at junctions will no doubt constrain capacity.
Regarding the Harrow-on-the-Hill add-on for the Jubilee line: Currently ‘excess’ trains are terminated at West Hampstead, Willesden Green and Wembley Park. The former two are centre sidings outside of the station, which means passengers must be turfed out with the help of station staff, the train must be checked and locked up before slowly snaking into the sidings. With 36tph that – to my mind -will not really be feasible.
Taking the Northwick Park and Preston Road stops out of the Metropolitan line services will – to my mind – not be as contentious as you make it out to be. After all, the good burghers of Uxbridge (Boris’s constituency!), Harrow, Pinner, Watford and Buckinghamshire will benefit from faster journey times, which will hopefully do something towards making up for the timetable changes of a few years ago, which abolished fast and semi-fast services in the off-peak.
@timbeau: Frankly, I think something more radical should be done at West Hampstead, which is only half-baked as an interchange. I have seen someone do some skilled work with his CAD crayons to make the place a proper station complex, but what he came up with would have – how do I put it mildly – led to some changes in the character of the surrounding area…
The minutes from the Finance and Policy Committee that looked at the latest paper on SSR resignalling are included in next week’s Board Papers.
The only interesting paragraph makes the following observations. IIPAG is the government imposed Independent Investment Programme Advisory Group which “oversees” how well TfL manages and justifies its investment projects.
“The IIPAG gave its broad support to the recommendations and acknowledged the work to date. It raised issues around the capability and capacity of the inhouse resource, while acknowledging it was a good team, that would require strict control and monitoring. It also identified two issues on the scope of the project. The Managing Director Rail and Underground agreed with the assessment and would meet with the IIPAG to address the skills gaps in the inhouse team to ensure it was properly resourced. He also confirmed that the two scope issues were under review. “
Love to know what the 2 scope issues were but no detail is given.
straphan,
the SSR the timetable will still need to be planned with the constraint of conflicting junction moves first and foremost.
Of course. Nothing will change this other than removing the junctions completely (avoiding conflicting movement would not achieve this).
the time reserves required to achieve parallel moves at junctions will no doubt constrain capacity.
This does not necessarily always follow. Trains can (and do) sit in platform 5 at Baker Street and at Edgware Road for longer than necessary in order to optimise junctions and this does not constrain capacity. This is almost certainly written into the timetable. Earl’s Court does at least have two island platforms and that helps too. Probably the critical place is the set of three junctions at Aldgate so my guess is that the entire SSR timetable and real-time operational plan has to be built around this and the parallel moves made there as you describe.
Back to the article and, as I see it, one of the advantages of extending the Circle Line to Aldgate off-peak is that you only have to arrange for 7.5 parallel movements per hour at Baker St for the Aldgate to Uxbridge services rather that 12+ with the current service pattern. If you expensively remodelled Baker St with an additional platform as previously discussed and included a short section of parallel westbound track before the junction, you could even arrange for trains for Finchley Road from Great Portland Street not to foul the passage of the following train into the new westbound platform at Baker Street if their passage across the junction were delayed.
@Graham H
If saving mileage is indeed the objective, then yes, adding a branch would be counter productive. Why not send them somewhere useful though and provide a service that creates a bit of growth (thus not merely rearranging things)? Branching at the ends of a line is a time-honoured method for not carting air around when you have an intensive core service…if you have an alignment, of course. Failing that you naturally have to have turnbacks as you have little choice otherwise.
With all the suggestions of changes to the destinations of various SSL services I wonder if it would be a good time to re brand the whole thing.
Rather than having 4 “separate” lines which intermix in a seemingly haphazard way why not unify the whole thing under a single banner and then differentiate services by their actual destination rather than using some historic line naming.
So all the SLL lines could have single colour, similar to to the Overground network, but each train could state its destination, and maybe have a secondary colour on it’s front which matches a colour on the map used as, for example, the background of a station name.
This would remove any passenger confusion over a re-extended circle line (or wimbleware or indeed any other service) as, when boarding a westbound train at Kings Cross, the train would be marked as “Hammersmith”, “Wimbledon” or “via Notting Hill”
This would also have the handy side effect of releasing some extra colours for use elsewhere on the network (e.g. a separated northern line).
@DJL. I like this idea. I notice that you do not go so far as to suggest a name or colour for the unified lines. The obvious name, to me is “Metropolitan Line”, considering that most of the constituent railways were at one time part of the Metropolitan Railway or the Metropolitan District Railway. Charles Pearson would be so proud!
@DJL
Between 1938 and 1950 all SSL routes were shown in green
http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube45.jpg
I think it would be a retrograde step to replicate the spaghetti-in-tomato sauce effect of the Overground by adding a tangle of tagliatelli verde for the SSL.
The Paris Metro map manages to show sixteen metro lines, and five RER, all in different colours. Can TfL really not manage more than twelve?
@Malcom
I was actually thinking just “SSL” or “SSR” but using Metropolitan or District would still achieve the same effect.
@timbeau
Yes I take your point – however things are already a mess and it seems to me that the colours on the map for the SSL are somewhat meaningless in most cases since the next train at any given platform could be going to any of a large number of places.
Things are quite different on the tube where the maximum number of branches is, I think, 2 in any given direction and all trains at any given platform are for the same line.
