“Once again,” the BBC correspondent says wryly to camera, “They – with a capital T – are sorry that we have been troubled. But for once, can the inconvenience have been worthwhile?”
“The Tube is a bit of London’s pride that has been handed down to us.” He continues. “Back in 1863, when London pioneered underground railways, it was properly the wonder and admiration of the world.”
“It still might be,” he says with a smile, “if there weren’t so many of us.”
Given the familiary of the theme it would be easy to assume that the speaker was Tom Edwards, BBC London’s Transport Correspondent. Doing so would, however, be wrong.
They are in fact the words of Douglas “Mac” Hastings, who was speaking about the Victoria line back in 1969.
Mac Hastings, discussing the Victoria line back in 1969
Today, Monday the 10th of August, is the first day on which the scale of the current closures related to improving the Victoria line will have become apparent to many of the line’s users. For although the 23 day closure of the north-eastern-most section of the line began on the 8th, it is only today that the full force of the disruption for the Victoria’s commuters will be felt.
Given the Victoria line’s status as the busiest line on the network (in terms of passengers versus distance) it thus seems worth spending some time looking at just what is happening, and why it is necessary.
Built for the future
Despite its relative youth (it first took passengers in 1968), work to improve the capacity on the Victoria line has been a pressing need in recent Tube history. This is not because the line was badly built. Far from it. In fact of all London’s lines it can perhaps claim to be the line built with the most forethought. It is certainly true that compromises were made – plans to take the line out further from its current terminus at Walthamstow into Chingford were aborted, for example – but in general serious consideration was given to how to future-proof the track arrangements to support future traffic increases.
This partly explains the almost-unique arrangement of three platforms on one line which can be found at Seven Sisters (North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line is the only other instance of this on the network). We will not dwell too much on precisely why this arrangement exists as we covered the subject back in the Secret Life of Seven Sisters, but suffice to say it is in part a result of some creative thinking to ensure a smooth flow of traffic to the line’s depot at Northumberland Park.
The extra platform at Seven Sisters can be a lonely place at times.
That the Victoria line was built with the future in mind is no coincidence. After all, the line itself was arguably the first to be built solely for the purpose of relieving capacity issues on the existing transport network – hence Mac Hasting’s comments on the subject back in 1969. To not assume that the cycle of overcrowding and improvement would need to be repeated at some point in the future would have been remiss.
Whatever the reasoning, this has helped ensure that of all London’s lines the Victoria has seen the smoothest process of capacity upgrades in recent years. There were early issues with the 2009 Stock certainly but, media hyperbole aside, these were as much a consequence of the Bathtub Curve as anything else. In the end the full introduction of the 2009 along with associated signalling works meant that by the time the Olympics arrived in London in 2012, an impressive 30 trains per hour (tph) were running on much of the Victoria line during peak hours. That’s a train every two minutes.
If you build coffee shops, they will come
The key word in the previous paragraph, however, is “much.” Indeed it is the word that explains the need for the current works. For demand at the north-eastern end of the Victoria line, which was always predicted to increase, has arguably done so even faster than expected thanks to what could perhaps somewhat facetiously be described as the “hipster diaspora.”
This has seen demand for homes (both to buy and to rent) explode in E17, first as economic exiles from Hackney were driven further eastwards and now as Walthamstow itself becomes a focal point for gentrification.
Unfortunately it is this north-eastern end that lies outside the “much.” For it is currently impossible to run more than 24tph trains beyond Seven Sisters itself.
Sweating the marginals
We touched on the broader reasons for this back in 2012 in A Brief History of Sidings. Ultimately there comes a point where capacity improvements stop being about obvious things, such as the quantity and quality of trains (and the signalling they use), and starts being about lots of smaller physical or logistical pinch points.
Getting drivers in the right place at the right time, for example, becomes increasingly difficult as frequencies increase. Because there inevitably comes a point where the gap between trains is less than the time it takes to walk the length of the platform. This is not a problem for passengers, obviously, who can board at any point, but it instantly means that the same driver who brought the train in cannot take it out again. Thus a level of logistical complexity is increased to staff rostering that didn’t exist before.
There are other, more physical limitations. One of the reasons for the extensive works underway at Victoria, for example, is because as train frequency increases so does the speed at which you need to move alighting passengers off of the platforms (this is also why regular commuters often ignore the signage at Kings Cross – it is focused on getting infrequent travellers away from the platform areas quickly, rather than pointing regular passengers towards quick interchanges).
This current Victoria line closure is also aimed at addressing a particular physical constraint – the Walthamstow Crossover. It is here that that northbound trains transfer to the southbound line for their return journey, but the current points layout restricts the speed and frequency with which this can take place – hence the 24tph limit.
As always, Carto Metro has excellent diagrams of the area. Note the crossover just outside of Walthamstow Central.
The need for block closures
There is additional work, certainly, that is taking place at the same time – work to remove the current ticket hall, for example at sub-surface level, but to large degree this is opportunistic. If the station must be completely closed, then it would be silly not to take advantage of that closure for other work. Ultimately it is the Walthamstow Crossover work that matters, and which is the reason this work could not be carried out in smaller chunks overnight.
Complete (or “block”) closures are something that most railways obviously try and avoid but here the nature of points work rendered it essentially unavoidable. For replacing the points means pulling up rails, breaking up the underlying concrete track bed and then putting it all back again, all within a confined space. Not only is this complex, time-consuming, disruptive work – for a comparable home experience, try assembling a full-height flat-pack shelf unit in a downstairs washroom – but it also involves the re-pouring of the concrete bed on which everything else sits. This, inevitably, requires time to set.
This photo, by Chris Pittock, shows the view towards Walthamstow Crossing. This gives an idea of the confines in which the work is being carried out.
Ripples of disruption
That the closure is necessary, of course, does not make the consequences any easier for those affected – and that is a considerable number of commuters. Indeed it is not just Victoria line users that are affected. Walthamstow Central sits on the most recently acquired section of the London Overground network, as well as other rail services into London Liverpool Street.
On the surface, this would seem to be an advantage – an instant alternative option for those displaced from the Victoria line. The problem, however, is that these services themselves are already near-capacity in the peaks. Indeed during particular periods of heavy usage the only reason capacity exists at Walthamstow Central is because passengers from further up the line alight in order to interchange there with the Underground.
It is for this reason that the alternative timetabling arrangements being put in place indicate that a considerable number of services into Liverpool Street will no longer stop at stations after Walthamstow Central – or that if they do (such as at St James Street), those stations will be exit only. The fact is that throughout the disruption the capacity at those stations simply isn’t going to exist, and thus it is better to simply channel all passengers to Walthamstow Central itself (or, at Clapton, to nearby Rectory Road on the Enfield branch) and regulate all traffic there.
A similar situation exists on the other branch of the Overground in the area – the Gospel Oak to Barking Line which stops at Walthamstow Queens Road. Again this is a line already at capacity, and even if it wasn’t the closure of Walthamstow Central car park for the duration of the work means that the (relatively) new cut-through allowing interchange between the two stations is no longer available.
Complex arrangements
All this means the arrangements made by TfL to help people travel during the closures are inherently complex. On the roads an array of additional buses to Stratford, a temporary express bus service and a traditional rail replacement bus service. On rails, changes to timetables and train lengths for a host of services (details of all of this can be found on TfL’s website).
Whilst the effort to provide such an extensive range of alternatives is certainly a positive thing, there is no escaping the fact that this is all an attempt to make the best of an inevitably bad situation for travellers both from the stations immediately affected on the Victoria line itself and those at surrounding stations caught in the ripples of disruption.
The complex nature of the relief effort also brings its own problems in terms of informing passengers of their alternative options. It is certainly not possible to argue that TfL haven’t gone above and beyond to try and warn passengers as to what was coming. The first public press release went out as early as February, and since then a steady stream of posters, leaflets, emails and train announcements have followed.
What has been less clear until now, however, has been the exact nature of the alleviating measures, as well as just which stations will close and which services will change. Even those commuters inclined to think ahead, therefore, are likely to have had limited opportunity to fully plan their own personal alternative journey, and this will inevitably lead to a huge challenge for the staff on the ground this week.
Just how well those staff handle the inevitable hordes of confused travellers will likely define the public (and media) perception of this closure as the engineering itself. For it is hard to argue that the work isn’t worthwhile. The ultimate consequence of this work will be a Tube line capable of running an incredible 36tph during peak hours in 2016 – or a train every 100 seconds. That’ll be a service which few metro lines worldwide can rival and will arguably represent the maximum that can be squeezed onto the line.
In the words of Mac Hastings again:
“To keep up with the modern world, London could not have produced anything better than this… we are for the future. And if we can’t live with it, we are for the past.”
This is undoubtedly as true for Victoria line works now as it was in 1969, albeit with one caveat:- TfL would do well to remember that for many commuters the present is going to be very tough indeed, and mitigating that situation is going to be no small feat.
How They Dug The Victoria Line, presented by Mac Hastings, can be viewed in its entirety on BBC iPlayer as part of BBC4 Collections. It is well worth watching.
To follow the Mac Hastings philosophy as set out in John Bull’s commentary, will it get harder, the closer any one tube line gets to full capacity in future? If so, we should beware major line closures without adequate spare cover on other routes, the nearer we get to ‘Peak tube’. It appears a close squeeze, now in NE London.
Just to add that I know there are a few Walthamstow residents (including myself) who comment regularly here. But lets try and keep comments about this work objective and focused on the bigger picture please.
Screeds about personal travel arrangements, or well-worn arguments about Walthamstow transport only tangentially related will be deleted. There’s plenty of other places in which such discussion will be welcomed and active in the coming weeks (from local forums to the BBC), so lets keep this focused on the logistics and engineering of it all.
Other stations with 3-track layouts (with variations as to how the platforms are disposed) include Loughton and North Acton.
In both cases the centre road can and is used for terminating services.
[I have amended the text to add the crucial words “deep level” which I am sure is what was intended. If you include termini at ground level there are actually quite a few. PoP]
@Jonathan Roberts In the specific case of the Lea Valley, the next big improvement is Crossrail 2, which as a new line will hopefully not require a lot of closures of existing lines to build.
But certainly one does need to design for upgrading and leave enough spare capacity for it (and how we envy New York its 4-track subways in cases like this). I remember a comment here saying that an upgrade to Waterloo was urgent and should or would start as soon as the Victoria (national rail) works are finished – not because Waterloo will be full imminently, but because there will only be a brief window after the Victoria upgrade when there’s enough spare capacity at Victoria to accommodate the necessary closures at Waterloo.
“This partly explains the almost-unique arrangement of three platforms on one line which can be found at Seven Sisters (North Greenwich on the Jubilee Line is the only other instance of this on the network). ”
Surely there are others? Arnos Grove, Tower Hill and Mansion House come to mind, provided for the same purpose, and there have been other examples in the past such as Kings Cross (Met).
There are also places where three platforms are provided for other purposes – junctions like Woodford or Chalfont & Latimer, or termini such as Stanmore, Edgware and High Barnet.
Interesting article – I hadn’t appreciated before reading this exactly what work was involved in the “upgrade”. I can imagine that many passengers, unfamiliar with the way things work, might be unimpressed that work at Walthamstow requires closure of two other stations on the line as well.
For readers who, like me, thought the caption of the picture of the journalist “Mac Hastings” was a misspelling for the famous war correspondent Max, it turns out that they are in fact father and son.
@John Bull – “a few Walthamstow residents (including myself)”
notwithstanding your pen name, am I right in assuming from the Americanisms in the article that you have not always lived in Walthamstow?
As you say the acid test is tomorrow. I am afraid to say I am not terribly impressed with the poor and inconsistent supply of information about the alternative travel arrangements. For example it only became apparent two days ago that there will be extra buses on the 58 bus – not mentioned in any of the special leaflets. I was chatting to some people at Walthamstow Central today. One of them had arrived at Queens Rd and had struggled to walk to the Central as there were no signs for the long walking route despite these being promised by TfL as the quick link is, as you say above, closed. They had relied on the special TfL map which shows there being an “easy” interchange between Queens Rd and Central. Also there was the usual Sunday traffic jam on Hoe St this afternoon because there are no parking restrictions. This normally just delays the service buses but today about 6 rail replacement buses were stuck – 5 of them going to Walthamstow! That won’t have done much for the regular flow of buses at the other end – it’s the sort of thing that TfL and Waltham Forest Council should have made a temporary change to parking rules for.
I await with interest to see what will happen to the ticket hall and subway arrangements at Walthamstow Central. I took some photos on Friday just to record the old status quo. It will also be interesting to see how LOROL fare on the West Anglia lines. While the level of cancellations and short formations has fallen it has not reached zero yet so the pressure will really be on tomorrow to make sure it goes like clockwork all day. The only saving grace, on a personal level, is that I no longer commute so can avoid the worst of what disruption there is.
It is interesting to note that TfL are “tweeting” a progress photo a day from the works. However that has already backfired a tiny bit with people saying “jolly good the work’s done, the trains are back on Monday then?”. Just goes to show there’s no accounting for public expectations. It might be helpful if TfL set out some broad timescales to say what is being done by when – that would set some context for people to understand the scale of the work. It looks like they’ve set up a sort of crane operation in the wider tunnel cavern where the crossover is/was.
In the longer term I wonder if your comment about accelerated growth in Walthamstow will pull forward the station capacity / 3rd escalator scheme which is a long way down the TfL shopping list? Certainly there is a risk that 36tph dumping passengers downstairs at WWCS will mean the lower concourse never clears before another train arrives. It’s already pretty awful so even more trains will make it worse as usage grows. Worse it may mean people wanting to catch trains will face a permanent wall of people when trying to reach a platform. The soon to be rebuilt Tottenham Hale isn’t gaining a third escalator either despite the burgeoning demand at that location. That seems short sighted to me but what do I know?
As a small aside it is bemusing to see the “lost hipsters of Hackney” looking around the E17 area at weekends in their quest for property. The only glimmer of familiarity on their faces is when they see the N73 bus timetable panel because that, of course, goes to Stoke Newington (albeit only at night). 🙂
@Imm
“an upgrade to Waterloo was urgent and should or would start as soon as the Victoria (national rail) works are finished ”
Other way round surely – Waterloo works have already started (so far only reopening of the International side): I know of no major project at Victoria NR, although (on topic) upgrade of the Victoria Line is not limited to the far north east, and a major upgrade at Victoria Tube station is ongoing.
@ Slugabed – I think White City can also be added to the list of “central tracks” where trains can terminate. At WC there is an overrun siding beyond the crossovers to / from the central track. It’s a very flexible layout at that location. I see Timbeau has picked up some other locations too.
Sorry if I missed this but what will the new layout be to allow 36tph? Or is it the same layout but new signalling, faster points etc?
@WW @Slugabed – and at White City the central track also has direct access to the depot, albeit with a reversal required for trains arriving from the core. I would in fact speculate that the layout at White City, probably conceived in the 1920s, was an influence on the similar (but underground) layout conceived 30 years later at Seven Sisters.
Perhaps though JB meant 3 tracks at a station, underground on a deep tube line? Seven Sisters and North Greenwich are probably the only two examples of that?
I’m disappointed in this article. All it basically says is that the line is closing (knew that) and that alternative travel arrangements are being organised (apparently not very well, but that isn’t relevant to me personally anyway).
What I really was hoping to see from LR was an article on why the crossing is being replaced. What, exactly, was wrong with the old one? The article goes no further than:
All of which can be trivially inferred from the mere facts that the line is closing, the crossover is being replaced, and the line will have a greater frequency after it reopens.
Lemmo,
As I understand it, it is basically the same layout but as you describe. It has never been comprehensively replaced before (unlike Brixton) and so the condition of the track and resulting speed restrictions prevented a higher frequency.
The signalling was almost certainly renewed at the time of the new stock (or shortly thereafter) with a more frequent service in mind. The old signalling relied on roughly one third of trains to be terminated at Seven Sisters. I suspect the only signalling modification necessary would be a plunger for a driver to confirm he had left the train so that a new driver at the other end does not depart with the original driver still on board.
Note that I am pretty sure that after this we will have exactly the same service as before. An obvious time to introduce 34tph all the way to Walthamstow is when the timetable changes anyway for the Night Tube.
36tph is not scheduled to be introduced until 2016.
The disruption is not localised to NE London. Because of the limited reversing facilities at Seven Sisters which require checking that all passengers have left the train, the rest of the Victoria line will run at reduced frequency. So even people boarding at Brixton are affected and it is expected that there will be more overcrowding than usual at Victoria northbound platform.
The picture captioned “This photo, by Chris Pittock, shows the view towards Walthamstow sidings. This gives a rough idea of the confines in which work is carried out” shows the view towards Blackhorse Road, not the sidings. There’s no crossover connecting the sidings, both of them are just long overrun tunnels extending beyond each platform, but they’re not interconnected at all. That’s the scissors crossover that’s being replaced in the picture. And anyway VP11 is the old starter for platform 2 (not sure what’s there since the resignalling).
http://www.anorakheaven.com/photos/cob_cr70.jpg
I may being a bit dense here but how did the bulk of commuters at the various locations served by the Victoria Line outwards of Seven Sisters reach central London/the City before the line was opened? By bus/trolleybus all the way? National rail lines? Other tube lines or, of course, a mix of all these?
Assuming that there *were* commuters from the area, what services were lost or cut back when the Victoria Line opened? Could they suffice today if sufficiently strengthened? I don’t ask for details but it would be good to get a fair picture of what was there before. Of course, I realise that the Vic. Line created new travel opportunities but it was also intended to relieve the then existing traffic flows but I don’t really know what the major ones were in the affected area – maybe to/from the Docks.
I don’t see why anything would have been lost or cut back given that the Victoria line was built to relieve congestion. As the article mentions, there are rail services from most of this end of the line into Liverpool Street and those are being strengthened but at a cost. I suspect that at least some people from this end used to take a bus to the Picadilly line and might do so now.
@timbeau – Londoner who lived (and wrote) in New York for a number of years. Tends to lead to what could probably be described as an “internationalist” style!
@Au101 – thanks, I’ll correct the caption
@swirlythingy – I can see where you’re coming from, but ultimately that is all that’s happening. My understanding (like Pedantic’s) is that it’s pretty much a straightforward rip-out-and-replace with better kit.
Ultimately, the main reason for writing this was because I’ve noticed a lot of coverage in the media and on Twitter etc. that has focused on the ancillary works, such as the station buildings, as if that were the reason for the closure. This is then inevitably followed up by questions as to why it couldn’t take place at night.
Similarly, there’s a lack of awareness in some areas as to just what it takes to run a service beyond about 30tph, so this seemed like a good opportunity to clarify that as well.
So think of this article as being a works one aimed more at clarifying the situation for the “enlightened commuters” amongst our readers, rather than the more aware types such as yourself.
It’s an interesting contrast in that regard with the Bermondsey diveunder works, where the engineering is complex.
AIUI faster points are longer than slower points. How is it possible to install faster points in a tunnel dug for slower points. Is this because of the foresight of the original designers or is something else being done? Or is it just a matter of the old, (RE)tired points being speed restricted?
to nearby Rectory Road
Err … at least 850m in a straight line, which isn’t possible & that’s ignoring the positioning of station entrances.
so lets keep this focused on the logistics and engineering of it all.
So, why, then is the extra “replacement bus service” that oh-so-usefully goes more-or-less-direct to Stratford only running M-F then?
And (repeat) what compensation is being offered, as part of the “logistics” question, to unfortunates to/from St James St & Clapton?
WW
The soon to be rebuilt Tottenham Hale isn’t gaining a third escalator either
I hadn’t realised that, having , err not-improved the interchange there, “they” were going to go around again …
It is to be hoped that a direct surface interchange (even with a barrier – though I hope not) will be provided as the “new” arrangement is amazingly counterproductive & time-consuming.
As for THREE escalators (?) … “Did you want Jam on it, as well?” comes to mind as an old E-end saying.
Seriously there are at least three places on the Vic-line alone, where a central staircase needs removal & replacement by a third escalator – the third being, of course, Highbury & Islington.
PoP
is when the timetable changes anyway for the Night Tube.
Now there’s an optimistic statement – when do you think that’s likely to be?
Incidentally, I think that might be a subject for a n other thread, not here….
Imm/GF
Back in the day, when I went into town as a child (including teenager) usually with my father to see some exhibition or other, there were three options:
1] Trolleybus 557 or 699 to Leyton, then Central Line.
2] Ex- GER to LST, N-7 + quint-art until 1959/60, (then electric), and the Circle line forwards
3] Trolleybus 623 to Manor House, then Piccadilly line forward – this was always used if going to “Albertopolis”
Re Timbeau 9 August 2015 at 23:46,
“I know of no major project at Victoria NR,”
It is one of NR’s delayed CP5 projects
See page 77 here (project ref S004):
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/cp5-delivery-plan/cp5-enhancements-delivery-plan.pdf
and the LR article:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/study-sussex-part-4-victoria-station-brighton-line/
swirlythingy,
As John Bull says, there isn’t really much we can report and still specifically write about these works. I take your point but people are going to comment on this somewhere whether we put an article up or not. So I think it is far better to to put up something rather than nothing and avoid irrelevant comments scattered over multiple vaguely related articles.
@RayK: I have not seen the design but I beleive the switches are longer and the layout is different which is why the concrete trackbed has to come up.
The other ‘foresight’ in the design was to have the sidings beyond the terminal platform so you can have a full speed approach into the platform. If the ATO fails to stop the train the ATP has time and room to stop the train before the buffers though you will get an overun. That compares to a lot of stations where there is no overrun and the approach has to be at slow speed and / or there has to be a big gap bettween the terminal arrestors and the concourse such as Stratford (Jubilee).
In terms of demand from Walthamstow the reason for 36TPH to WAC is that you cannot reverse any more trains at Seven Sisters due to the time taken to walk through the train. This imposes a minimum time between reversing trains. That is also the reason why the service on the rest of the line is running at a lower (pre-upgrade) service level while WAC is closed.
Graham Feakins,
A major objective of the Victoria line was to relieve the Central line by providing a direct service for those who would have previously travelled via Liverpool St. I am not familiar with the peak service but at the time the Victoria line opened the off-peak service to Chingford was every 12 minutes. Now it is only every 15 minutes.
As I am only a very occasional traveller to the area I wonder what impact Stansted Airport has on usage at Tottenham Hale where one can catch a fast train to the airport. This would be new traffic and not displaced traffic.
An Engineer,
To be clear, it is not the time taken for the driver to walk through the train at Seven Sisters platform that limits frequency. Any terminating train has to terminate at platform 4. The train then continues in the same direction to reach the crossover in the tunnel up to the depot where the normally driver walks through the train to return southbound. A look at Carto Metro should make this clear.
There is no reason why the time taken for the driver to walk through the train would limit frequency. One could have a second driver entering the rear cab at Seven Sisters. Additionally, in principle, one could run some of the trains to the depot. However the handover from operational line to depot was certainly not designed with frequent use in mind. I don’t know what actually happens during the blockade.
What potentially limits the frequency at present is the time taken on the platform to ensure that there are no members of public left on the train which is a mandatory requirement. Additionally I do not know just how many tph you could get through the crossover in the tunnel leading to the depot as, presumably, it hasn’t been rebuilt for 34tph.
A quick check on the TfL website suggests they are running approximately 27tph on the line in the peak period and only 24tph off-peak (normally 27tph). See example of timetable here. More accurately a train every 2¼ minutes in the peak and 2½ minutes off-peak.
Thanks for this article, I found it incredibly informative.
The comments above are also, largely, very useful and illuminating.
@ Graham F – I only know a little bit about what the transport service was like in E17 before the Victoria Line. I understand the Chingford Line service was much more frequent in the peak and had fast / semi fast trains into Liverpool St. Greg has also pointed out the very frequent trolleybuses to Manor House. I was kindly given a copy of the *Christmas Day* trolleybus service on Forest Road and buses were running every few minutes. I can’t imagine what the service level was like on a normal day but I expect it was very frequent indeed and vastly better than what seems to be running today (including the RRS). The area also had two extremely frequent bus services – the 35 and 38 – that ran from the Chingford area and through Walthamstow / Bakers Arms and on into town. These days we have one bus to the Central area from Walthamstow – the 48 – with two more from the Bakers Arms. There were also very frequent trolleybus services to Leyton as Greg has said.
I am sure we have touched on the issue that the service patterns on the West Anglia lines has shifted hugely over the years to concentrate on the T Hale route into Essex / Herts. In the years that I’ve travelled from E17 into the centre I’d note the following.
1. A large population increase pushing up demand on all routes.
2. The large scale construction activity in East London / Docklands has pushed up and spread the peak – builders travel early!
3. Stratford City shops has heightened demand on the Chingford – Leyton – Stratford corridor although it’s been growing for years.
4. A significant growth in contra peak and Zone 2-3 travel.
5. The revamped Overground network (ex Silverlink) has vastly increased travel to / from connecting nodes like Highbury.
6. Improved off peak services on the tube have pulled in more and more demand.
7. Bus service improvements have encouraged more travel including on the tube and rail services.
8. The “discovery” of Hackney as somewhere worth living in has pulled in demand to inner area stations that was never there in the past.
9. More people deciding not to bother with car ownership pushes up public transport demand. More of a factor in zone 2 than further out but important in terms of what it means overall for rail demand.
10. Things like the retail park, bus to IKEA and new housing at T Hale have pushed up demand hugely there. I still do a “double take” when I see the numbers of people milling around what used to be a pretty dead area.
Thanks JB. Although I had never questioned the need for the closure in order to get 30tph to Walthamstow, I had never appreciated what works were actually planned. Walking by and seeing heavy engineering gear on the surface I fleetingly wondered if some magic hole was available that led down to the station throat!
If it’s possible to get LUL to come up with some pictures, or even an invite for you to visit, it would be great to see how the crossover is being accessed and how plant and personnel get in and out. One question that arises is: Is access from Northumberland Park via Seven Sisters part of the construction plan?
An Engineer,
I realised I had concentrated exclusively on your second point about why they can’t run 36tph to Seven Sisters today. I had overlooked the previous point.
Apologies for being picky but it is in my nature. You could reverse more trains at Seven Sisters. The point surely though is that, for the reason you stated, you could need to have a second driver ready and waiting in the rear cab to speed up reversal. It gets to the point where where you might as well run all trains to Walthamstow Central as a matter of course.
The second point, as Walthamstow Writer has explained, is that demand is really high east of Seven Sisters whereas it never used to be. So, regardless of what is and isn’t possible at Seven Sisters, it now makes sense to run trains to Walthamstow to satisfy demand. A lot of people waiting for a minute less for a train amounts to an awful lot of benefit in reduced journey time even if the benefit to the individual is marginal.
There is a near precedent at the other end of the line. The original plan, and for a few years the reality, was to terminate some trains at Victoria. Without the luxury of a third platform it was realised that by the time you cleared the train, sent it to the sidings, the driver changed ends and the train came back in service (slowly through the restrictive points) at Victoria you might just as well have sent it to Brixton.
Interesting article……before reading this, I had been puzzled as to why this closure was happening, given all the work that has been recently done to increase capacity.
Three points:
– Your point about the original aspiration to run the line through to Chingford is a little over-simplified, as shown by the response to my query about this in the ‘East of Enfield, North of Stratford’ article. Apparently, by the time firm proposals for the line were published in the late 1950s, it had been decided to curtail any further north-easterly running to a surface interchange at Wood Street (which might have made this points upgrade work a tad easier!). This was then further cut back to the present terminus at a late stage in the planning process in an effort to reduce costs.
– I strongly feel that, whatever efforts were made to ‘future-proof’ the line, the passage of time has shown that these were woefully insufficient! Compare and contrast the platforms and circulation spaces on the JLE with those on the Victoria line, and you’ll see what I’m getting at. I imagine that, again, cost-cutting during the planning stage was the reason why this wasn’t done. Imagine if the JLE underground stations had been built with platforms and circulation spaces to Victoria line specs!!!
– One-way loops with stations at each end of the line at the time of construction would have made it more ‘future-proof’ than the current arrangement for increasing frequently, rendering the current upgrade work unnecessary. Of course, this would have made further extension at either end much more difficult……but didn’t we reach that point not long after the entire line was open?
@Anonymously – your point about future proofing being woefully inadequate: hindsight is a wonderful guide, isn’t it? In the 1960s, London’s population was expected to carry on shrinking to about 6.5m, and anyone suggesting the present levels of growth would have been laughed out of court. We were lucky to get the Victoria Line at all… The JLE was built in a different growth context altogether.
And the current fifteen-minute off-peak frequency on the Chingford line is relatively recent – for many years it was down to twenty minutes, and thirty minutes for evenings and Sundays.
Anonymously – reversing loops on the Underground were unpopular at the time as end couplings on units were “handed”, so having trains potentially change their orientation in relation to direction of travel caused problems with coupling units together. (I believe that this is still true.)
Re Ray K & an engineer,
Not sure what LU do or did at the time but in general most newer track installations have inclined rails (top of the rail angled @ 1:20 inwards to match the angle on the wheel profile) however many switch and crossing installations retained the use of vertical rails while plain line track was inclined. So is it possible that a set of vertical switches and the crossing is being replaced with an inclined trackwork arrangement? Inclined points etc generally allow a higher operating speed with in the same space*. Possibly some other clever geometry tweaks too?
* a simple crossover arrangement with a set of inclined points vs vertical might be 5% shorter in total length (30mph example)
A small correction: the words at the beginning of the item were said by Macdonald (hence Mac) Hastings – don’t know where “Douglas” came from! He was a very well known TV presenter of the time.
And I’m not sure what busiest “in terms of passengers versus distance” means – perhaps “in terms of passenger miles”?
Is there a good reason why a single train shuttle could not be provided between Seven Sisters platform 3 and Blackhorse Road platform 1 ?
At the time of planning the Victoria Line, the Central was probably experiencing greater traffic levels as a result of the then-recent extensions to Epping and Hainault, which had taken some pressure of Liverpool Street ER.
Demand beyond 7S: given that the Lea Valley line through Tottenham Hale was not electrified until 1968, almost a decade after the Seven Sister line, I would guess that the traffic on offer there was not expected to be as great as it has now become. (The sparse service on the Stratford-TH line at the time is another indicator). Indeed, I would expect the only reason the core service ran as far as 7S (rather than just Victoria- KX) was that reversing facilities had to be available there to give access to the depot – although there is also a reversing siding at KX
@Philip
“end couplings on units were “handed”, so having trains potentially change their orientation in relation to direction of travel caused problems with coupling units together. (I believe that this is still true.)”
It is true of some stocks, notably 1973 and D78. Was not a problem when these types were introduced, but the T4 Loop has made it so. I believe “A” stock was the first to be ambidextrous (made so to allow for reversal on the Watford triangle).
I understand modern stock (1995 onwards, including “S”) are technically two single-ended units back to back, but they normally work in fixed pairs so despite the presence of loops on the SSR and Northern Lines it is unlikely that handedness would be an issue, even if the occasionally-mooted Herne Hill loop (to increase tph at Brixton) were to become a reality on the Vic (Has a similar loop at Walthamstow ever been mooted?)
Re anonyminibus,
engineering trains running and in the left in the tunnels during the day?
At least 2 visible in the Victoria line twitter feed photos:
https://twitter.com/victorialine/media
And it would probably be overwhelmed as well and possibly cause issues running trains to / from the depot?
@Graham & Anonymously on future-proofing:
Is it not the case that the Vic was designed with bigger platform tunnels, circulating spaces etc but that the line’s construction was the first transport project subjected to the Treasury’s then-new cost/benefit analysis and much of the future-proofing was ripped out to get the costs down and the BCR thereby up so the Teasury would give their go-ahead?
@Mike – his full name was actually “Douglas Edward Macdonald Hastings.” Although yes, I could have gone with Macdonald given that was what he generally used, to be fair.
@Anonyminibus
“Is there a good reason why a single train shuttle could not be provided between Seven Sisters platform 3 and Blackhorse Road platform 1 ?”
Overcrowding.
@Mike
“Macdonald (hence Mac) Hastings – don’t know where “Douglas” came from!”
Douglas was his first name. His full name was Douglas Edward Macdonald Hastings.
His father, also a journalist, was Basil Macdonald Hastings.
His son, also a journalist, is Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings
London overground Twitter account has been sharing some good pictures of the works. Interesting that they have installed an overhead crane to aid installation and removal of components. https://mobile.twitter.com/ldnoverground
The closure noticealso mentions escalator works going on at Walthamstow Central – not just during the blockade, but continuing right through to April. Presumably it’s a complete refurb of one (or both), and we’re not being treated with a third escalator.
Once the line re-opens, the one working escalator will be running up only for most of the day, which might be a bit problematic given the volume of buggy traffic usually seen in Walthamstow. (Another key motivator for the exodus from Hackney is that the hipsters want houses with an extra bedroom or two, and are doing their best to fill them…)
Mike,
And I’m not sure what busiest “in terms of passengers versus distance” means – perhaps “in terms of passenger miles”?