@DJL
“on the tube the maximum number of branches is, I think, 2 in any given direction ”
A northbound train approaching Kennington can have any one of six possible permutations of routings.
Come to think of it, a single colour for SSL actually makes MORE sense than it does for the Overground. Even allowing for the rare examples of Goblin trains going to Willesden Junction, or trains switching from the Watford to the Stratford lines via Primrose Hill, there are four separate groups of services, with no possibility of through running between them.
timbeau says “The Paris Metro map manages to show sixteen metro lines, and five RER, all in different colours. Can TfL really not manage more than twelve?”
Releasing a colour is only a small incidental benefit of DJL’s suggestion. The Paris situation is of course different, but the Paris map does I think use a consistent approach: where two different-coloured lines join a particular station pair, that means that there are two different pairs of tracks. (There may be exceptions to this). In London visitors have an apparent choice of three lines to go from Kings Cross to Liverpool Street, but it turns out when they get there that they all go on the same tracks.
The reasons for some routes sharing a colour (e.g Wimbleware and Richmond-Upminster) and some not (e.g. Hammersmith-Edgware Road and Hammersmith-Barking) are purely historical. However, that should maybe not be dismissed, as we do know that people do not like change!
@PoP: You are right in saying that trains sitting in platforms on the SSR do not constrain capacity. Currently. However, when the frequency of the services is increased, these extra 15 or 30 seconds will start to be a constraint. Look at the Victoria line, where dwells have been squeezed and are tightly controlled to achieve sub-2-minute frequencies. Seeing as the SSR will receive a similarly capable signalling system these flat junctions and the associated extended dwells will become more and more of a waste of time and capacity.
@mr_jrt and Graham H: I do not think this is about saving mileage, but about rationalisation of service. At present, due to a lack of sensible locations to terminate trains, there are more trains to Stanmore than demand would warrant. With a forthcoming service intensity increase on the Jubilee Line, there will be less scope to terminate peak trains at West Hampstead, Willesden Green and Wembley Park – which is why rather than running yet more trains to Stanmore it may be worthwhile to explore other places they could go to.
@straphan – logically, if saving mileage wasn’t an object, then you wouldn’t care if you were conveying excessive fresh air into the countryside. Matching offering to demand IS about saving unnecessary costs, and I would be very surprised if the business case for doing so didn’t refer to costs. (And I can see why -for all the reasons adduced here by other – that the existing short-working points are unhelpful).
Rather than considering that there are too many Jubilee trains to Stanmore perhaps a planning view could be that there are not enough houses. The area bounded by Stanmore, Edgware, Queensbury and Belmont looks ripe for some major densification.
@Kit Green
Unless you can persuade the occupants of your proposed new houses in Stanmore not to travel much further than Wembley, there would be serious capacity problems down the line.There may be empty trains going to and from Stanmore, but they are certainly not empty by the time they reach the tunnel section at Finchley Road.
Basically, what it boils down to is that capital expenditure will be required for any measures that might be put in to save running expenses in unnecessary mileage. In the short term, it’s cheaper to run the trains half empty than it is to install turnback facilities. In the long term, that capital expenditure may be offset by reduced running costs. But how long is the payback period?
@timbeau says “that capital expenditure may be offset by reduced running costs”.
Well maybe. But it might also be offset (or even over-paid, in theory) by reduced capital expenditure on trains. If spending a few million on turnback facilities can reduce the number of extra trains required to run the line, then it might pay for itself immediately.
But actually I doubt it.
@Malcolm
Good point, and if we were at the point of considering whether to buy a new fleet for the Jubilee a highly relevant one. Perhaps I should have compared expenditure on infrastructure with expenditure on rolling stock, rather than capital expenditure with running costs.
But as things stand, the line has a fleet of 1996 stock sufficient to sustain a full service end-to-end: it doesn’t matter whether they are carrying fresh air around or sitting in a siding, they are a sunk cost. Unless a new use can be found for the rolling stock made redundant by turning some services back early (NLE might be a possibility), underusing existing resources is not economy.
@timbeau I’ve rather lost track of things, but I thought the hope was to increase the current 30 tph service (36 tph was mentioned), perhaps with signalling changes? That would either require buying more trains, or sweating the existing ones better. I agree that if this tph increase is either not wanted, or not possible for other reasons, then the proposed infrastructure changes would have to be cost-justified with running cost savings, which might be tricky.
@Malcolm – it probably wouldn’t pay for itself in this specific case because the fleet is line-specific and a sunk cost, as noted, but there are many cases where it works financially and has a short payback period. The turnback at Woking, for example, paid for itself in 18 months, by reducing the fleet by 12 cars – but then, that fleet was being renewed and the order could be cut accordingly.
@timbeau – sunk the cost may be, and carrying charges would still be incurred even if it didn’t turn a wheel, but mileage related costs do – as their name implies – vary with distance run. So, no distance, no mileage costs. (Whether it’s then worth keeping the vehicles amongst the buddleia depends on whether the running costs exceed the net additional revenue; there is a revenue elasticity to frequency, although its value is uncertain when making very large changes (either way) in frequency – despite what the PDFH would have you believe).
@DJL
“With all the suggestions of changes to the destinations of various SSL services I wonder if it would be a good time to re brand the whole thing.”
The DLR route map shows how this works well for the DLR: https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/dlr-route-map.pdf
The services can run lots of different ways at different times, but on the main “Tube Map” the complexity is removed, because it’s not really relevant in the bigger picture.