The measure generally used to describe the Victoria line as the busiest is total passengers using the line divided by length of line.
This is open to a little bit of argument as passengers travel only part of the length of the line – except of course on the Waterloo & City where probably, for all sorts of reasons, the experienced “busyness” of the line is not truly reflected. Clearly if passengers all travelled one stop the trains would be less busy but the stations busyness unaltered since a passenger gets on and off once regardless of length of journey unless they change trains. Also one could have selected a section of a line. This is largely irrelevant in the case of the Victoria line but the Central line is very busy in the central sections but does not appear to be so busy on this basis because it also has extremely low passenger numbers at some of its extremities.
Of course, it could be argued that this doesn’t take into account the length or capacity of trains so the Northern line could be argued to be busier than this statistic suggests. The Waterloo & City line, always the exceptional case, fares even worse on this basis. The Waterloo & City line also appears to be much busier than it is overall because the line is heavily “peaked” and people are generally all travelling in the same direction.
In simple terms the Victoria line is consistently busy in both directions throughout its length and no other Underground line comes near to a situation anything like that.
@ngh, 10 August 2015 at 10:38
I noticed that for Network Rail junction renewal designs, modern turnouts are often a little shorter from tip to crossing than their old BR standard predecessors when specified for the same speed, so the converse must also be true that a greater speed may be possible for a given length. I have been told the larger cross-sectional area of the newer rail profile also helps to maintain the stiffness of turnouts under the greater loads the new designs impose at their intended speed. The modern turnout designs have been developed from European experience and I’m sure LU engineering will have been influenced in a similar way. Another trick designers could use to lengthen the crossover slightly is to move each of the switch tips a small distance into the running tunnels (subject to end swing clearance limits), rather than accommodating them entirely within the crossover cavern. The challenge then may be how to fit actuator mechanisms into the smaller space available.
@ Anonynimbus – in addition to the excellent points already made about the lack of a shuttle service also consider that traction current sections may not allow a sensible switching on and off of current that allows trains to move but keeps the worksite safe.
Train movements, even down the tunnel away from WWCS, may also create winds that would blow dust and debris around thus worsening working conditions and possibly damaging equipment that would otherwise not be touched by dust.
We also don’t know how site materials are being taken in and out. It’s possible that LU are using T Hale station to do this or the vent shaft on Ferry Lane. If so that would prevent operation of a service.
I would expect the Chingford line to be very busy indeed right now, South of WAC.
Are TFL publishing any figures for that?
@Anonymously The flip side of large circulating spaces is long walks for passengers. I’ll take the Victoria’s fast cross-platform changes over the JLE’s caverns any day.
@PoP I’ve been meaning to ask about these rules for a while, also in the context of Crossrail having been granted an exemption at Paddington. They were introduced after a passenger died at Liverpool Street, right? But it sounds like the rules themselves don’t draw a distinction between a train that’s going out of service for an extended period and one that’s just reversing in a siding? What is the precise rule, and what’s the reasoning behind it?
@Imm
“I’ve been meaning to ask about these rules for a while…… what’s the reasoning behind it?”
I assume you mean the “ensuring no members of public left on the train ”
My understanding is that the risk is of passengers, finding themselves having been shunted into a siding, taking matters into their own hands and trying to escape, risking electrocution, or falling under the train if it starts moving when they are crossing between cars. In this context, the length of time the train is going to be in the siding is not relevant – it is the length of time before the passenger starts to panic.
Crossrail is not London Underground, and not subject to the same rules. In any case, with “walk through” configuration and overhead rather than live rail electrification, neither of the risks I mentioned above would be there. Presumably if a passenger tried to use the emergency release for the side doors the driver would be alerted.
Imm,
My understanding is that in order to avoid a repeat of the scenario at Liverpool Street the starting premise is that trains cannot be taken out of service with passengers still in them for fear of a repetition of the Liverpool St scenario.
There are exemptions depending on circumstances which is one of the reasons for rubber “dragon’s teeth” at the ends of some carriages so people can’t get out between the carriages. I think it is the case that TfL have to get approval for an exception – they can’t just unilaterally take this course of action. I am fairly sure the Kennington loop is an exception with no actual physical check that there is no-one on the train. A loop, of course, has the advantage that the driver does not have to change ends.
In addition to that, there is the hotly debated Health & Safety issue that drivers shouldn’t have to come across a drunk, violent or incapacitated passenger when changing ends on their own.
Crossrail trains will be walk through so there should be no danger of anyone panicking and trying to get out between the carriages. The did in fact get an exemption years ago before construction started because it was critical to the service planned. However, Howard Smith, head of Crossrail operations, says that, regardless of this, the intention is to do everything possible to get people off at Paddington.
WW
Your points 3 & 4 are of interest.
“Stratford City”, plus, of course employment in “Docklands” which crashed 1960-1990 has gone up again.
“Contra-Peak” – again Clapton is really getting the short end of it, as quite a few people now travel to both W’stow & Highams Park in the morning – or did until this week.
Hopefully, if/when pt2 of my article on “East of Enfield” sees the light of the screen, you will see what sort of services were provided in former times.
Anonymously
This was then further cut back to the present terminus at a late stage in the planning process in an effort to reduce costs.
And, Wood St would have been a terrible place to terminate the line, whereas what is now WHC is much more convenient, especially for bus interchange – I think we are now on the third iteration of enlarged bus facilities there.
Martin Smith
Yes
As PoP says, we very nearly didn’t get the Vic-line at all …..
Nile
Indeed.
”The Boss” is catching the 07.09 off WHC as the only way of even half-guaranteeing a seat in – trains definitely wedged.
[A couple of too off-topic items removed. PoP]
Can anyone cast any light on what might be the maximum tph that might be available if all enhancement options were taken up? The reason I ask is that TfL appear to be moving towards 36 tph where possible but I have seen references over the years to 40 tph and even 44 tph. I gather the Moscow Metro achieves 44 tph at certain times. Clearly if for example the Jubilee line increased to 44 tph that would add a further 8 trains per hour in the peak which would certainly make a difference but is that a realistic aspiration?
TfL needs to increase capacity on existing lines where possible but I can’t help feeling that assuming increases above 36 tph are viable that the benefit may not outweigh the required infrastructure improvement costs given the capacity benefit may only last a few months.
Richard B,
I am led to believe that Moscow metro has acceleration/deceleration rates that would be unacceptable in London. There is talk of whether they could go to 40tph but I cannot see it happening for many years, if ever. On the Victoria line, probably the most likely candidate, you have the issues of lack of stock, lack of depot space and the challenge of getting to 40tph at both of the two platform termini – and that’s before you look at the all important dwell time. Additional heat to be removed and any possible station upgrades needed may also mitigate against it.
Regarding your comments about ” three platforms on one line “. This is also the case at Arnos Grove on the Piccadilly line.
@Greg
“WHC is much more convenient [than Wood Street], especially for bus interchange – I think we are now on the third iteration of enlarged bus facilities there.”
But aren’t the bus facilities at Central the way they are because it’s the terminus of the Victoria Line? What was it like when Hoe Street was just another stop on the Chingford branch?
@Martin Smith – as others have remarked earlier, there was much that was chopped from the Victoria Line budget, not just to improve the CBA but also to help pass the Treasury affordability test. Approval of the project predated my time in Whitehall by some years, but you may imagine that handling the large amounts of data needed for CBA (and traffic forecasting) was a laborious process in the age of sharp pencils and graph paper… I believe that the Victoria Line was not merely the first to use CBA but the first significant investment in new transport infrastructure that was not either replacement or cost-saving, since at least the war. I would imagine its appraisal was something of a challenge.
@Richard B – a friend who used to be a senior LU manager recalled an experiment on the Northern whereby the operating department threw every trick at the service they could – stepping back, managed departures, and so on – and found they could get to 42 tph using conventional signalling and stock, but they believed that that couldn’t be sustained reliably. The Paris Metro claims to get to 38 tph but they have a fairly brutal approach to door-closing. Mind you, the Moscow metro is no respecter of persons when it comes to closing and going, either – when I have used it, there was no attempt to complete boarding; the driver simply closed up and went. So maybe something near 40 tph would be possible if you can be sure that complaints will be dealt with accordingly.
Re Richard B,
In addition to what PoP has said the central stations on the busy lines are all double ended with a wide pedestrian passage between the platforms on each line to handle the passenger numbers.
The loading gauge is similar to TfL’s sub surface lines and the doors are very wide.
The 3rd rail (DLR style) voltage is also higher (825V) so fewer power issues.
They also have either extension work or new line construction going on on 5 lines a the moment.
@ Richard B – I’ve not had the pleasure of using the Moscow Metro but I was going to make the same observation as PoP which is that train speeds are rather faster and braking more abrupt than we are used to. I suspect Moscovites are well used to the “pace” required to use the system and are equally used to complying with the rules or suffering the consequences (if you don’t hang on you fall on your posterior). I doubt people try to hold doors open! A quick watch on Youtube rather confirms what I thought – it takes barely seconds for long trains to accelerate out of platforms. They look to be somewhat faster than 09 stock manages if it’s got a clear run ahead. Looking on the web the consensus view seems to be that Moscow achieves 90 sec headways in the peak on some lines so 40 tph. Beyond that I suspect run in run out times and door open / door closed times become unmanageable / unsafe given human behaviour is imperfect and unpredictable.
I actually don’t see the point of going beyond 36 tph on the tube. I agree with all the points PoP makes but I think there is a more subtle one and that’s the experience of trying to use such a frequent service in the peak would probably be hellish. Dwell times would be minimal, people would be paniced into getting on and off trains quickly and I doubt the train movement would be particularly smooth either. I also think stations will really struggle to cope. If we accept the premise that demand for travel will keep rising then more radical solutions are required and public expectations as to how they travel and how much it costs and long it takes will all have to change.
What’s this about a death at Liverpool Street after a passenger wasn’t removed from a train? Underground or main line? And was this a case of a passenger dying by accident trying to get out of a train, or did railway staff fail to notice a critically ill passenger who died for lack of medical attention?
The Kiev metro has run with frequencies of sub-100 seconds when Ukraine was still part of the USSR. There the reason for running with such extreme frequencies was that the system was built with very short 100m-long platforms, and hence could only operate with 5-car trains. Extending the stations – of which many in the city centre double-up as ABC-bunkers (Atomic, Biological, Chemical weapons) – was not an option.
With regard to the Victoria Line, the most obvious piece of ‘futureproofing’ was the construction, at most stations, of two escalators with room for a third in the middle. To this day the middle staircase remains fixed, but with 36tph on the horizon surely escalator conversion at places like Vauxhall, Stockwell or Highbury & Islington is not too far off?
Jim Jones,
But Arnos Grove isn’t a deep level tube station. It is only just below the surface.
Philip,
I have never been able to find a reliable reference to the original event. A passenger was taken into the underground sidings at Liverpool St (Central line). For some unknown reason he panicked and tried to escape between the carriages using the interconnecting doors with fatal results. Ever since then there have been strict rules about passengers being carried beyond the final destination – even on surface lines.
If I may be so bold as to correct PoP, Arnos Grove station is above ground, but it is between two below-ground stations (Bounds Green and Southgate), and Bounds Green is quite deep.
@ PoP and others thank you all for responding on the issue of 40 plus tph. What you say makes a whole lot of sense but it then clarifies the issue that even if a theoretical maximum in the peak of 36 tph plus say 32 tph in the off peak is achieved on all deep Tube lines we should be actively considering additional new projects to spread the load as the additional capacity on the enhanced Tube lines is likely to be expended in a very short timescale. Merely relying on Crossrail 2 (assuming it gets the green light) will not be sufficient in itself. Our traditional approach to planning new projects with its attendant timescales will be highly problematic.
By the way I should have said I found the article above very interesting and informative.
PoP@18:04 > Jim Jones
Not even that deep – it’s in the open air, and leaving to the N. goes almost straight onto a viaduct!
straphan,
Vauxhall had its third escalator installed ten years ago.
To PoP’s difficulties with 40 tph, I would add the enlargements to stations, extra escalators and such. Many stations can currently only just about handle the passengers coming onto or off the current train frequency.
timbeau
Hoe St was always the most important station between Chingford & Hackney Downs.
There were rush-hour steam “specials” that only did Wood St, Hoe St, St James St – LST ……
Also the original proposal meant that the central Walthamstow UndregrounD station was going to be one block away from Hoe St, on Hoe St itself, where the new development at the top of High St now is – very intelligent (not).
straphan
We can hope, but I suspect that’s all we will get …
Regarding Arnos Grove I was being sloppy with words.
As I understand it, Arnos Grove platforms, which is what we are talking about, are in a cutting, and as such are only just below the ground level. I should have said ground level or street level not surface. The platforms are significantly below the iconic station building.
See this photo showing retaining walls and the surface station building in the top right.
@straphan,
2 parallel escalators with a staircase between them is quite common in tube stations, so I doubt it was deliberately done on the Victoria line as future-proofing. The pre-war Clapham-Mordern Northern line stations all have this design too.
The best thing about the design of the Victoria line is the cross-platform interchange with other lines at almost every station – it’s pretty amazing how they managed to thread the tunnels through, and quite a contrast with the long walks of the Jubilee, and even longer walks which we will be getting used to for Crossrail…
Indeed, Arnos Grove station is in a cutting, but only because it’s at top of a hill (and therefore lower than the road). To the north the line is on a viaduct over Arnos Park, and to the south it crosses over the North Circular before going into tunnel on its way to Bounds Green. The situation is even worse at Southgate, where hill is so high that the underground station had to actually be in tunnel.
Chris,
The Victoria line escalators were planned as three. You can tell this, as the central stair is usually improvised in place, with an awkward fit to the slope and escalator rubber hand holds for rails! It is like this up and down the Victoria Line.
Well, I am pretty familiar with the southern end of the Northern line, and the stairs are like that too. I suspect it is because the optimal angle for an escalator is slightly different to the optimal angle for a conventional flight of stairs.
I don’t claim to know what was in John Bull’s mind when he wrote about the uniqueness of the 3-platform situation at Seven Sisters. He refers to an earlier article, which makes a very similar claim, and provoked similar lists of other 3-platform stations. Clearly there are a good number of 3-platform stations on the underground network, and the detailed reasons of why they were built like that, how they are worked, and so on, vary from station to station. Personally I cannot see the relevance to this of how deep underground or how high above ground the station might be. I think it might be adequate to say, in the context of the present article, that there is no station exactly like Seven Sisters (or even fairly like it) when you consider its layout and working.
[As Malcolm has noted, we have now cut off all discussion of the 3 platform Underground stations. Future such comments will be shunted to the Trash siding without warning. LBM]
@Malcolm:
I thought John Bull made it pretty clear that he was only referring to underground stations. I.e. stations that were built in deep-level tube tunnels. As three-platform stations like these would require suitable approaches and crossovers, built at some expense, not to mention all the interconnecting walkways (also in tunnel) and the like, it’s a fair distinction to make. It’s not a big deal to build a multi-platform station on, or near, the surface.
That there are other stations with multiple platforms at surface level, in cuttings, or even on viaducts, isn’t relevant, as different construction techniques and costs apply.
That the Victoria Line’s planners went to all that extra effort is a very good point and highlights just how well the line has stood the test of time. When the Thameslink Upgrade is completed, the Victoria Line will be celebrating its 50th birthday.
[What LBM said. But this comment is exempt, because it helpfully clarifies JB’s meaning. Malcolm]
@PoP “Moscow metro has acceleration/deceleration rates that would be unacceptable in London.”
— Same in Brussels, see
http://peezedtee.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/train-of-day.html
But why are they unacceptable in London if they are acceptable in other European cities? What is so different about London?
@ Graham Feakins before the Victoria Line opened in 1968 and made Walthamstow a major bus interchange . Many bus routes in North East London terminated at The Foresters Hotel which often led a line of buses outside . Alas a link to a photo I found of this popular terminus was to detailed to use to post.
It’s worth remembering the docks were then a major employer and thus bus routes also converged to this place from a number of directions and in those days London had fewer but longer bus routes hence the 38 from Victoria went to Wake Arms , Chingford .
The opening of the Victoria Line led to major changes to bus routes which were reset to serve the new line with Walthamstow becoming a new interchange .
As for running more trains the problem is handling passengers at stations like Highbury and Islington and Finsbury Park where passengers have to use stairs for part or all of the distance from street to platforms . While the plans for lifts at Finsbury Park are for step free access and not to deal with a constant flow of passengers.