The benefit is that the DLR is often re-configured. Sometimes this might be for a major event at the O2 or ExCeL, and other times because of hosting changes in capacity.
For example, whilst keeping the 6tph service at Stratford International, extra trains run to West Ham and turn there now to provide 12tph there. The destinations change during the operational day too. In the morning Stratford International trains run to both Woolwich and Becton, but this changes off peak.
@Malcolm: the current deep tube rolling stock order that is currently out to tender is for additional trains for the Jubilee line specifically to increase frequencies, and for the Northern line to increase frequencies and to provide enough stock for the Battersea extension.
@Graham H: And herewith lies the problem with the extension of the Jubilee to Harrow. Whilst it would make a ton of sense operationally, it is doubtful the 3-or-so minutes saved by Met line punters from Harrow and beyond would contribute enough revenue to pay for the costs of this. Unless of course we would consider the cost of (re)building turnback opportunities for Jubilee trains between Wembley Park and Finchley Road to make them workable with frequencies in excess of 30tph.
@straphan – indeed: hence my puzzlement at the HotH option; in practice,I would expect the time gains for Met users to be offset by the slower Jubilee journeys to town (and that in turn offset,I guess, by avoided interchanges). I don’t haveany feel for the cost of (re)building turnback facilities further in – the implication of some of the earlier posts is that something more tha just slewing the tracks is needed. As I recall, the building lines close in on the tracks at many places, and there are some unhelpful bridges.
I think what it comes down to is that if a turnback facility is put in anywhere, be it an improvement on the existing siding at Willesden Green, or reconfiguring the trackwork at Wembley/Harrow to allow turnback at Harrow (or even Uxbridge) , or extending over the Dudding Hill Line (!), it will be whatever is the cheapest to build, with extra facilities to passengers a much lower priority. There are places where capacity is at a premium and expansion is badly needed and worth paying for, but Kit Green’s comments above suggest the top end of the Jubilee Line isn’t one of them – on the contrary, the whole idea of early turnback is because more trains than necessary are going there.
A look at the map that timbeau provided a link to shows that the SSL was a lot more complex in those days. Aylesbury extension, Hounslow Branch, South Acton Branch, Middle Circle via Addison Road, and the East London line have all been taken over by other services or disappeared entirely. DJL’s suggestion of a single colour on the Tube Map for the SSL would only reflect the system’s modern simplicity!
@DJL
I can’t say that I find the idea of all SSL lines being the same colour remotely helpful to the traveler. Having instant name and colour recognition of a line allows very swift identification of which train to take to which branch. Furthermore, don’t the front of trains have blinds or lighted signs that indicate line and destination? As well as platform signs indicating the arrival of which train in what order and time.
@LBM Yes, at Holborn, for instance, you want the red line or the blue one, and the colours and the names do help you get to the right platform (not necessarily in the right direction).
But there are very few stations on the SSL where there is such a neat one-to-one correspondence between colour and destination-set. I mentioned the three available colours from Kings Cross to Liverpool Street, where the range of colours serves only to confuse. Whereas the wide range of destinations from Earls Court (SSL) are all reached by different flavours of the green line. I admit the colours might be helpful for westbound travel starting between Aldgate East and Barking, and there are other examples where you do need the circle line. But overall, I think these particular three colours confuse more often than they clarify.
Platform indicators and blinds do indeed help people to choose the right train, once they are on the right platform. But here the thing you always need is the destination; also being told which “line” the train is on doesn’t actually add anything. (Indeed on most platforms there is only one possibility).
@LBM
“Having instant name and colour recognition of a line allows very swift identification of which train to take to which branch.”
But that doesn’t work on the SSL – consider westbound at Kings Cross – the first station many visitors come to:
If you want Paddington, or Hammersmith, either of two colours will do. But if you want anywhere beyond Harrow, you want a purple train, but not just any “purple line” train.
Orv consider a journey from Wimbledon to Victoria, or vice versa. The District Line, of course, but get on the wrong train and you’ll end up in Paddington, or Ealing.
Why not follow the DLR approach, or the Overground approach: colour it all green (or purple, if you favour Watkin over Yerkes) and show individual routes only on the platforms and in the cars.
I am surprised that speculation on Jubilee line destinations has continued when it was sorted last year. The Victoria Line is planning 36tph by end-to-end running. It was thought that would be excessive to Stanmore, and Harrow was considered as an alternative branch. It would require a lot of track works to separate the Met and Jubilee on that route, and would also need up to 18 extra trains. The October 2014 TfL Finance & Policy Committee meeting learnt the solution was a West Hampstead to North Greenwich shuttle to provide the extra trips, and only needs 10 extra trains.
North Greenwich has a spare platform, but how will they tip out passengers and clear the running line to the short siding at West Hampstead within 100 seconds? @The Passenger 23 June 2015 at 20:43 gave an insight with the suggestion of a Barking style bay at the south end of the current platform. Entirely possible because there were three southbound tracks between there and Finchley Road, with the middle loop road removed in recent years. Basically extending the current southbound platform another train length and providing a connection from the northbound line would provide the reversing bay. Relaying the loop as was would provide the new southbound route avoiding terminating trains. I’ve no evidence this is the intention, but the problem arose with current difficulty of clearing short-working trains at Willesden Green and Wembley Park at 30tph, so current layout at West Hampstead would seem inadequate with 36tph.
Taz
but how will they tip out passengers and clear the running line to the short siding at West Hampstead within 100 seconds?
Maybe they won’t … it is above ground, after all.
Just carry them into the siding, & back to the platform they started from, less than 5 minutes, later!
The reliance on passengers knowing which line to catch on the SSL just causes massive confusion for the newcomer to the system. LUL needs to start telling its customers which stations it’s trains are going to call at. It’s commonplace on platform indicator screens on NR stations, and on the scrolling indicators on trains. Perhaps (shock horror!) they could even give each unique stopping pattern a service number. Then the instructions would be simple ‘catch service x to Wimbledon’. TfL is falling behind in the quality of passenger information. Perhaps it’s time for a major rethink.
For services which share tracks, simple line numbers are indeed a good idea, and a logical system which groups shared ones together (so that if two or more routes will do, they have consecutive numbers, or common factors)
For the DLR,
1. Stratford – Lewisham
2. Bank – Lewisham
3. Bank- Woolwich
4. Tower – Beckton
5. Stratford Int – Beckton
6. Stratford Int – Woolwich
(short workings shouldn’t matter- people are always advised to take the first train and change anyway)
Thus for City Airport it’s 3 or 6: for Shadwell, 2,3, or 4
A similar scheme for the SSL, although not as tidy: (Circle Line has two numbers, switching at, say, Aldgate, so that its two incarnations at Edgware Road/Padd can be distinguished)
Circle (Edgware Road – Victoria – Aldgate section) 0
Edgware Road – Wimbledon 1
City-Wimbledon 2
Ealing 3
Richmond 4
H&C 5
Uxbridge 6
Amersham 7
Chesham 8
Watford 9
Circle (Hammersmith – Aldgate section) 10
Again, where possible shared routes have consecutive numbers (e.g 2-5 west of Aldgate East, 5-10 through Kings Cross, but I didn’t quite manage it on the south side of the Circle (0, 2-4)
Re Timbeau,
Possibly have odd numbers for one direction on a route and evens for the other direction to help direct passengers to the right platforms at some of the more complex stations mid-line (Canary, West Quay, Poplar & Canning Town) ?
@Taz: While the Jubilee extension to HotH would indeed cost a few more carriages, I fail to see how the track remodelling for this would be so extensive? All you would need to do is build a pair of crossovers at Wembley Park to connect the Jubilee Line to the slow Met line platforms, as well as a crossover to the south of HotH to allow Jubilee Line trains to terminate in the platforms rather than in the siding to the north of the station. Add some platform lowering works to that, but all in all that doesn’t sound like it would cost the Earth…
Regarding the numbering: Every distinguishable service group should be named or numbered and communicated as such. If a newcomer to London needs to get from King’s Cross to Whitechapel, they need to be informed throughout that they need a Hammersmith & City line train, rather than a Hammersmith & City line train on the maps and trains, but a ‘Barking’ train on the displays. Same with the DLR – if I want to get from Bank to London City Airport I should not have to know where Woolwich is (no offence to Woolwich).
And as far as the oft-mentioned journey from King’s Cross to Liverpool Street – anybody looking at the map (or indeed any customer assistant) would figure out quickly that the right answer is: ‘Take any train.’
Whilst I wouldn’t disagree with the need to number the DLR routes (especially) and the SSL, let me mount my old nag again and say that this should be part of a much wider programme of route identification that embraces all local passenger rail services in the GLA. If Berlin and Zuerich can do it, London should be no exception. I realise the naysayers will marginal reasons/cases which may make it less than perfect, but anything -anything – is better than the Absurdist branding of LOROL as if it were a single system – frankly, the travelling public doesn’t care a tuppenny damn as to whether the service is TfL franchise on NR infrastructure, TfL franchise partly on their own infrastructure, TfL on Tfl infrastructure; they do want to know where the train is going…
@ Briantist – one tiny correction about the DLR service at Stratford International. The service pattern changed a few months ago so that trains run to Woolwich at all times. Looking at the timetable there are a few trains to Beckton at the end of the M-F AM peak – I assume this is to feed trains back to Beckton depot after the AM peak period. The service headway is also a bit peculiar at this time with larger gaps to Woolwich and an uneven headway before it settles down to the x10 min off peak service.
I see we are continuing the never ending debate about the efficacy or otherwise of rail maps. DLR is the exception to the rule though – it is shown as a merged whole on the main Tube Map and also the Rail and Tube Map and DLR’s own Main Line connections Map. It does though also have its system map that shows the detailed service pattern. That’s probably “map nirvana” for some people.
I can understand the points people are making about the SSL network but I think we’d have mass confusion if the separate line colours and names were abolished in favour of some other amorphous name. I just think abandoning many years of practice would not work even though I can see the point about needing to check destinations. Perhaps the answer is for TfL to provide a DLR style route network map for every line / line grouping which has multiple service patterns. At least then people could check the structure and every “fan” of a particular design would have a version they could cherish. 😉
@WW – I’m sure we can all agree that more route differentiation is better (as in not merging the SSL) but in recent years, matters have got worse with the trend being towards route merger – DLR (as noted) and Lorol being the worst offenders. TLK may also turn out to be tricky, although not a TfL problem.