At Bank Station DLR trains empty on one platform then run into a tunnel and re-emerge on the other platform to load. Could a similar arrangement work at either or both ends of Victoria Line?
@Philip (10.30)…..But the Victoria line wasn’t an extension or bolt-on to an existing line (as was the case for the Jubilee line a decade later); it was brand new with bespoke stock (due to the requirement for ATO). Therefore, there was no reason for the 1967 stock to be right/left/whatever-handed!!!
Am I right in thinking that a terminal loop at either end of the line would require a separate station (similar to the T4 loop), or could it just operate as a one-way loop with no stations (like the Kennington loop)?
@Melvyn
Don’t forget that the DLR has the advantage of being driverless, so trains can be shunted and reversed pretty-much instantly, without the logistics of drivers changing ends or ‘stepping back’.
I was also curious as to how rebuilding a crossover should affect the frequency so much, so the angled rails and higher speed sound plausible. I’m not so sure, however, that anything much over 36 tph will be possible – as a Brixton regular, it’s quite a common experience for peak hour trains approaching the station to wait a few moments before entering the crossover to allow conflicting departures to clear. The crossover seems to be quite a bit closer to the platforms at Brixton than the one at Walthamstow, so it will be more of a struggle to maintain a smooth flow there. Southbounds departing Platform 1 need to travel for a few precious seconds longer to reach the cavern while Northbounds approach, compared to the Brixton end. I’m sure that this will become the limiting factor.
On the idea of using the sidings to reverse as at Bank DLR, the fact that it’s common at Brixton for departing passengers to still be converging around the exit area by the time the next train enters the opposite platform (even with all the escalators back on) would put paid to that. Not to mention the frequency that I see people at peak time in an advanced state of dozing stay on the train and go back the other way again. There would be no time to get them off before having to depart for the siding.
@Anonymously
“Therefore, there was no reason for the 1967 stock to be right/left/whatever-handed!!!”
I think you’ve missed the point – it is not to do with where the driver/operator sits but the coupling arrangements. Traditionally, most railway vehicles have “hermaphrodite” couplings – any vehicle can to any other, and this still holds true if you turn one of them round. But this requires some complexity, usually in duplication of connections on either side of the vehicle ends.
As most Tube lines are simple shuttles, all vehicles always face the same way – an east facing cab will not find itself facing west tomorrow. This simplifies things and allows, say, the brake hoses to be only on the left side of an east facing cab and only on the right side of a west facing cab. (Known as “A” end and “D” end cars – the letters refer to axles). Thus they are right handed or left handed, and a “right handed” cab can only couple to a “left handed” cab.
(nb the driver sits on the left in both types)
Here is an A end car of Standard Tube stock
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FIf7pBePni8/TVh6p9QeVgI/AAAAAAAADHw/Bi7s7vbWrBc/s320/3050.JPG Here is a D end car of Standard Tube stock
http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/Std%20stk.jpg
Note the receptacle boxes for the jumper cables at the bottom of the cab front: two on one side, one on the other.
Assymetry was taken to an extreme on the original CSLR, where in order not to foul the central coupling, the live rail was placed off-centre.
Another example of “handed” couplings will be familiar to anyone who has had, or whose children has had, Brio toy railways, which use magnetic couplings: each vehicle has a north pole coupling and a south pole coupling – they will thus only couple to each other if they are the right way round.
Because of the possibility of being turned round on various triangles and loops on the lines for which they were designed, A, C, 1972 and 1992 stocks were made ambidextrous.
@Anonymously
“Am I right in thinking that a terminal loop at either end of the line would require a separate station (similar to the T4 loop), or could it just operate as a one-way loop with no stations (like the Kennington loop)?”
Both are possible, but the proposal for the Victoria Line, as I understood it, included a station at Herne Hill.
@ Anomnibus – one factor they didn’t get quite right at Seven Sisters is the fact that the approach track to the terminating platform can’t hold a train while one is in the platform without fouling the points on the direct track to Walthamstow. This used to regularly cause jams of trains with Walthamstow services stuck in the tunnel. Hindsight is a great thing and I expect no one reasonably foresaw that we’d get to such high frequencies with blocking back. It will be interesting to see how LU manage to scale down the PM peak of 36 tph to something less and not have jams of trains on the approach to Seven Sisters. It’s going to take some smooth working.
@ Chris Mitch – many moons ago when the Journey Time Capability target and elements within it were being reassessed for the Picc Line there were incentives within the measure / payment stream for “auto reverse” to be provided on the new Picc Line trains / new signalling system. Whether it will materialise in the brave new world of the eventual Picc Line upgrade in about a decade’s time remains to be seen. As you say there are obvious time savings in having such a facility if you have stepping back of train crew or automatic trains without cabs but with a mobile member of staff on board.
@peezedtee:
“But why are they unacceptable in London if they are acceptable in other European cities? What is so different about London?”>
[It helps if the following is read while listening to an old, scratchy recording of “Land of Hope and Glory”…]
Sir,
Johnny Foreigner may be happy to be tossed around like a salad, but we’re British, by Jove! We have standards! Granted, our standards vary according to our choice of newspaper and their editorial spleen-venting policies, but we have them nevertheless.
Why, there are many who would argue that all commuters should have a seat! Ideally, a seat with a table, where one can be served a full English breakfast on the 07.23 to Edgware via Bank.
Your obt svt
Col. H. J. Crustmustard (Retd.)
[Mod’s comment: Arguably, unwarranted suspicion of “foreign practices” may be part of the answer to peezedtee’s question, as anomnibus suggests here. But please could any further proposed answers concentrate on more objective reasons for not doing it like they do. Malcolm]
@timbeau….But my basic point still stands i.e. if the Victoria line designers had wanted to (and more pertinently had enough money to) build end terminal loops, then there was no reason why they couldn’t have specified the 1967 stock as ambidextrous to avoid the coupling issues you highlight.
My question about loops with/without stations was related to the whole ‘leaving a passenger behind on a terminating train’ issue, in that the passenger is less likely to feel confused/trapped and panic if the terminating train starts from a loop station, as opposed to looping back to the same terminal station (aka Kennington) to pick up passengers for the return journey. I guess it really doesn’t matter, but then again there’s no accounting for the foolish behaviour of some human beings :S.
@NickBXN, 11 August 2015 at 00:08
“The crossover seems to be quite a bit closer to the platforms at Brixton than the one at Walthamstow, so it will be more of a struggle to maintain a smooth flow there. Southbounds departing Platform 1 need to travel for a few precious seconds longer to reach the cavern while Northbounds approach, compared to the Brixton end. I’m sure that this will become the limiting factor.”
That’s probably why increasing the crossover speed capability is all the more important at Walthamstow. Ideally, crossing over on arrival or departure should not affect the natural acceleration or deceleration at all. We’ve already established the overrun tunnels at both sites allow a full speed approach, the same as for a through station with no train in front and with a full overlap ahead of the stopping point, so the crossover speed should not interfere with that normal deceleration curve in order to achieve maximum capacity.
@Malcolm
To PoP’s difficulties with 40 tph, I would add the enlargements to stations, extra escalators and such. Many stations can currently only just about handle the passengers coming onto or off the current train frequency.
That’s manifestly incorrect because there is no direct relationship between frequency (tph) and passenger numbers at high frequency. (That there is a relationship at low frequency is accepted.). An increase from say 24tph to 28tph is not going to increase the number of passengers who want to travel to a certain station.
Rather, it is external factors such as local housing developments which affect station usage.
Increasing tph improves the situation at a station by smoothing passenger flows.
@Theban but we’re talking about increasing frequency as a capacity measure. If increasing tph from 33 to 40 would not buy us a capacity increase of 7/33 because of constraints elsewhere in the system then that’s an important consideration when deciding whether that tph increase is worthwhile.
@Theban – I fear there IS a relationship between tph and station useage, not I grant you, on the day following the increase in tph, but over time, whatever it is that has caused the increase in tph will have also given rise to an increase in the number of passengers using the line. Unless more stations have been added, then those extra punters will have to use the same number of stations as before and so the stations will become fuller.
Pezedtee
What is so different about London?
People sueing you, actually.
Melvyn
The Foresters Hotel
The Royal Forest Hotel, actually – with summer extensions into the Forest!
WW
That was due to the signaling “sections/overlap” not fouling the points as such ( @ 7 Sis )
I THINK they have now corrected this oversight – can someone say for certain?
Theban
To add to what Graham H has said …
I’ve seen serious-to-the-point-of-dangerous overcrowding at WHC, when there was a 7 Sis terminator, closely followed by 2 W’stows close together (This was with the old stock)
A potentially very dangerous crowd-crush developed at the escalator heads, between there & the ticket-barrier line – also not helped by one gate refusing exit to some poor confused passenger.
As full-loadings & greater tph both become more common, one will have to watch out for this sort of thing.
As other commenters have implied, I was referring to an increase in tph implemented in order to increase passenger throughput. I was taking the “increase in the number of passengers who want to travel to a certain station” as already arising from some other cause (e.g more housing, modal shift etc etc). I agree that an increase from 24 tph to 28 tph may not of itself produce more passengers.
Theban says “Increasing tph improves the situation at a station by smoothing passenger flows.“.
True, if it is lumpy. But at many central stations, as others have commented, the first passengers coming off a particular train are hot on the heels of the last ones off the train before. So in such a situation, to permit extra passenger throughput, there must be station improvements (as well as, perhaps, extra tph). (Generally rather expensive improvements).
@Malcolm – your latest post raises the interesting question about the elasticity of demand to frequency. For what it’s worth, I offer the following thoughts (and would welcome further and better info if anyone has it):
– the relationship is almost certainly non-linear, with frequency effects tailing off as tph/bph rises – thepublic perception of the difference between, say, 32 tph and 36 tph is likely to be small if it exists at all
– at much lower frequencies, on the other hand – say 2-3 tph – the effect may be substantial
– traditionally,LT has used 4 tph/bph as the break point for “turn up and go” but casual observation suggests that is too low a figure thse days – maybe the value of time has risen or we simply live in a morre impatient society(cf the discussion on Uber)
– PDFH values for this elasticity appear to undervalue it consistently
– how much of the frequency is due tosuppressed demand and how much to genuinely new demand is obscure.
In any case, I believe that at the very high bases at which we are talking about frequency effects here, their impact is likely to be small. It will be exogeneous factors which drive demandand fill the trains and stations.
Just to add a quick point on notional tph limits on the Underground:
I’ve heard multiple senior officers at TfL say – both to my face and in public – that they regard 40tph, broadly, as the theoretical limit they’ll ever be able to achieve on the existing lines.
Indeed Isabel Dedring reasserted this at a recent Transport Committee, in front of Mike Brown, who didn’t correct her.
So it’s probably worth considering that as the internal “absolute best case” figure we are ever likely to see on an existing line, at least as far as TfL are concerned.
In reality, I think it’s likely that 36tph represents the practical limit for most lines, with perhaps a couple more squeezed in at the peak in the future.
Going from 36tph to 40tph is only about 11% increase. That would probably be absorbed just by population increase in London and the fact that the effect is exacerbated in the central activity zone.
Just to add to the debate that there is a widely-held belief that there is an incredible amount of latent demand on the Victoria line. If true, this basically means that lots people would use it but are put off by the over-crowdedness or unable to get on in the first place (e.g. Victoria, Highbury & Islington a.m., Oxford Circus p.m.) or the fear of being unable to get on so plan their route differently. This is believed to be more the case for the Victoria line than any other line.
If you are in any doubt as to this just consider the point that the only reason there will be no passageway connecting Bond Street (Hanover Square entrance) on Crossrail with Oxford Circus tube station is because the Victoria line would not be able to cope with the extra traffic forecast.
If it could run at 40tph it is almost certain the Victoria line would be just as full as today. I strongly believe that if you could make the trains 50% longer and the stations could handle the increase in passenger numbers then they would fill up almost straightaway. When faced with a situation like that the only sensible thing to do is to plan a new large size tube line to provide some relief. Welcome to Crossrail 2.
There is a lot to be said for sweating ones assets but ultimately there comes a point when the effort is not worth the achievement and I suspect that going above 36tph is that point.
The relationship between frequency and capacity. If we assume that the increase in frequency is to meet suppressed demand – in other words, the only reason more people are not travelling at present is because the trains are full – then more trains will mean more people passing through the station, at least at the busiest times. (The same considerations apply with lengthening trains).
Where those people are now is a matter for conjecture – they may not be travelling at all, or they may be travelling on a later train (with a knock-on effect on those later trains, effectively making the peak last longer)
@anonymously
“if the Victoria line designers had wanted to (and more pertinently had enough money to) build end terminal loops, then there was no reason why they couldn’t have specified the 1967 stock as ambidextrous to avoid the coupling issues you highlight.”
I don’t think any extensions were envisaged within the expected life of the 1967 stock, so the costs of such future-proofing would not have been justified. It was not until the 1986 prototype Central Line stock that fully ambidextrous couplings were fitted to any Tube-sized stock. Indeed, it was not even fitted to surface stock unless there was an operational need for it (hence not on D78 stock). As I understand it even the 1972 stock was not fully handed – the 4-cars have an A end and a D end as usual but, as built, the non-cab end of a 3-car originally had duplicate connections to allow connection to either end of a 4-car. On the Bakerloo they are always coupled the same way round, so the duplicate connections are not needed.
(To clarify what is meant by “handed”, if the A end has a plug, the D end has a socket: if the A end has a hook, the D end has an eye, if the connection is on the left hand side of the A end, it is on the right hand side of the D end). You cannot therefore couple a plug to a plug, or an eye to an eye.)
1967 stock did occasionally have to be driven on other lines (using the connection at Finsbury Park), either for attention at Acton Works or, more usually, for the weekly stock transfers of units to and from the Woodford – Hainault shuttle, which had been converted to ATO in the early sixties as a pilot for the Victoria |Line scheme.
In any case, the existence of a loop does not preclude the use of handed stock, as evidenced by the fact that the Piccadilly Line has coped for nearly thirty years with this arrangement, and the Northern Line operated handed stock (gate, standard, 1938, 1959) with loops first at Charing Cross and later at Kennington. (Until the 1992 stock, the Central got round the problem by not running any trains right round the loop, and ensuring that any train that got to Hainault depot via Woodford went back that way too!)
@timbeau – Suppressed demand is usually taken to mean that people aren’t travelling either because there is insufficient capacity or because their particular journey is not catered for. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible for new traffic to be generated simply because waiting times are reduced. [This is also linked, of course, to the perceived reliability of the timetable]..
@ Theban / Graham H – I’ll start off my saying I cannot point to definitive proof that increased frequency brings extra patronage. Theban is obviously correct in saying that people don’t ride on public transport just for the sheer joy of so doing. They make journeys for other reasons (the old “derived demand” theory). However if frequency was not a factor in pulling in more punters then why on earth has LT and then TfL spent so much time, effort and money in raising off peak frequencies on the bus, tram, DLR and tube networks? I’m ignoring the peak because it is by its nature busy, congested and people will always want to try to improve those travelling conditions to make them less horrible. They may not, of course, be desperate to attract *more* people on to an overloaded network.
In my big spreadsheet of TfL bus patronage numbers I have sat down and worked through where the big demand changes have occurred on routes and then looked at other info sources to see whether there were service changes that resulted in the spurts in growth. In almost all cases there is a positive relationship between a more frequent service and more people using a service. However I can’t “prove” that one thing leads to the other as I have either no or imperfect knowledge about things that may have happened in the areas served by those routes. Some routes have seen a lot of growth with no service improvements being made while others have been static. That clearly points more to exogenous factors influencing what’s going on.
We also have the examples of the brand new bus routes started in 2002/3 when Ken L ploughed in a lot of money to the bus network. Again those routes have almost all done spectacularly well from a standing start of zero usage to grow to carrying many millions of people. Some of that growth is down to more frequency on a corridor but much will be down to the provision of new links that make previously difficult journeys more feasible / comfortable for people.
I’d also point to the TfL’s business case methodology which recognises that service improvements of varying kinds do attract additional usage and generate extra revenue. TfL is also able to recognise that modal switch may bring improvements to others outside of the transport network (less congestion, improved environment, fewer road deaths). None of this discounts “derived demand” or its importance but does suggest that better frequencies do help to generate patronage while also adding capacity to the network.
@Walthamstow Writer 0032
The TBTC lines already have the facility for auto reverse, i.e. with bo driver, and a few other neat features which could make a small but significant difference to both capacity and the ability to recover from disruption. LU have backed off from using them to avoid conflict with the unions.
In a similar vein plans not to physically check trains reversing in sidings for overcarried passengers were quietly dropped.
If barriers and/or circulation space around the barriers becomes the capacity limiting factor, then there’s an easy solution: just get rid of them
PoP
Your comment on Vic-line overcrowding, of course, points up the increasing need for the middle & north parts of CR2 at least ….as you also say.
Starlight
Sorry … “TBTC” ??
I disagree re “conflict with the unions” given current fun & games – & I think, but can’t prove that checking trains for left-over passengers was as a result of a prod from the Elf’n-safety Lawyers, rather than the unions, but I could be wrong ….
To keep the high frequency service running reliably, would it be possible to run alternate trains into platforms 3 and 4 at Seven Sisters, so that the dwell time of the previous train does not impact on the following one?
And I am intrigued by the way Carto Metro has laid out the station. Was space left for a second southbound platform (this doesn’t seem to have been addressed in the Secret Life of Seven Sisters piece) and are there any unused pieces of infrastructure associated with this?
@Christian Schmidt
Then you have the issue of people crowding around 2 or 3 oyster card readers trying to tap in or out…
@ Christian S – you are not going to see a situation where ticket gates are taken out. It simply sends the wrong message in terms of revenue protection and removes a tool that station staff have to manage flows. The wider point is that station infrastructure is coming under ever greater pressure and a funded programme of works is needed to deal with major problems.
@ Greg – “TBTC” is Transmission Based Train Control aka fancy signalling and control system. The issue above overcarrying into sidings has been a TU concern because no driver wants to have people be killed in their care, unions don’t want platform staff numbers reduced etc. The fact is, though, that site specific risk assessments have been done and the scale of platform checks is much lower these days than in the past.
@ Man of Kent – I think the run in run out times via the “terminating” platform are rather longer than on the “through” route so I doubt very much that you can anything . You also confuse passengers as to which platform to catch a n/b train from. I have done the “alternative” route a few times when the controllers were busy changing their minds as to whether to terminate or run through to WW. It is a bit slower than the usual route because of lower speed across the pointwork north of the platform end. I can’t answer you other question about an extra s/b platform.
Since John Bull has decreed that “Screeds about personal travel arrangements, or well-worn arguments about Walthamstow transport only tangentially related will be deleted.. (with).. plenty of other places in which such discussion will be welcomed and active in the coming weeks”, maybe this is an opportune moment to remind those readers and would-be writers of such screeds to come to our pub meet-up this Thursday evening at the Blue Posts, where all can be freely discussed, amongst a multitude of other topics bound to be on offer. Hope to see you there.
https://www.londonreconnections.com/monthly-meet/
@Pedantic of Purley
Just a quick comment – there should be no safety problems with customers being ‘overcarried’ into the reversing roads at SES as the points all have facing point locks and the signalling is to the same standard as the rest of the line. The problem is drivers having to walk through a train past ‘upset’ customers.
In terms of the driver getting in the rear cab at SES there was some problem which I think was related to the fact we do not have a rear cab occupied plunger. Also you can’t get in the rear cab from memory via the cab door if the leading cab is on so you would have to enter via the saloon doors which will conflict with the platform staff closing them during detrainment checks.
I have not seen the Run out – Run in figures (RORI) values for WAC but I presume the modeling will support the proposed frequency though there is likely to be the same problem with uneven headways going south as ther is going North from Brixton due to parrellel in and out moves to one platform and trains having to be held when they are crossing the path of the other train in the crossing move.
As someone has said a loop woud be better but 09TS is handed so a loop would not be a possibility – one of the things handed is that the APRs are all on the West side of the negative rail. stopped interference problems and the cost of two readers !
@an engineer
“09TS is handed so a loop would not be a possibility – one of the things handed is that the APRs are all on the West side of the negative rail. ”
That is a bigger problem than mere coupling arrangements – the Piccy copes with that, as did the Northern for most of its history – more akin to the asymmetrical current collection equipment of the original CSLR and GN&CR. Probably more easily fixable by fitting the extra readers, which would be trivial compared with the cost of building the loop itself. Of course, if you built a terminal loop at both ends the problem would go away altogether, as the line would just become a continuous one-way circle – see lines 2 and 6 of the Paris Metro for examples, although both of these also have reversing facilities too.
An Engineer,
Just to be clear. Yes, a railway has to be signalled to passenger standards for passengers to be carried so there are various things which have to be done to comply with that. I believe that detecting a facing point is locked is one of those – it is not good enough merely to have point locks. I must admit I have presumed that these are pretty much ubiquitous on London Underground except for depots and stabling points.
There is still the overcarrying issue in case the passenger panics. Clearly this should be less of a problem in future with walk-through trains.
As you say, there is also the problem with driver v passenger. The unions have obviously raised concerns. It has also been suggested that this would be a Health & Safety issue though no-one seems to be able to give a definitive answer on this. Of course if you terminated at Seven Sisters and you had an extra driver in the rear cab the there is no need for either driver to walk through the train so this issue would not exist at that location.
An Engineer – APRs?
MoK
Your idea about running alternately in to platforms 3 & 4 has no current relevance, now that you can run undelayed straight in to the “normal” through platform with a train in the middle.
I think the original plan for 7_Sis was for 4 platforms – two islands.
But was one of the first things to go in the “trimming” stages.
( Rather like the very sesnible idea to have StP_Thameslink have three platforms, with 2 southbound ones, for greater flexibility. )
Can’t prove that, though – & no, there is no additional “hidden” infrastructure.
For turn-back sidings, track and signalling can be provided to full passenger standards and trains can have wide gangways, but there’s still a risk of a panicked over-carried passenger doing something irrational like operating alarms or even trying to force doors. There is a performance risk if the movement then has to be halted before it is fully clear of the running line.
@PoP:
Sorry – must have confused Vauxhall with another station.
I think there are still two escalators with a gap at Seven Sisters, Tottenham Hale and Blackhorse Road?
Turnback sidings…
Possibly worth looking at again when things have calmed down again with the unions.
Many of the problems have been resolved with wide gangways etc. but might a few more potential measures be worth while for example announcements saying what the next station is to calm down passenegers and possibly lighting the tunnels so it doesn’t feel like they have been abandoned. If TBTC is being used to reverse the trains why not leave the driver on the platform so they swap to an earlier departing train instead and have a member of platform staff hop on to the train to provide extra passenger reassurance if needed?
@ Straphan – all the stations north of Kings Cross (excl F P) have a centre staircase and two escalators. I think Warren St also has the same arrangement on the escalator bank from the Vic to the intermediate landing / Nthn Line level. Euston suffers because the escalator banks are only wide enough for two escalators so you get congestion there too. If there is ever a rebuild of Euston then how you add in more escalator and circulation space will be a key factor.
When I joined London Transport in July 1972 I was told that the Victoria Line had suffered from attempts to reduce costs by skimping on platform space and passages.
These had been trialed before construction by using schoolboys to walk around mock ups.
They were obviously smaller & fitter than normal customers.
@WW: Thanks. I must have been thinking of Tottenham Hale rather than Vauxhall.
@walthamstowwriter – There are plenty of open systems functioning perfectly well and collecting plenty of revenue. Sure such a change would be a big decision, but (and this was my point) there are plenty of benefits, one of which is increased ticket hall capacity.
@ C Schmidt – yes I’m well aware that continental systems operate on an “open” basis. You say they collect a lot of revenue – well maybe the very best managed ones do have low levels of fare evasion where they can afford to employ large squads of inspectors to maintain the element of surprise so people are reluctant to cheat. However there are loads of systems that are open and which are gorged on subsidy (that we don’t have in the UK). Therefore they don’t greatly care about how much money they do or do not collect from fares because the “bank of the taxpayer” helps out. I’m guessing from your name that you are from / live in mainland Europe where open systems are prevalent – especially light rail / light metro / tram subway type systems. You’re therefore more likely to be familiar with open rather than closed revenue collection systems and probably consider them to better.
Shashi Verma of TfL was recently asked if he foresaw a day in which technology advances could allow TfL to remove gates. His answer was that while technology may advance it was very unlikely LU would remove ticket gates because of other benefits they bring.
Re WW & CS,
Or alternatively you could always have Moscow style normally open gates that quickly and forcefully slam shut on the passenger if they haven’t presented a valid ticket. (Elf ‘n High Vis probably wouldn’t approve it in the UK as it would only be a little while before the first broken ribs are reported… hence we have the current solution)
@Christian Schmidt: Sure such a change would be a big decision, but (and this was my point) there are plenty of benefits, one of which is increased ticket hall capacity
Open systems only really work well where most passengers are on periodical tickets (German-speaking countries tend to have very cheap season tickets relative to single ticket prices). London-style pay-as-you-go ticketing wouldn’t work well because of the need to touch in and out on every trip: you would need to allow extra space in ticket halls for a swarm of passengers clustering round touch-on points (probably more space-consuming than a steady flow through gates). But making periodicals cheaper and individual journeys relatively more expensive would be socially quite regressive in London, by making travel more expensive for part time workers and non-workers and cheaper for those in full time employment. (This is separate from the question, which WW rightly raised, of different levels of subsidy overall).
Am I right in thinking that the Victoria Line was the first to have automatic ticket gates (as opposed to staffed ticket barriers), and so to have had them designed in from the start? There is film herefrom 1969 of a woman buying a ticket at her local tube station and putting into the new-fangled barriers (before going down to the platform and getting a cab ride to the next station): the fact they were featured suggests that the barriers were quite a novelty at the time.
A useful post marred by gratuitous and inane politicking.
@Ian J
Even more of a novelty was that the Queen was on the Tube at all.
The Victoria Line machines and ticket offices issued new machine readable tickets which were yellow with a brown magnetic back. Other lines were still issuing green card single tickets.
The minimum graduated adult fare of 5d (i.e. 2p) was the same price as a first class postage stamp. It also appears to have gone up a bit since.
Greg’s comment about crush problems at the top of the escalators at WHC is worth thinking about. As a regular who often enters the station when the full flood of the evening peak is trying to exit, I can only agree. It’s quite tricky, from the bus station direction, to get across the people flow in order to access the only two entry gates which on the Overground stairs side. There isn’t much room at the escalator tops. 24tph to 30 tph is a 25% capacity increase. Re-positioning that gateline must have been at least thought about, especially once it was confirmed that TfL was taking over the NR station.
Nmeless
Even more of a novelty was that the Queen was on the Tube at all.
Err, no.
HM is (I suspect) a secret gricer – she has appeared on many steam-loco footplates & she uses & has used trains a lot.
She’s certainly done some amazingly rare track!
fandroid
Yes.
Making the whole of the “inside” of the station one, single barriered enclosure, with more gates, further away from the platforms should be a priority.
It’s very noticeable that the gates on the N side of the ex-GER station have not (yet) been activated.
But we’ve been round this one before.
However, re. the closure.
I was trying to research “Replacement bus B” ( WHC- SRA ) as a possible method of getting in, including tonight.
Stops are shown on the map, but no route diagram anywhere, nor a timetable.
It’s almost as if they didn’t want people to find out about it & use it?
@Nameless – but stamps not quite as much as tube tickets… (but both a lot faster than inflation, alas).
In relation to ticket gates, does anyone know if the speed of these are adjusted depending on which station they are located in. For example, the gates at King’s Cross are quite slow to open and close (and queues do form regularly) but those at Baker St you have to run through at pace to avoid being crushed by the barrier? At Waterloo they are pretty fast as well. Does it depend whether an entry/exit is staffed as to whether it is slower/faster? Are they set faster for exits only for safety reasons (eg at the top of escalators)? It is also apparent that gates on National Rail are much more convivial than those on the tube network (at least in my experience).
As a regular user of Kings Cross Circle/H&C/Met, I have a strong impression that the speed of the entry gates can be deliberately altered to reduce the flow of passengers if the platforms are crowded.
I’m not sure the gate speed can be altered. I do know, however, that the speed of the newer ticket barriers (with rounded ‘doors’) is slower than the old ones, which slam into the barriers with great gusto.
I think the ticket issue is a cultural thing as much as it is an economical one.
In the UK and the US the assumption is that everyone must be checked to ensure they have a ticket on them before entering the vehicle – even if the checking slows the journey down considerably (as is the case with buses). Elsewhere, the onus is on making the journey as smooth, quick and trouble-free as possible, without the need for pesky ticket barriers. The balance in different locations is struck at different points, although the issue of anti-social behaviour has made certain systems retain ticket checks even at a cost. Most trams in Amsterdam, for example, still have a conductor, whereas many German networks enforce front-door boarding on buses after 8pm when passenger flows are more manageable, but also when most anti-social behaviour occurs.
In Germany, the inter-availability of tickets would make ticket barriers unpractical. For example, the ever popular Schoenes-Wochenende-Ticket allows unlimited travel on local rail and public transport virtually nationwide. And it is very much possible to travel the length and breadth of the whole country in one day using local rail services. Hence a hypothetical ticket barrier on the Munich underground would have to be able to accept an SWT issued by machines belonging to its own operator, Deutsche Bahn, BVG Berlin, Rheinbahn Duesseldorf or Omnibusbetrieb von Ahrentschild (a little family-owned bus company operating a handful of regional routes in the Bremen area). That just isn’t going to happen…
Regarding open stations, the Hamburg metro used to (and as far as I know, still does) deploy roving ticket inspection teams up to a point at which they fail to cover their costs in terms of the increased revenue they collect. So, a lot of ticketless travel means a large number of inspection teams which will reduce the amount of ticketless travel until a balance is reached when the number of inspection teams will decline. This way you can have both open stations and (relatively) low levels of fraud.
In many countries without ticket barriers, patrons are required to carry identity cards (or be arrested). Being caught without a ticket is much more effectively punished (you are not just slung off the train at the next stop). Hence rather fewer people habitually decide they need not pay, given the opportunity.
I’m not talking about the speed with which the physical gates move, but the minimum time allowed between scans, which I assume can be adjusted.
If you want a local comparator between fully gated and fully open systems, then look no further than a comparison between the Tube and the DLR.
the economics of gating and ticket inspection are difficult to quantify. There are several categories of people:
1. Those who would have the correct ticket, whether or not the stations are gated.
2. Those who will travel, but will only buy a ticket if they assess the risk of getting caught as too high
3. Those who will only travel if they think they can get away without paying
4. Those who are deterred from travelling for fear of getting the wrong ticket.
Gating, or any other strict ticket inspection regime, will be revenue-neutral for categories 1 and 3, revenue-positive for category 2, and revenue-negative for category 4. Note in particular that you will never get any revenue from category 3 – if they can’t travel for free, they will walk: although they will then at least leave more room for those who have paid.
Goodness me what a lot of stuff on gates.
Right there are basically two types in LU – mark 1 gates mostly in Zone 1 which use air to move the paddles. These have the “more abrupt” movement of the gate paddles. The second type is the slimline (narrower and sometimes shorter) stanchion which uses electricity to move the gate paddles. These tend to be slower / smoother in movement. I am not aware that there is any “real time” ability to speed up / slow down the processing of a ticket or card between gate movements. It was never originally specified and I can’t see the point in allowing station staff to “fiddle” with a setting that, if got wrong, could hurt people or cause jams. One factor we do have these days is a vast array of tickets, cards, phones, widgets capable of being presented to a reader and then having to be processed. The relative proportions of these differing media will have an effect on throughput at gates as will the actions of individual users. Each person uses a gate in a slightly different way which affects throughput. I still disagree with the rather outrageous numbers TfL quote in their press releases for gate throughput. I doubt they are ever routinely achieved by passengers using the gates in normal conditions. You might be able to achieve the score if a controlled “lab” experiment with experienced users. I was once involved in a test like that and we got over 40 people per minute through a gate but the level of smartcard data processing was lower than has to be achieved these days.
When I was writing business cases for gating it was very straightforward. Operational research provided the expected fraud reduction values from the fraud model and this was set against the capital / operating costs. Generally many stations were deemed to be profitable. We didn’t place a formal value on things like improved customer safety as at that time there was insufficient data to make a robust analysis and reach a sensible conclusion. I don’t know if that has changed in any evaluation process used by TfL. Some stations were troublesome because of building works costs and possibly needing more staff to ensure gates were run safely. This is why there are still a few places without gates on the LU network. Timbeau is sort of right in terms of there being opportunistic and “determined” fare evaders. Clearly the main use of gates is to get opportunisitic people to pay the right fare every time and to deter the “determined” people from travelling too much. Clearly you need to have revenue inspectors to deal with the hard core dodgers and those perpetrating more complex frauds. Ideally you make sure that any gated system is convenient to use so you don’t put off those who do routinely pay. I am not sure what you do, using equipment, to deal with “I’m too terrified to travel” brigade.