@Straphan Trains saved may be 50 mill. cost. To retain cross-platform interchange at Wembley Park would have required crossovers north of there linking local and fast roads for Met, and crossovers between Jubilee and local north of that. Long awaited Met resignalling would have been revised, and Jubilee signalling extended. Reversing at Harrow would need new scissors crossing north or south of the platforms. Harrow has long awaited a modern track layout. Simpler to leave the Met alone and reverse at W.Hampstead!
@Taz: I don’t necessarily dispute your assessment of the scope of the works, but the ratio of their cost vs. the cost of adding additional platforms at stations between Finchley Road and Wembley Park to continue turning Jubilee trains back is probably lower than you think.
New trains would indeed be required on the Jubilee line, but there would – in turn – be more capacity on the Met to grow, and potentially provide extra capacity elsewhere (if redundant trains were to be shortened by 1 carriage and reused elsewhere).
You’re probably right that the business case for the Harrow extension of the Jubilee line isn’t great, but I think it’s a closer call than you think.
The discussion about line identification reminds me of this Emett cartoon which appeared in “Punch”:
http://punch.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Rowland-Emett-Cartoons/G0000e481CExtSaE/I0000.gbpdzs2JHs
If you look at the uppermost sign, one can discern words something like: “UP ESCALATOR TURN RIGHT FOR GREEN LINE AND … METROPOLITAN LINE RED LIGHT FOR MORE GREEN LINE AND SO ON AND SO ON AND SO ON”
It’s a pastiche on the sort of thing to be found all over the tube sections of the Underground at one time. The coloured lights to be followed had nothing to do with the colours on the map!
@Straphan
“All you would need to do is build a pair of crossovers at Wembley Park to connect the Jubilee Line to the slow Met line platforms, as well as a crossover to the south of HotH to allow Jubilee Line trains to terminate in the platforms rather than in the siding to the north of the station. Add some platform lowering works to that, but all in all that doesn’t sound like it would cost the Earth…”
You would also need to resignal the slow lines to Jubilee Line standards (Met trains having to use the fast tracks between Wembley and Harrow)
@Graham H
” TLK may also turn out to be tricky (to show different service patterns), although not a TfL problem.”
It should be a TfL problem though, as TLK is as much a part of London’s rail network as the SSL. However, within Greater London it will be relatively simple – two branches to the north, three branches (one with a terminal loop) to the south: not much more complex than the Central Line in fact…………
@timbeau, 26 June 2015 at 00:08
You would also need to resignal the slow lines to Jubilee Line standards (Met trains having to use the fast tracks between Wembley and Harrow)
Don’t forget everything should be equipped with Seltrac by the time any of this comes about, and that should (ideally) include converting the Jubilees from the track loop to the radio and balise system. That compatibility would also help for my Uxbridge Jubilee Express idea.
Further to mine above, the first view from this link should show the coloured light passenger guidance system once common on the Tube:
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/passengers-make-their-way-down-a-tunnel-at-waterloo-news-photo/86432769
@timbeau – to be clear: TfL has no responsibility for TLK, as for the other mainline suburban services, so the responsibility for renaming/numbering it and them lies with DfT; but, equally, of course, any system should embrace everything,not just the things for which TfL is directly responsible. (And there’s the rub, DfT don’t believe – with all the fanaticism of a jihadi – that there is anything called the rail “system”; if they did, they wouldn’t allow,for example, commuter franchises to keep rebranding themselves when they change hands).
@Graham Feakins: That looks like an amazingly confusing system. When it says “red for Piccadilly”, would the sign have been red or blue? I feel that either choice would violate the Stroop effect, somehow.
Something that struck me: •the signalling solution for the interoperable sections of the SubSurface Railway (SSR) and Piccadilly lines will include conventional signals to allow for continued operation of Piccadilly services on these sections
Firstly, does “interoperable” in this case include the possibility of trains west of Hammersmith using tracks other than their usual ones in the event of disruption? Secondly, how will this square with the New Tube for London and plans for automation? Will conventional signals be installed then ripped out 5 years later?
Graham H
DfT don’t believe – with all the fanaticism of a jihadi – that there is anything called the rail “system”
Which is why the recent changes have been made at NR (?) ( SNARK )
Except that, unless Sir Peter H is allowed to treat it as a system, it ain’t going to work.
Maybe he can do it – after all, he’s had plenty of practice ….
Ian J,
The coloured light passenger guidance system actually worked quite well but did have a problem. I must admit I thought it was for main line termini only so I am surprised to see the “Red for Piccadilly” sign. I wonder if that should have been “Red for Piccadilly Circus”.
It did presume a stable unchanging tube system. When the Victoria Line came along there would have been a lot of changes necessary and I think it was this that caused the system to be abandoned. Potentially, lines closed for engineering works was also an issue though I think they were actually few and far between.
@PoP
“The coloured light passenger guidance system actually worked quite well but did have a problem” – so did I being colourblind.
@ Greg – You are confusing the management of infrastructure with the management and letting of franchises. Clearly Network Rail has to manage the network’s infrastructure but it has no responsibility for how franchises are shaped, let, managed or shown on a map. I still don’t understand why people keep conflating the entirely separate operations and responsibilities of franchises and Network Rail. No one in political circles has seriously advocated the recreation of a wholly integrated main line railway. Renationalisation has been mentioned but not in a way that brings train operation and infrastructure operation into a single organisation. Not even TfL has practised that – the core ELL section has a separate outsourced maintainer and DLR is also split between maintenance, upgrades and operation. There have been opportunities to remove the split but it has not been done.
@Ian J, 26 June 2015 at 09:50
Something that struck me: •the signalling solution for the interoperable sections of the SubSurface Railway (SSR) and Piccadilly lines will include conventional signals to allow for continued operation of Piccadilly services on these sections.
Firstly, does “interoperable” in this case include the possibility of trains west of Hammersmith using tracks other than their usual ones in the event of disruption? Secondly, how will this square with the New Tube for London and plans for automation? Will conventional signals be installed then ripped out 5 years later?
Adding some low tech physical signals and train-stops to the new equipment and then removing them is fairly trivial technically if planned from the start into the new signalling ecosystem, whose costs largely arise from cable routes, housings, power distribution and data transmission infrastructure and all the site specific development, design, approvals, and testing processes. Catering for the legacy equipment will cost something clearly, but it is a known low risk solution, whereas modifying the existing trains for full Seltrac operation is at the far opposite end of the risk spectrum, and would be a large investment for such a limited life asset regardless. The preferred solution requires no modifications to the old trains whatsoever.
As to interoperability on adjacent tracks I am agnostic, but tend towards simplicity and minimalism where the facilities are not required for normal operational purposes. Metropolitan and Jubilee are not interoperable on their parallel sections except for a few shared tracks around Neasden and Wembley Park for depot access. It should be noted the first crossover between the parallel tracks is west of Neasden station. No additional ‘just in case’ crossovers, not even for engineering purposes.
By contrast, the shared District/Piccadilly section has not (so far) had to deal with the issue of some of it’s trains using a different signalling system, and the junction east of Hammersmith theoretically allows any train to run on any track west thereof to Acton and beyond, although platform presence and height constrain where particular trains can actually stop at intermediate stations when not on their regular tracks. I think I see your point though. This feature seems to have been maintained and exploited deliberately to allow Piccadillies to run with the the centre pair closed and with a thinned or suspended District service to create the paths on the outer pair. Thus the important Heathrow service can be maintained on some ‘Engineering Sundays’ for centre pair maintenance and track renewal work. With alternative fast routes between Heathrow and Central London now, and these set to improve with Crossrail, perhaps the Piccadilly could sacrifice this capability in the name of simplicity. Some crossovers at Hammersmith may still be required to allow engineering trains and plant from Lillie Bridge depot to access all four lines.
Re the coloured lights, I think I remember seeing vestiges of them when I was taken on the Tube on my first trip to London. That was 1979 and I was 9.
My age then is significant: I remember being disappointed because the lights were a sub-plot in one of the Paddington stories.
If I recall correctly: Paddington (the Bear) is misled that a light directing passengers to Paddington (the station) is intended for his benefit; he gets lost with (as they used to say in the Radio Times about suburban-based sit-coms) “hilarious consequences”.
An old thread “in another place” http://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/15772/follow-lights?page=2 suggests they lasted until the 1980s at Embankment and the 1990s at Waterloo, although I suspect this was more that there was no particular incentive to remove them rather than a positive decision to retain them.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vli6oNAzmzI/UJTtEje45UI/AAAAAAAAbgM/_0MZ8H4QGmo/s1600/lights.jpg
@Ian J – “When it says “red for Piccadilly”, would the sign have been red or blue?” – The glass in the illuminated panel was red. Green glass for Euston. Green glass also for Kings Cross & St. Pancras but change at Leicester Square. A further set of lights were e.g. at Leicester Square to guide one onwards.
It occurred to me that LT had to use coloured lights that were different from the colours of the lines on the map; for example, it would have been exceedingly difficult to show a black light for the Northern Line, let alone to distinguish between its two central branches!
I recall at least one station replaced the old light boxes with coloured glass rings wrapped around the fluro tubes,lettered with destination.
@Mark Townend
Mark adding a few low tech signals & trainstops to a moving block signalling system is far from trivial – there will have to be some pretty substantial re-writes of the safety software for this. In addition add on the fact you have two different train detection systems – track circuits that are essentially static – they will show where trains are when power is reset after a failure. The transmission based system once it loses trains needs to go through some sort of manual reset requiring trains to be driven manually at slow speed until the system recognises them again. Resolving these two different philosophies again will require the safety software to be re-written.
Modifying safety software and retaining its SIL 4 safety integrity is a challenge which is part of the reason one of the other major signalling projects failed.
Of course at the end you no longer have the advantages of a moving block system either – the lights on sticks and trainstops turn it into a fixed block system.
@An engineer – yes, I wondered about Mark’s suggestion. Just to contemplate what happens to the “lights on sticks” system when a train using the moving block system goes past a train stop (assuming it’s not fitted with one). Or likewise how a moving block system detects a train operating on the other system.
It is (just) possible to conceive of an arrangement where both systems are installed on a stretch of track, but all trains are using one or t’other (probably in preparation, for, or the aftermath of, an overnight switchover), but not where every other train uses alternate systems.
I am rather confused by the recent comments.
My understanding is that SSR signalling is still a fixed block system albeit one with very short blocks indeed.