I am not sure I really agree with Straphan’s rather blunt analysis of UK / USA vs the rest of the world with the former being “horrible passenger hating money grabbers” and the latter being “super lovely kind to passengers, give them a sweetie” operators. I realise I’m being a tad facetious but the real world is rather more nuanced and a whole range of systems in different countries use ticket gates and many others do something different. Heck some systems employ full security checks on metro systems but such instances are rare. I don’t think this is a case of “right” vs “wrong”. It is a case of what is needed, what is appropriate and what is acceptable. I doubt there are many places in the world where widespread fare evasion is actually tolerated by those who have a reasonable view on value for money, taxpayer / farepayer contribution and just making things work properly. Most people have a sense of fairness.
@ Greg – Vic Line RRS “B” to Stratford. I saw this in operation yesterday when I had a wander with my camera (some snaps are on the blog’s photo pool). I also spoke to a chap from Sullivan Buses who seemed to know what’s going on. Arriva have the contract to run “B” but have sub contracted some work to Ensignbus. Buses are running less frequently than on “A” – a figure of every 15 mins was quoted but I saw buses running more frequently than that off peak. I haven’t seen it in the peak. Not sure why you need a route map per se – the TfL leaflets list the stops which are Station Approach Road, Selborne Rd (by the cycle park), Markhouse Rd, Stratford International, Stratford City Bus Station. I understand the buses are running via South Access Rd, LBWF Council depot, Argall Way, Orient Way, Ruckholt Road, Olympic Park through to Sfd Int / Sfd City. I saw one bus turn down Markhouse Avenue which supports operation through the council depot. I say this because there were mixed reports as to where the buses were running on Monday.
The buses I saw on route B were not well used off peak. Still it’s an excellent opportunity to get an upper deck view of the Lea Bridge Station works and the works compound off Orient Way. You’ll also be able to see the Siemens Eurostar trains too at Temple Mills.
Apparently there are 27 buses on the RRS “A” during peak periods and 17 at off peak times. Some of the balance of vehicles parks up at Blackhorse Road station car park.
From my limited wanderings yesterday afternoon the traffic around Walthamstow Central and Selborne Road was not working well. This was causing some issues with RRS “B” and other local routes which were stuck in the traffic. There were also issues for buses actually getting out of Station Approach. There is no set down at the station for RRS “A” as no safe setting down point could be found. Passengers have to get off on Hoe St by the market meaning something of a trek if you want to reach Queens Rd station or a train on the Chingford Line.
Metroline are contracted to run the special 558 bus from Seven Sisters to Chingford Mount. This was running reasonably well but was not overloaded with passengers off peak. I haven’t seen it in the peak yet.
Thanks WW 17.23. There is also the issue of some people ‘following through very closely’ gates to avoid paying. I did wonder if some of the fast closing gates were to prevent this but they are probably just the Mark 1 variety as you say. Then there is also the person with a deliberate non working ticket (not Oyster) who casually walks through the gate because the person behind them has activated the gate with their own ticket. I’ve seen this a lot and deliberately wait until their ticket has cleared before using mine – but not everyone is as careful. Unfortunately staff don’t seem to notice this much and the person left behind then needs to request to be let through since it won’t activate twice. This latter case may not always be deliberate of course.
@ Phil – ah the old “doing the lambada” through the gates. I have a tactic to deal with that. I just simply stop causing the person behind to bump into me and then I can do “mock outrage” and stop them getting through. As I’m a tad “large” it’s impossible for someone to force their way past. 😉
Coming back to Walthamstow there was a news feature on the BBC London evening news showing the worksite, the cranes in the crossover space and a battery loco in operation. Will probably be on I-Player later on.
WW: “obviously correct in saying that people don’t ride on public transport just for the sheer joy of so doing.” – erm … /me raises hand :-p
On the matter of leaving passengers on a service which is about to go out of service to reverse in an overrun tunnel, announcements (recorded or live) are far more prevalent everywhere nowadays. Surely couldn’t just making a “For those of you who forgot to get off at please stay where you are and we’ll be back there in a moment when you can try again” announcement be sufficient? Along with “Please do not alight” on the in-car displays? You can’t get out between cars on the newer walk-through models anyway.
Also, there are now cameras *everywhere* so, instead of requiring someone to walk from cab end to other cab end, couldn’t an in-forward-cab camera display do the job for pulling back to the opposite-direction platform?
Wimblegate: A few months ago I was on a Southern (iirc) service and was quite surprised when I overhead the travelling ticket inspector read someone their arrest rights (for non-payment of the correct fare) – they weren’t just put off the train at the next station.
@ Alison W – well I rather suspect most readers of LR would go for a ride by public transport just for the sake of it but transport loonies are not really representative of the travelling public. 😉
On your second point you can have all the announcements and displays in the world and people will still ignore them. There are too many variables as to why people may end up left on a train, may then act irrationally and put themselves in harm’s way or be threatening to staff. Walk through trains are not a solution to this but I accept they remove some elements of risk. Costly and inconvenient as it may be for operating companies I happen to think a person doing the check and (usually) being able to converse with anyone left behind is the best option. Sometimes you just have to spend the money to get the best answer.
@WW
“I doubt there are many places in the world where widespread fare evasion is actually tolerated by those who have a reasonable view on value for money, taxpayer / farepayer contribution and just making things work properly. ”
While I broadly agree with you I think the point where you hit the definition of ‘widespread’ varies enormously. There are certain operators who have in effect decided it is uneconomic to enforce any penalty for non payment on some services. This creates an extra category for Timbeau: 5) People who will travel anyway but only pay when challenged. It’s actually a pretty flexible group of people, with no enforcement or consequences for not paying the proportion of those people will increase.
The North London Line is a case in point. From memory ticket less travel was running at around 40% under Silverlink and is now in single figures.
Wimblegate
I think your statement about [adjectives snipped. LBM] foreign countries where people are supposed to have ID cards at all times is at least 20 if not 30 years out of date.
Not a requirement in France, Belgium, Netherlands or Germany, certainly.
WW
I used RRB “B” last night on the way home from the Thursday meeting.
( That bit about a route-map in my earlier post was a n other error – got cut’n-pasted by mistake, oh dear. )
Surprisingly fast, only 5 passengers including me @ approx 21.45.
And the route, in the reverse direction was S City bus station, anti-clockwise to S-unintentional, N to Ruckholt Rd, Rt-&-Lft to parallel the train carriage sheds, Rt into Lea Bridge Rd, Lft into Markhouse rd, up to the bus station.
They could not go through the council depot, as the road is barred off, actually.
I wonder ….
[Oft repeated moan snipped. LBM]
@Starlight, @WW
See also the Lea Valley Lines, where successive Anglia franchises seemingly decided to match the non-investment in the entire route with total non-enforcement of payment. Strike me down with the proverbial if ticketless travel was any lower than Silverlink, and even then I’d say that would mostly be down to gating at the NR/LU stations: Liverpool Street, Seven Sisters, etc.
@WW: I agree with you that revenue collection solutions are very much a ‘horses for courses’ area. If you look at the ticket barriers in places like Paris or Lisbon (with double-gated ‘locks’ for people with luggage and a variety of anti-jump contraptions you do wonder to what ends people would go to evade fares. On the other hand, in Germany, Austria, or indeed Central-Eastern Europe bringing fare evasion to a reasonable level has been achieved by roving inspections – even if in some German cities these transform at night into paramilitary security patrols with truncheons and a very bored-looking dog (as seen once in Frankfurt).
As a commuter on the Lea Valley lines there certainly are inspections – not terribly frequent perhaps but they do happen, even (to my surprise) late at night.
Of possible interest and arguably related to the closure is this press release containing this extract:
In addition, a larger fan chiller system is being installed this summer at a mid-tunnel ventilation shaft on the Victoria line between Walthamstow Central and Blackhorse Road Tube stations.
The work is being done to coincide with the period of major improvement works on the Victoria line this month which will enable the operation of 36 trains per hour next year.
The new fan chiller system will be ready for next summer and mean more comfortable temperatures for passengers at the northern end of the Victoria line.
PoP
I just hope it is installed & working sooner than that!
I often stagger out at WHC, going very slowly, because of the heat/humidity – it takes me until I’m well across Hoe St, usually, before I’ve cooled down enough to walk at anything like a normal speed.
@ PoP – I wasn’t even aware there is a shaft between BHR and WWCS but a look at Streetview brings up one on Suffolk Park Road. The surface building doesn’t look big enough to get much down it, unlike the Ferry Lane shaft, so I guess the new chiller unit will come in by battery loco.
@ Straphan / Pseudononymous – perfectly fair remark about how some franchises are content to let things slide but I assume some of the blame for this sits with the franchise specifier. If you don’t provide an adequate incentive or create the obligation then certain things simply don’t get done. Clearly some franchisees consider the cost of revenue inspectors to be excessive compared to the revenue perceived to be at risk.
@WW. I suspect that what you say is quite true about incentives for revenue protection. Within the LR territory, the fares recovered are never going to be huge, compared with the cost of the staff. It would be interesting if the costs vs rewards for ticket checks on the NLL/Goblin were revealed. The norm there seems to be a minimum of two staff at any one time. Compare that with some German cities where plain-clothes ticket inspectors work on their own. As a contrast, I have seen a gang of six inspectors suddenly appear out of a hut in Amsterdam and then rapidly cover a tram door each!
@ Fandroid – I can’t find anything that sets revenue gain against cost. There are a few presentations on the web about Overground and some mention ticketless travel. In an early TfL Board report there were significant reductions in ticketless travel in the first year – GOBLIN is shown falling from 40% to under 5% and the other lines were in the region of 15% falling to under 5%. A later presentation shows the average level falling from around 15% in 2007 to 1.68% in 2014. Total revenue has soared but clearly service and network expansion is the main influence there although I expect more of those new passengers are paying for their trips than would otherwise be the case.
WCentral will need improved ventilation with planned 36tph over recent 24tph meaning half as much heat again from trains north of Seven Sisters.
I probably wasn’t concentrating, but when I backed up Greg’s gateline concerns for Walthamstow Central, I did not realise that in a fairly short time, the station could be receiving 36tph, ie a 50% increase in capacity compared with July 2015. E17 will become an even more favoured location for the Hackney exiles and young-uns with money. I hope that serious thought is being put into moving that gateline at the top of the escalators.
fandroid
If DafT’s supposed demands had been met, it would have been even worse.
As it is, we still have a (now) completely-unnecessary “cage” surrounding the down-side exit, but the very narrow proposed gate there never materialised. I hope that my alarm-note to ORR may have had some effect on that, but I don’t know.
Meanwhile, we have the remains of what I considered to be a totally bonkers arrangement, half in-place, but now, all under one operator, at least.
So, I presume it’s up to TfL, as the “controlling mind” behind both UndergrounD & OvergrounD to sort it out, provided DafT will let them ….
Very curious behaviour of the TfL “Journey Planner” if you are trying to go via the Chingford line, at any rate, whilst these works are in progress.
I need to be @ Waterloo on Sat 22nd for the 09.20 ( Imber Buses).
I first checked the engineering work for that day & the “drain” appears to be working ok …
“Start”: Walthamstow Central
End: Waterloo
Tick boxes for steel wheel/rail, unticked buses.
Immediately tells me to take replacement bus “A”
Um, yes, well.
Ignore that, work out time @ Bank from WHC, put “Bank – Waterloo” into Journey Planner, to try to force it …
No.
It then told me to get the Central line to Oxford Circus & then the Bakerloo.
“WTF” as the saying goes.
Has anyone else any idea what is happening here inside TfL’s electronic box of tricks & is the “drain” actually running that day & if so, why can’t “JP” see it?
Most odd.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Note to moderators: I have no objection if this is deemed too far “off-topic”, but I would appreciate an informed response from someone, because I’m certainly confused as to the published outcomes ….
[Squeezes through the “on-topic” barrier with millimetres to spare. Responses would be OK on the specifics of Greg’s experience here. Other more extended commentary on the fitness-for-purpose or otherwise of the journey planner, and/or its quirks, revisions etc, and/or the rest of TfL website should be kept to a minimum, and may be deleted. Malcolm]
@ Greg – with the greatest respect you know your way round the transport network so I’m mildly surprised you’re even bothering with Journey Planner. There is nothing that I can see that affects the Chingford Line, Central Line or W&C Line on 22/8/15. If you want to go that way then simply go that way. I’ve played around with a pile of options in JP for a 0915 arrival at Waterloo next Saturday. I can’t get it to go via Liv St and then the W&C Line. I can just about get it to take me to Embankment via the Circle Line but it then tells me to walk to Waterloo. There is no engineering work affecting the Northern or Bakerloo Line so why it doesn’t recommend an interchange I don’t know. I suspect that TfL factor in a lot of time for interchanges especially at Liv St and Bank which is why you’re being routed via the Victoria Line because it fast and it has cross platform interchange at Oxo. I also suspect they’ve factored in a very high frequency for the Rail Replacement Bus even though the reality isn’t really matching that.
To be perfectly honest I don’t bother with Journey Planner. I use my brain, a map and look at timetables. I accept I have a higher knowledge level than most “normal” people so my way of doing things isn’t a practical proposition for many people – just in case anyone wishes to criticise me. I just find Journey Planner gives me stupid results on those occasions when I do look at it solely out of interest.
One oddity I did spot – the TfL timetable for the W&C line shows up as “daily” which implies you get trains 2-3 mins in the 0800-0900 time band *every day*. I don’t find that remotely credible. For a start the line doesn’t run on Sundays. Secondly the working timetable shows trains every 5 mins on a Saturday morning not every 2-3 mins. If anyone from TfL is reading you need to go and fix your W&C line timetable info as it’s wrong.
straphan – it’s not only late night in Germany where ticket inspectors are well equipped. Not unusual to see a number of burly blokes with batons, dogs, handcuffs etc in a fair few European countries. A big disincentive to try it on. I may be wrong but I may have even seen an armed feller on a trip to central Europe (Budapest I think it was).
WW
Yes, that’s the problem – I thought I’d check, “just to make sure” – & of course got a very peculiar response.
In spite of your sensible answer re. “long interchange times” (which I have personally noted before) it seems that neither of us can work out why the “drain” is invisible to the “JP”.
Oh dear.
Should someone have a quiet word with TfL?
Would they take any notice if we did, though?
On a more general & hopefully relevant note, your comment: I just find Journey Planner gives me stupid results …. yes, well, & me too, but if you are getting conflicting information from TfL, it behoves anyone, no matter how experienced ( like you & I ) to re-check & confirm that things should be as predicted.
Then TfL send out conflicting & (IMHO) totally wrong signals via their main public interface.
Which does their public credibility no good at all ( again )
@Ed. On the bus from Mattinata to Foggia last month (with a total passenger number of about 20) the ticket inspector was accompanied by two armed transport cops. His one ‘catch’ was a young lad who was permitted to get off the bus in Manfredonia, buy a ticket at a kiosk, and get back on again to complete his journey, thus increasing the bus company’s revenue by 4 Euros. On our subsequent train journey from Foggia to Rome, however, nobody checked anybody’s tickets at either station, or on board.
@Greg – the problem, though, is that you and I view the results through “experienced” eyes whereas the ordinary passenger will take the results and just use them. Provided they get to their destination in broadly the time predicted then nothing’s gone wrong has it? What you or I may view as “wrong” wouldn’t be considered as such by other people and that’s the rub. TfL are providing info for the majority not nerdy enthusiasts. The other issue is that there are so many parameters you can tweak to cover different needs you can get umpteen different answers to the same question. I’m happy to do things my way with just a cross check for engineering works / planned bus diversions. I think it’s stretching things too far to say TfL’s credibility is somehow damaged.
@Starlight “This creates an extra category for Timbeau: 5) People who will travel anyway but only pay when challenged.”
Aren’t these my category 3 – those who will only travel if they think they can get away without paying. From time to time they will get caught, but they assess the risk of being challenged as low enough to make the occasional penalty fare the cheaper option on average.
WW
I’ve just had an e-mail from TfL stating that they re “aware” that Journey Planner, having been tweaked is giving what I might call “strange” results – & they are looking into it.
Interesting, wot?
@Greg
How is the National Rail planner managing?
@ Greg – perhaps understandable in terms of wanting to push people away from what TfL expect to be an overloaded service (Chingford Line). I expect the tweak might disappear in early September!!
As an aside went to have a look at the PM peak at Seven Sisters this evening to see how the buses were coping. A very steady stream of people from the tube to where the RRS “A” and the 558 leave from. The stewards were trying to marshall people into two groups – one for the “A” and other for the 558. The 558 was loading extremely well with full loads on departure. The RRS was borderline over subscribed with large crowds waiting. It goes to show the buses have to flow very regularly for such a large flow of people to be catered for. Once or twice there were gaps and the crowds built up but not to crisis point. There isn’t really enough space on the High Road because the 243 and W4 were struggling to reach their stop (shared with RRS “A”) on occasion. I opted not to use the RRS but dived on a nearly empty 76 to T Hale and by a wonderful fluke my bus home was just arriving as the 76 turned into Monument Way. Time to bale out and endure crush conditions on that instead! Don’t know how the stewards manage to keep shouting out information without losing their voices. I always found my voice nearly vanished when doing Strike Day cover and having to talk a very great deal all day long to provide info to people.
Seeing the rail replacement buses pass by all fully loaded it sort of brings home to you how effective rail is at moving very large numbers of people at peak periods. I suspect the Vic Line commuters are counting the days until they get their trains back. Can’t imagine what will happen if they ever need to have a “Crossrail replacement bus” for the post 2019 service.
@WW – we shall have a very practical demonstration of the maximum number of buses/hour that can be operated (as per the tramalot thread)….
Tried both my possible routes from near Whipp’s Cross to work in Hammersmith 1/ via Snaresbrook to Mile End and then District or Hammersmith and City(whichever comes first) or 2/via Wood Street to Liverpool Street then Circle or H & C have firmly decided on 2!I find this less crowded and sometimes get a seat to Liverpool Street.Even at Walthamstow Central not too overloaded and there does seem to be rather a wait to leave there and also at St.James Street after we have dropped off our handful of passengers.This is at about 0700 I admit but I do wonder what loadings are like later and whether making St.James Street set down only and not stopping at Clapton before 0930 was something of an over reaction or not?
I return the same way but catch a bus back from Walthamstow rather than a 15-20 minute walk back up the hill from Wood Street!
.
Just a quick personal experience. Getting on the southbound Victoria at Euston in the peak, I expected it to be busier than usual. My experience is that it hasn’t been.
@WW
Which was the packed bus route from Tottenham Hale?
With reference to adjustable time for the entry gates to cycle I always though that this would be a better way of controlling the mass of people trying to get onto the down escalator at Victoria – the present turn on lots of gates until the mass of people shuffling for the escaltor gets too great and then turning them all off seems rather strange. I can see why only turning a few gates on would result in people not being dispersed on the unpaid side but if the time was variable I would have though we could have the customers dispersed and get better control of the escalator queue.
@ EGAdam – well RRS “A” and 558 were both heavily loaded as were the 123 and 230 which seem to be taking up some of the slack. Oddly the 192 (to Enfield) which is normally stuffed so full it’s unreal is having a relaxed time of things because there is no flow of passengers from the tube at T Hale. Funny how things swap round when a major transport axis isn’t functioning.
Latest news from Walthamstow Central.The “cage” from the top of the Victoria line stairs along the down(Chingford) platform to the exit has at last been removed.The side gate next to the barrier line leading into it also appears to have been closed.This is something that should have been done right at the start of the works to give a completely unencumbered platform when a fully laden train arrives.
Does this mean that when normal service resumes that there will now be unified barriers and that they have been removed from the top of the Victoria line escalators and the subway closed to non ticket holders?After all the subway has been closed for the duration of the works!
A
@ Hugh S – my guess is that the Vic Line gateline downstairs will go, there will be some gates in the subway from the bus station (goodness knows how!) and the entry / exit at street level will be via the Overground platforms and recently installed but never switched on ticket gates. I also expect the ridiculous bricking up of the old interchange on the Liv St platform will be removed and the street exit by the taxi office will be bricked up again. Complete insanity to waste so much time and money on something that anyone with half a brain could have told them won’t work.
While I am sure people will be pleased with the revised arrangements at street level I am deeply sceptical about gates in the subway. I don’t see how you can reconcile safe distances between bottoms of stairs with a likely gateline position and the fire doors half way along. I also don’t see how you can retain the ticket machines and allow queues and have an adequate number of ticket gates. The area is simply not big enough and the passenger flow via the subway can be considerable. I guess LU might be removing the ticket machines along with the ticket office but that will mean subway users will have to cross at road level in order to buy tickets / top up their Oyster cards. If they’re laden with luggage, shopping or pushing a buggy they won’t appreciate having to struggle with the steps having previously been able to use lifts and do their ticket transaction on the way.
Try imagining having only 1 or 2 exit walkways and then a queue of people stretching back from them, up the stairs and round to the escalators! I can certainly see that happening. How do you fit in a wide gate for people with buggies and luggage in the subway? Hopefully my pessimism will be misplaced but I am wondering whether we will simply end up with a worse situation than the one we had. And yes I am well aware of the blocking back risk from the old gateline to the escalators before someone feels obliged to remind me!!!! Still we only have to wait until Monday to get our tube service back.
Hugh S
Much too sensible.
Anyway DfT are, IIRC still insisting on full & separate barriers, or are they, now?
There’s still the problem of the twisty loop-exit & re-entrance on the “Up” side, of course & barriers across the subway at the North end, or not, as the case may be.
See also WW’s slightly more considered reply & the people-flow logistical problems to be dealt with. I wonder what/if ORR have to say on this, wearing their “safety” hat?
WW
Complete insanity to waste so much time and money on something that anyone with half a brain could have told them won’t work.
But, they did it anyway, didn’t they? Because DfT told them to.
Ah yes, on a more technical note:
Pictures from “Ian Visits”.
Well worth a look.
@ Greg – I know you view the DfT as the “Great Satan” of the railway world but is there any evidence they forced AGA to gate Walthamstow Central so late in their franchise term covering West Anglia lines? It makes no sense to me and that’s not an invitation for you to say the DfT are mad. Clearly a decision was made somewhere but I am sceptical that it originated with the DfT. TfL / LU make up their own mind about gating (or certainly did) so I don’t believe the DfT have any sway over what’s happening at Walthamstow now. I see TfL tweeted pictures of the “cage” being removed so they obviously view it as having merit (or they read LR!). The more telling comment was a reference to “an integrated station” being complete in the Autumn. This suggests to me that we might not see any great change next week in operational matters and that work is ongoing for a few more weeks to get to a final layout. No more detail was given unfortunately!
WW
Unfortunately, yes there is. It may be even in the back-correspondence of all our discussions here. IIRC, AGA themseleves claimed that it was a DfT requirement, because there were two separate operators & entirely ignoring the fact that about 5 minutes later, there was going to be one operator …
[Sarcasm snipped. PoP]
I have not seen the reference to an integrated station, but that gives all of us some serious hope of a sensible(ish) solution (I hope)
I want pedestrians from or to the south to continue to be able to walk through that subway between the bus station and the south side of the station, without having to pass through a gateline.
@ Greg – there will still be two operators at Walthamstow – LOROL upstairs and LU downstairs. You can argue there should be one overall “guiding mind” in the shape of TfL but I’ll believe that when I see it manifest itself! LU has always been pretty “independent” given its size and history whether as part of LT, LRT or TfL. The property delineation won’t change and TfL do not have the same longer lease rights at Walthamstow as they do elsewhere on West Anglia. This is because of the development at WWCS from which Network Rail will accrue the income given it’s built on their land.
The “integrated station” concept has been mentioned several times in various press releases and tweets. It just hasn’t been defined at all so no one will be able to judge whether it’s been achieved or not given no expectation has been set with the general public.
@ Alan G – I think you’ll end up being disappointed.
Walthamstow Writer 26 August 2015 at 17:42
“Alan G – I think you’ll end up being disappointed.”
If I
1) get off a train at Queens Road,
2) begin a walk though the new shortcut, and then
3) find I have to walk around the east and of Central station and
4) into Hoe Street
in order to reach the bus station, disappointed would not be the word.
WW@22 August 2015, 23:57
… the 192 (to Enfield) which is normally stuffed so full it’s unreal…
The 192 is a back street route using ‘short’ single deckers, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’re normally packed.
@ Anon – yes I know but the route is ridiculously oversubsribed all day long. The fact it goes “round the back roads” is partly why it is so busy. It also parallels the West Anglia main line (in part) where the stopping service is appallingly bad so the bus has to take the strain. It also serves IKEA and Tesco where are a major draw. A look at my spreadsheet of TfL’s bus usage data shows the 192 has put on a net 2m+ pass jnys per annum over 15 years, an increase of 255%. In that time there has been 1 frequency increase back in 2002 and nothing since. Given that the buses regularly have people crushed up to the windscreens I don’t think that’s really acceptable even though I recognise that the narrow roads served by the road are a constraint on increasing the frequency. Too much risk of buses meeting head on on narrow roads. Still it can’t carry on like it is – TfL need to do something to provide some relief over some sections of the route. It’s not exactly difficult to fix although the new bus station at T Hale is now another constraint as it has no spare capacity believe it or not!
WW
But LOROL (or their successors) & LU ARE “One Operator” – they are both part of/controlled by TfL. IIRC, this is one reason why an eventual (hopefully soon) rebuild of the ex-T&FG JtRly side of Blackhorse Road is now on the cards, when it was not, previously.
Also: “Integrated Station” – like we now have at Stratford (main line), where the ridiculous intermediate Jubilee-line gateline has been removed. And there are no intermediate gatelines to/from DLR (Who are another contracted-to-Tfl operator) either.
There is no rational reason whatsoever why this cannot be done at WHC.
( Or Tottie Hale for that matter, but let’s stick to Walthamstow, for now, shall we? )
Re. the 192.
A part-answer, of course is a complete rebuild of Angel Road & a better train service – unfortunately, the proposals there ( 3-or-4-tracking up the valley ) seem to be receding further & further into the mists of the future.
Greg and WW
As a regulat user of Tottenham Hale (and the 192) I can concur with what you both say,in spades.
One thing that has surprised me is the way that the recent (last couple of years) re-jigging of Tottenham Hale has made tube-to-train (and vice-versa) interchange noticeably more difficult and annoying….will it emerge from this August’s blockade miraculously transformed?
Also,apropos 3 (or is it 4?) -tracking….have any actual detailed plans of works to be done (let alone a timetable of works) found their way onto the Internet?
I like to think,due to my voluntary work,that I have my ear to the ground in Northumberland Park Ward,but my spies are all saying “Nothing to report….”
@ Greg – I am sorry but legally and administratively there are 2 operators at Walthamstow Central. The contract terms for LOROL are different to the objectives set by LU for its own operation – ticket offices being a key example of difference. I acknowleged that TfL are the overarching ultimate “controlling mind” but that does NOT mean there is one operator. You’ll be telling me next that LU manage the NR platforms at Seven Sisters when demonstrably they do not. There are property / lease delineations that also mark the operational boundaries. I used to do this stuff for a living so I know where the boundaries are.
@ Slugabed – T Hale is much worse for interchange now and I believe that probably was the result of DfT pressure to get ticket gates in at what is a major stop for AGA. There wasn’t a safe way of putting gates in at the old boundary point because of the presence of doors and steps up and down to the n/b platform and overbridge. Far too dangerous to have people queuing in those locations. Therefore people end up being shoved outside in the wind and rain which I think it is pretty poor never mind the fact the interchange is more cumbersome. Unfortunately the long term plan to rebuild TH in the next 2 years reinforces two separate gatelines because of the reuse of the existing footbridge to give quick access from Hale Village into the station and bus station. This means there is an “unpaid side” walkway right through the middle of the station which thus means two gatelines and people entering and exiting within sight of the next gateline. The alternative would be to have a mini gateline and ticket machine at the Hale Village new entrance but I assume that’s been discounted on operational / capital cost grounds. I understand Haringey Council have approved the station rebuild (application number HGY/2013/2610).
The last thing I read about STAR was what Mr Roberts kindly linked to – some Enfield Council papers where they authorised some extra funding to support delivery of the new Angel Road station. The scheme has clearly been scaled back to effectively a third track only with a split service of half hourly existing AGA trains stopping at NP, AR, TH, LB and Stratford with a new train running on the shuttle half hourly and using the single track infrastructure. Personally I’m disappointed that the scheme is so scaled back even if it does have provision for future expansion. We must also wait and see if the scheme becomes a casualty of NR’s reviews of its spending and projects. If it does get delayed then we may be in a messy situation because of the need to deliver the new service in time to support new housing delivery in the lower Lea Valley. There’ll be massive political pressure to keep it going but it depends on retaining a political and funding consensus even if there is a delay to implementation.
WW…Thank you.
@WW
“because of the presence of……….steps up and down to the n/b platform and overbridge. Far too dangerous to have people queuing in those locations. ”
Can someone please tell this to the Revenue Men at Wimbledon?
@Walthamstow Writer, 27 August 2015 at 11:13
I recall we discussed Tottenham Hale before. At least the new station will restore a covered link between the two gate lines. With express trains to Stansted Airport departing the main line side, at significantly higher fares than any Greater London tariff, I can also understand how the operator would wish to segregate the two paid areas to avoid any mistakes, after all no one would expect the Victoria Line transfer to the Intercity platforms at Kings Cross to be entirely gateless.
WW@26 August 2015, 21:59
The 192 really needs bigger buses, but the nature of the route makes that impossible – it’s a miracle it gets through some of the roads in Enfield/Bush Hill Park at all, with the 90 degree bends and parked cars. Is there any scope for increasing the frequency? Probably not given what you said about capacity at TH.
@ Mark T – I understand your point about Stansted but there are plenty of ways into the rail network that avoid gates and which avoid ticket inspectors if people are determined enough. I’d turn the argument on its head and ask whether the abandonment of a previously simple and weather proof interchange at T Hale to one which puts people through umpteen sets of 90/180 twists and turns and then exposes them to wind and rain and cold is really how we want to treat the thousands of visitors / tourists who use that particular interchange. Obviously the new station restores a covered interchange but we have 2 years on construction work to cope with and I doubt conditions will get better in that time.
@ Anon – you are right that the physical route constrains the vehicles that can be used on the 192. One way of fixing the T Hale issue would be to run the 192 on from the bus station to, say, the Hale Village complex which stretches quite a long way north. I assume there may be some suitable road space to allow the buses to stand there. Clearly you’d need more buses and I don’t know whether TfL would be keen to extend the route. The bigger question is why a new bus station is so badly designed and so lacking in capacity after millions have been spent. Still we aren’t going to see any work to make it bigger and the new station and temporary retail units will eat up more of the “town square” (i.e. windswept paved area) thus removing scope to make the bus area bigger.
WW and Anonymous
Perhaps the time has come to split the 192 into two routes?
Slugabed@27 August 2015, 22:02
Perhaps a double decker from T.Hale to Edmonton Green and a small single decker from Edmonton Green to Enfield. But is there capacity at Edmonton Green to allow this?
@Anon
perhaps better to have them overlap, with both serving the Edmonton – Angel Road section. Then only one route has to lay over at Edmonton – or, if capacity is at a premium there, maybe combine the southern half with the 191 and the northern half with the W6?
Within 2-3 years, the Meridian Water large-scale development will start coming on stream (initial objective 3,000 jobs and 5,000 homes over a decade). The STAR rail scheme and a new Meridian Water station are part of its future connections. So some revision to bus routes is also likely to be required in a few years.
timbeau@28 August 2015, 13:38
“perhaps better to have them overlap”
Where would you turn them at Angel Road? Ikea? Is that worth it, given how close it is to T.Hale?
The 341 already turns there – and I’m told some people might actually want to go there.
Anonymous,Timbeau
My experience,boarding at Tottenham Hale,is that most of my fellow-passengers are going to IKEA (or the enormous Tesco over the road) and there is an almost complete turnover of passengers at that point…
One thing I have noticed with the 192 is that it now typically picks up and sets down at stops between T Hale and IKEA. Previously that was unusual but people from Northumberland Park are now prepared to work across to Meridian Way to catch it. I’d quibble slightly about the blend of passengers. Yes lots of people do go to / from IKEA and Tescos with weekends being really bad. However there are also considerable numbers travelling to the Montagu Road area and stops from there to Edmonton Green. STAR might affect that once built but siting the new station by IKEA will mean it is unattractive for people at Montagu Rd because walking along the A406 and link roads is nigh on impossible or just utterly revolting. I’d say Edmonton Green / shops is the greater swap over point. Traffic is more mixed at the Enfield end of things with obvious trips to Enfield town centre but also variable length local trips. I’ve often done the route end to end as it’s a reasonably convenient way to reach Enfield. One solution to some local journeys would be a Walthamstow – E Green – Enfield service. There is very considerable interchange at Angel Corner/Silver St between the 34 / 444 and N-S bus routes. Quite why there is no “round the corner” service remains a mystery – it’d have good loads from day one.