If you start putting lights on sticks for interoperability on an ATO fixed block system such as the proposed SSR one then my understanding that it can operate at full capacity so long as all the trains are running under ATO. One a non-ATO-equipped train arrives then it will obviously degrade performance as the driver will have to obey conventional signals.
The Thameslink core will operate in just such a way. They will avoid normally letting non-ATO equipped (or functioning) trains into the core because it stops a 24tph throughput. At least busy times it would be possible for a non-ATO train to use it and observe conventional signals. Note that under ATO a train can pass signals at danger (red) and it must be quite disconcerting for the drivers to go against their inbuilt training and do nothing when their train passes a succession of signals set to danger.
AIUI Wimbledon, Richmond & Ealing interworking will use current signals with overlay for District line ATO, so no change in train capacity. Amersham & Uxbridge lines will be fully resignalled with added light signals.
PoP says “ it must be quite disconcerting for the drivers to go against their inbuilt training and do nothing when their train passes a succession of signals set to danger”
It is not the disconcertion that would worry me about such a phenomenon. Any disconcerted drivers could doubtless be reconcerted by some mechanism.
No, it is the nightmare scenario of a driver who has often been in such a situation, and has got adapted to the sequence of red lights. Then for some reason things change, and a similar sequence arises, perhaps on a completely different line, or when ATO is not operating or something. That is where the shivers down the spine begin…
Victoria line 1 had all trains stop at red signal, but introduced white signal which meant go for ATO but stop for manual driving. Traditional unclear aspects are treated as danger. A signal with broken lens might display a white light, and treated as danger.
@Malcolm
“No, it is the nightmare scenario of a driver who has often been in such a situation, and has got adapted to the sequence of red lights. Then for some reason things change, and a similar sequence arises, ”
Train stops would prevent a driver actually passing a red light when he shouldn’t.
But would ATO-fitted trains also be fitted with train stops, and if so, how will they react when operating under ATO on a dual-signalled line?
An Underground train is either
non-ATO (actually ATP) equipped in which case it will have a train stop or alternative similar device to prevent overrunning a signal set to danger
or
it is ATO-equipped in which case its speed will be physically limited to around 10kph (and can only be driven in this mode with permission) unless it receives suitable codes giving it authority to be driven up to a certain speed (Automatic Train Protection). Whether the train is “driven” by the driver or the on-board computer is largely irrelevant.
@An Engineer, 28 June 2015 at 20:24
I’m not convinced there needs to be so much innovative and risky work to cater for the fixed blocks of the overlay areas. Seltrac on DLR and LUL uses fixed blocks for degraded mode working and junction locking and already copes with a conventional signalling overlay around Neasden depot. A quick search reveals a recent major depot remodelling project there to cater for the S stock. A UK design firm was subcontracted by Thales to provide technical support, helping to develop and approve the signalling scheme plan, control tables and detailed trackside equipment design:
http://www.degsignal.co.uk/neasden-depot-upgrade-project/
I’m not aware of that scheme having been in great trouble, and hopefully it will have successfully prototyped some of the solutions that will need to be applied in other parts of the sub-surface network.
One way of keeping the complexity down on the Piccadilly-shared section is to have a completely independent conventional control system for the Piccadilly centre pair signals all the way from Hammersmith to Acton. It would be simple automatic plain line signalling with axle counters and, where expedient, the equipment could share power, cable runs and housings with the Seltrac equipment for the adjacent tracks. Otherwise, it would be completely independent, with a Neasden type overlay only required around Acton and, if junctions were retained there, Hammersmith. A disadvantage with this would be that Piccadilly trains could not run on District tracks and vice-versa, which might mess up some maintenance strategies, but it might be considered a necessary loss of flexibility temporarily until all the new Piccadilly fleet is in service and all tracks can be converted finally to Seltrac. Clearly the new signalling ecosystem would also be designed from the outset to facilitate that final conversion.
@PoP: Also, Thameslink is meant to operate 24h on some routes (Three Bridges – Bedford notably), and with the Class 700 trains being indivisible having 8-car or 12-car units running overnight would lead to much surplus air being transported. Hence there is the possibility of running 4-car Class 377 or other adequate stock without ATO.
What I do not understand about the coloured lights system is: why is Piccadilly and Paddington depicted in two different colours at Waterloo, when the train going to both places departs from the same platform?
Straphan,
The coloured lights system was, I believe, consistent across the network so as to be easily identifiable. So Paddington would always be a yukky yellow colour, Waterloo always blue etc.
@PoP: Ah, now I get it. Thanks!
No need for much of this resignalling! “Architects unveil plans to replace the Circle Line with a travelator”:
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-09-07/architects-unveil-plans-to-replace-the-circle-line-with-a-travelator/
Brilliant idea, eh? Where do these folk come from?
Re Graham F,
Summer silly season.
Worrying that they don’t realised how much capacity reduction there would be before the slower journey time is taken into account.
Classic self promotion piece.
@ Graham F 0210 – From the Planet “Moron”. Although I may be being rude to Morons in making that statement. 🙂
Inspirational I call it. I look forward to it being adopted by one of the mayoral candidates. It clearly identifies that the various branches of the District, Hammersmith and City and Metrolitan generate negligible traffic! Duh!……..
Just out of curiosity, can travelators go at different speeds along their length ?
Obviously, you can step from a slower one to a faster one, but this is talking about a travelator that runs at 3mph in stations, but accelerates to 9mph in the tunnels. How is that possible ?
It is fair enough for Architects to come up with innovative solutions, but assuming you can invent a magic carpet is going to far.
To answer my own question, yes you can, but only in a limited fashion, at a slower speed and it takes getting used to. It doesn’t work in the manner suggested by the article.
And architects wonder why they and engineers are in permanent conflict (blaming the engineers, of course).
“would make commuters happier and healthier”? Yeah, right.
and anyway, this very silly idea ignores the fact that for almost all its length the Circle has other services on the same metals! Oh so stupid!
Civil Engineers
are so called
because they do not swear at
Architects
Using conventional travelator technology where each one ends by meshing with a static comb, how could two different speeds be joined end to end ? It could conceivably be achieved by an arrangement where speed changes always rely on stepping sideways. This would need to reintroduce shunt ends as used on the original escalators, except the boarding and alighting points which could have normal comb landings. Would people be willing or able to keep balance on a travelator without handrails, and would regulations allow it ? Anyone who collapsed onto two adjacent lanes traveling at different speeds might regret it (if they survive).
One can envisage leaves of the walkway which overlap at slow speed and move apart to allow you to speed up. Rather than overlapping vertically, it is probably better to move sideways, so the walkway is wider at slow speeds, which would help to avoid pile ups at slowing-down areas.
@timbeau – I guess you mean something like this:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/paris-exhibition-2/
(see 1:58 onwards)
My original questions also ought to have included “Who pays these people and why?”
@Graham F
That’s more like what Asimov described.
I had something more like this in mind (lateral overlap)
http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/03/07/the-abandoned-travolator-for-london-bridge/
or this (vertical overlap)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwHer1RrYg8
@timbeau – the second clip also illustrates two of my favourite bugbears :those people who cluster at the ends of travolators and escalators, seemed surprised that they have actually reached the end and then get off very slowly, leaving the rest of us to pileup behind them (expect that to happen a lot on the Circle Turbo Footway);
– (severe thread drift alert) and the fact that at every airport of I have ever used,the stand I want is always at the furthest end of the pier (there must be flights that use the stands next to the terminals but they never seem to be mine….)
The clustering in the second clip is exacerbated by the design of the walkway, where the leaves actually draw together as they slow down (given that, throughout the length of the walkway, the rate at which leaves pass a given point has to be constant (conservation of matter!), a slower speed means they have to be closer together in the direction of travel – and there is no space to spread out sideways)
It is also worth pointing out that the current longest travelators in the world are just over 200m in length. On that basis, you would need 135 travelators and at the design speed of 15mph, you would reach the end of each one every 30 seconds or so. In context, the S7 stock is 117m in length, so each travelators is no more than two train lengths. Even if you could get the length of each upto 500m (over double to current maximum), you would still need 54 travelators and would be changing every minute. As the design has three speeds of travelators, presumably you would have to move to the slower ones before the end of each section, which means you would be continuously moving around – not great on moving walkways.
I can kind of understand an architect not understanding some of the issues, but I am surprised that no-one in NBBJ went “hang on…”. As for itv.com, this appears to be written as a positive view of the idea, which doesn’t say much for the quality of their journalism !!
The Guardian also has an article on the Circle Line travelator and some of the other daft ideas architects have produced for London.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/sep/09/circle-line-travelator-commuting-london-transport-ideas-in-pictures?CMP=share_btn_tw#comment-59108679
As a comment says, they’ve missed out the Garden Bridge and Cable Car…
@ Jim Cobb – today’s journalism is “quote nice bits from press release, say nothing nasty or controversial, publish, let social media comment tear the press release quotes to bits, produce new article with most ferocious bits of social media comment included”. I know we still have a few decent journalists around but there is so little rigour these days in mainstream media coverage.
Wot? No mention of Wembley’s long-gone Never Stop Railway?
Come to think of it… whip off the roofs and seats… (mutter, mumble)… whoa! Does anyone know NBBJ’s phone number?
@Reynolds 953
“As a comment says, they’ve missed out the Garden Bridge …”
not to mention Heatherwick’s Heavyweights
http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/doors-closed.jpg
(now with rear door which can’t be left open when it’s moving, defeating the whole point)
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=boris+bus&biw=1600&bih=728&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIz8PAub7qxwIVUEfbCh0lUgBJ#tbm=isch&q=boris+bus+rear+door+73&imgrc=1TKU1tKrTVTfGM%3A
[Let’s avoid listing here every bit of proposed or actual transport infrastructure that we have an issue with please, especially things that have been adequately moaned about already! Malcolm]
@Anomnibus
“Wembley’s long-gone Never Stop Railway?”
I know fashions have changed somewhat in ninety years, but did people really ever wear tailcoats and spats for a day out at an exhibition?
Amused to see what was advertised on the front of each car……………..
@Malcolm
“[Let’s avoid listing here every bit of proposed or actual transport infrastructure that we have an issue with please, especially things that have been adequately moaned about already! Malcolm]”
Point taken, but my example was particularly relevant because
1. it was designed by the same person as the Garden Bridge
2. sometimes these architect’s flights of fancy do become reality. (People moaned about the Millennium Wheel and the Eiffel Tower too)
[Points taken. But the comment was intended to be addressed mainly to people considering adding yet more stuff, which is why I left your observations unsnipped – I didn’t make this clear. Malcolm]