Coming back to the Victoria Line I have read elsewhere that the works at WWCS are now complete and there are just some test runs to do to check it all out before trains return on Monday morning. Hooray!
Passenger services expected to resume to Walthamstow at 13.00 today.
RRB A will continue to run until the train service is confirmed as robust.
…….”RRB A will continue to run ”
and possibly because there are no lawyers on hand at the bank holiday to vary the contract that procured the RRB in the first place!
Route 76 should be extended from Tottenham Hall to Ikea, that would provide more capacity and give a direct service from Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington to Ikea.
@Evergreenadam
TfL seem to think via points are not necessary these days, and describe all routes simply by their destination (so at Waterloo you see signs for the No 4 to Archway, the 26 to Hackney, the 76 to Tottenham, the 341 to Angel Road, the 521 to London Bridge, etc but no signs for any buses to the City) And as there is already a bus from Waterloo to IKEA (the 341) there must surely be no need for another!
@ DStock 7080 – back in service just after 1730 on Saturday according to Twitter.
@ Timbeau – oh come on. RRS can be called off / carried on at request. The arrangements are always flexible on a big job like a blockade.
Just because destination displays are odd these days does not detract from the existence of local travel patterns that revised bus services could facilitate. I know a lot of people feel London has regressed when it comes to blind displays but is there any evidence of mass confusion as blind displays have changed in recent years? I’ve not seen a single example of complaint / concern being raised by the public via Mayor’s Questions or similar. Enthusiasts can rant on about bus blinds for decades without pausing for breath but that’s not quite the same thing. 😉
The 341 goes via Islington and Harringay rather than Hoxton and Stoke Newington. Not the same market at all. If you wanted to go.to Ikea from Waterloo you would be better going to Croydon
@Walthamstow Writer/ Purley Dweller
Of course I realise the 341 and 76 serve different intermediate points – which is why I let the 341 go past and wait for the 76 instead. But so often this seems to be forgotten by the operators: hence the signs at Waterloo – how many people arriving by train at Waterloo actually want to take a bus from all the way to Archway, or indeed London Bridge, when there are direct rail links? Or the favourite practice of operators of running a train non-stop from end to end to get back on schedule.
We get this from journalists in discussion of XR2 – people look at it as going to e.g Twickenham, but Twickenham itself will not be a major beneficiary. Likewise Reading and XR1
I was waiting for @WW to point out that the 192 used to be two separate bus routes: the 363 from Tottenham Hale to Waltham Cross (via Edmonton Green) and the 192 from Enfield to Northumberland Park “Superstores”.
@Stationless – and by way of contrast have a photo of the old 363 at a very quiet T Hale on a Sunday and then a shot of a queue on a Sunday for the current 192! Quelle contrast. 🙂
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/8616246301/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/15751427212/
A quick Walthamstow Central update having had a quick look this morning.
No great change at surface level except the “cage” has gone from the Chingford platform. Ticket gates not switched on at the Overground entrances. No sign that the old interchange “hole in the wall” on the Liv St platform is being worked on (at least from the platform side).
At LU level the ticket gates remain in operation as before. The ticket office is shut and the windows are stickered over. The POM enclosure has been removed and tiled over. A new gateline has been installed in the subway link just to the south of the fire doors. There are two wide walkways and two normal walkways. The POM enclosure has craftily been moved under the flight of stairs to the Bus Station – one MFM and 2 FFMs. Posters and lealfet racks have also moved near the bottom of the bus station stairs. An interesting compromise but any length of queues at the ticket machines will block access to / from the lift to the bus station. The up escalator is hoarded off and being worked on.
My guess is that TfL is possibly waiting until it can complete the surface works at WWCS to recreate open interchange with the Chingford Line. I also wonder if they are waiting to see other stations on the Chingford Line be gated to reduce the risk of people entering elsewhere and having open access to the Vic Line. In short a fair bit of work has been done but more remains to be done.
WW
VERY interesting
One assumes/hopes that the “hole in the wall” on the Up platform will re-appear at some point….
I’ll go & have a look, soon, but I’m not sure about gates inside the subway-tunnel, as you hint, there may be crowd problems.
{ I’d have thought gates “almost in” the Bus station would have been better? }
Putting an extra gate by the side-entrance (i.e at the W end of) the Down side would help too, to get a better throughput – I wonder ….
Latest
Came back to Walthamstow Central earlier on this evening and went straight to cab office so can only comment on the London side.
Gates at top of escalator still there and hole in the wall still bricked up.
One escalator only until April 2016.
Otherwise as above.
So, a repeat of an old whinge, but closer to home this time …
It takes 7 months to renew an escalator?
Presumably, they are working either “normal” hours only … or “nights” only, rather than just getting on with the job?
And, of course, as previously mentioned, no hope of a central, third, reversible escalator being installed, either.
Greg,
A simple search with a browser will bring up numerous articles on why it takes so long to replace an escalator on the Underground, or Washington Metro or a host of other subway systems. And why they often can’t do it during the day.
Try this one as just one example.
timbeau
28 August 2015 at 22:08
“The 341 already turns there – and I’m told some people might actually want to go there.”
But would that justify two identical routes between Edmonton Green and Ikea?
How about swapping the 192 and the W8 at EG (send the W8 to T.Hale and the 192 to Pickets Lock)?
Walthamstow Writer@29 August 2015, 21:34
The 363 was clearly not a London Bus. And when was it running? I’ve lived in the area for nearly 70 years (Edmonton until about 1988, and then Enfield) and I don’t recall ever seeing a 363.
@ Anon – there was a period of time when County Bus (Lea Valley) ran a number of cross border services from Waltham Cross / Harlow into various bits of N London like Enfield, Tottenham Hale and Chingford / Walthamstow. Some were long standing links and others like the 363 and 517 were a bit more speculative. To be fair they opened up bus access to the roads built from Brimsdown down to T Hale. I understand Arriva (who took over County Bus) withdrew the services leaving TfL to fill in the gaps with the amended 192, new 377 and new 491 routes.
Having done some searching the following is from The London Bus Forum.
Route 363: Tottenham Hale- Watermead Way- Angel Road Station- Montagu Road- double run to Picketts Lock- Bounces Road- double run to Edmonton Green- Bury Street- Galliard Road- Ponders End High Street- Hertford Road- Waltham Cross then as per current 251H to Hammond Street. Frequency was every 20 or 30 minutes, no evening service. Usual buses were 0814D Varios with Plaxton Beaver body.
On Sundays it just ran hourly between Tottenham Hale and Picketts Lock, first bus at 1100!!! It didn’t double run via Northumberland Park Tesco, you had hail it on the main road (with Watermead Way being Hail & Ride throughout its length back then). Route 192 terminated at NP Tesco from the north.
Route 517: Oakwood- as per current 377 to Ponders End High Street- then right Nags Head Road- Mollison Avenue- Bilton Way- Enfield Lock Station- Mollison Avenue- Waltham Cross then per current 251H to Upshire
Every 30 minutes Mon-Sat not evenings.
The irony is that the 192 and 491 under TfL’s tenure are very busy routes and have seen pretty impressive growth as the areas served are a mix of good bus territory plus there has been a decent amount of development. The 377 remains much more modestly used but it’s not very frequent and only runs M-S. Hope that info helps.
We seem to be entering deep into the territory of discussing the history of bus routes. The cull has already started.
Walthamstow Writer@1 September 2015, 13:40
Thanks. Just curious.
@ PoP – while I understand you don’t like thread drift it is rather inevitable once people start talking about things. I certainly don’t intend to perpetuate the discussion about old bus routes but I will be distinctly narked, having spent a fair bit of effort to answer Anon’s perfectly reasonable question, if you chop what I’ve posted. It is your perogative to wield the axe but the more of my stuff that gets chopped then the less inclined I become to participate if I feel that my words will be later discarded.
@Walthamstow Writer can totally understand the frustration if that happens, but at the same time there’s an inherent element of risk the further away from topic stuff drifts that it’s likely to be cut.
That said, we generally try to avoid culling too excessively without placing a warning first that it’s likely to happen beyond a certain point – as PoP did above – to try and prevent too much disappointment.
(And yes, I know I’m being a huge hypocrite here given my lurch into password security on the magazine announcement post!)
Walthamstow Writer,
I totally appreciate people may have put effort into a comment. After all sometimes I have spent over an hour writing a comment though one might not appreciate that sometimes. I was not intending to apply a retrospective cull to something that had already been published. I am sorry for not making that clear.
I am also aware that it is a judgement decision as what is too far off-topic. My gut reaction is when the off-topic discussion itself goes off-topic then that is definitely too far. When I had to approve (or disapprove) a pending comment that talked about splitting the 63 bus route (to Crystal Palace!) then I knew the discussion had gone too far and the cull started.
“comment that talked about splitting the 63 bus route”
………only to disperse any potential confusion between the former 363 under discussion and the current one.
WW duplicated the rest of my comment so content for mine to be removed.
Back on track!
Sole functioning escalator at Walthamstow Central seems to be working downwards in the morning and up in the evening.
I had rather naively hoped to see more trains to the end of the line but not yet it seems!
I know that 36 trains per hour throughout the whole line is not due to happen until late 2016 but are there more envisaged to Walthamstow earlier than this?
One thing I have noticed is that so far I have had two runs straight in to the platforms
whereas before we always seemed to stop just outside and then crawl in after a train had left.
Have I been lucky or is this a consequence of the new crossover?
Hugh S,
I expect a few people are disappointed – particularly as TfL didn’t make it abundantly clear that the benefits will not happen yet.
A generally reliable source on District Dave has commented on this and suggests that you will get 34tph in the peaks at Walthamstow from late April next year. This makes sense to me. As far as I am aware the relevant “cooling the tube” works are not yet complete. Also you don’t really want to attract yet more passengers with only one escalator functioning.
People from south of the river (in my case, about as south as you can get) might find the axonometric diagram of Walthamstow Central at http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/07/12/3d-maps-of-every-underground-station-tuvw/ helpful in envisaging what’s happening – and all the other diagrams are fascinating!
Hugh S
Probably as a result of the new x-over.
Coming back yestereve, I noticed the absence of something – I could hardly hear any rail-joints at the station approach & we definitely came in faster than previously.
However, even given that all is not yet up & running as it will eventually be …
I walked onto the platform @ Victoria @ approx 19.44 hrs yesterday, doors closing in front of me – labelled “7 Sisters” (?)
It was at least 3 min 20 secs before the next Walthamstow arrived, with a front destination-display showing… “Brixton”
And there are still one-in-3-trains apparently terminating at 7 Sis.
@Greg
At 1944 I would expect the peak service to be winding down, so a significant number of trains will be going to the depot. These will, of course, go out of public service at Seven Sisters. Probably not representative of the rest of the day.
@ Timbeau – I had the same thought but checked the WTT and very few trains at that time actually run out of service now. Certainly used to do that but I guess the much more intensive service throughout the day means trains run OOS much later in the evening. Judging from Greg’s timings he encountered a slightly late running 1942 to Seven Sisters and the next two trains should have been to Walthamstow. I don’t think a tiny extra delay of about 50 seconds on the headway is much to comment on. Better than the old 8-10 minute wait you could get in the old days when 2 out of 3 trains were heading to the depot so the trains could “go to bed”.
Surely when stations have only 1 escalator working it should run in up direction at all times . Especially important terminal stations like Walthamstow Central ?
@ Melvyn – in theory yes. However Walthamstow has to cope with one of the largest bus to tube interchange flows in London coupled with surges of people every 15 mins when an Overground train arrives from Chingford. Even when the escalators are working normally the concourse can jam solid with people trying to get through the ticket gates. Now imagine what happens if the only way down is via the stairs. There’s very little holding area for people because there are stairs at all the entry points to the ticket hall area. You really don’t want people queuing on stairs if you can avoid it. There would be a very serious risk of people tripping or pushing if the only way down from the ticket hall to the Vic Line trains was the central stairs. They’re fairly steep and narrow, have an awkward step height and a landing every 4-6 steps. There simply isn’t the capacity to get everyone down quickly enough relative to the flow of people entering the station. There is little point antagonising people by not running one escalator down when it is the safer thing to do. I appreciate it’s a pain for those arriving at Walthamstow in the AM peak to only have a stair but it’s the safer overall option. What we really need is three escalators on all escalator banks to avoid this sort of problem right across the network. Unfortunately there’s no plan to do that as there’s no money for such fripperies.
@ww
A little more to add to this.
According to a poster at the bottom of the escalator it is operating downwards between 0630 and 09.30 which is the peak time.Previously in similar situations we have had to walk down all 116 or so steps which is a very slow process and a miracle that nobody has been injured.
If walking up the stairs is not to your liking at this time there are alternatives however.
Bus 230 from Blackhorse Road tube or Overground from same station to Walthamstow Queen’s Road and through the car park to Central.Hardly ideal but better tha nothing.
I know it would be really expensive and I am not familiar with Walthamstow Central but, based on what I am reading, the priority to me would appear to be a lift. Apart from disabled access this could double as an alternative for those who need it when one escalator is out of action.
They are putting in step-free access at Vauxhall Underground Station on the Victoria Line. Walthamstow Central already has two-thirds the number of passengers as Vauxhall and this is set to increase when the service goes to up to 36tph. I really cannot see how this can be justified at Vauxhall but not at Walthamstow Central. You could probably also apply the same argument to the third escalator.
@ PoP – I think part of the problem with a lift is the orientation of the ticket hall relative to the platforms. It’s not the case that the ticket hall is in any way “above” the platforms to allow a shaft to drop directly down and be within the area between the platforms. The ticket hall is off the end of the platforms and at an angle. In effect it’s over the overrun tunnels to which there is no passenger access nor any accommodation of any sort between the running tunnels. Compounding all of this is the fact that a road or the main line railway tracks are above the LU ticket hall so nowhere terribly obvious to house the top of a shaft or lift gear or even to add lifts from the LU ticket hall to the Overground entrances. We do have a lift from the bus station down to the subway and then a mini platform lift from the subway up a small rise to the LU ticket hall. In some ways we have the worse situation in that the station is partially accessible but not on the main links to / between the rail services.
Now I am sure some clever engineers could build something but it would be very involved indeed and possibly involving two lifts and an intermediate landing and corridor to get people down from ticket hall to a level above the running tunnels and then a corridor across the top and then a second lift down to platform level. That’s an awful lot of effort and expense (capital cost and opex) and would mean 4 lifts from the surface (bus station) to LU platform level. We also have a new issue in that the south side of the station (Liv St platform side) has lots of new buildings built over it so there are constraints as to where you could provide a short lift between the LU subway and NR platform level. Two years ago it would have been much easier before NR’s hideous carbuncles were plonked on the top.
Having gone through Vauxhall the other day I see the ticket office has been swept away to widen the ticket hall and it looks like the lift has been put in near the top of the escalators with a direct drop down to platform level. A similar type of installation to the one at T Hale although the latter was built within a convenient vent shaft so the hole was already there!
Arriving at Walthamstow this morning I noticed that a new gate line has appeared in the subway which leads to the bus-station. The original gate line is still there, but looked as if the gates were locked open. Putting two and two together, it looks as if the old gate line is to be removed and presumably, the new one activated plus those that guard the Overground station. The ‘cage’ on platform (2?) has gone. It looks as if there will be gate-less interchange possible there in the near future. However they may keep the original gate line in place until the escalator work is done, as that will allow better crowd control at the top of the stairs.
@ Fandroid – yes the “perimeter” of the gated area will change at Walthamstow. On the Overground twitter session the other day they said it would probably be the end of the year before it was all finished. That may well align with your view about not completing the swap over until the escalator repairs are complete. We shall see. Having used the Overground to WWCS in the PM peak I did note the two Oyster validators were completely and utterly overwhelmed by the crowds exiting. They removed one when the ticket hall was rejigged meaning there’s a 1/3 less capacity than previously.
Thanks WW. Thanks to TfL keeping me updated with emails, I knew that my approx 08.50 arrival would see me having to climb rather a lot of steps, so I have continued my blockade practice of travelling via the unmentionable line from Waterloo plus Central to Liverpool Street. All surprisingly swift in my experience. I’ll test the steps and the new track on the way home tonight.
WW: This lack of ‘verticality’ in providing a lift at Walthamstow Central and other locations is why, I believe, TfL are looking at ‘sloped/angled’ lifts in various places.
Alison, I believe the term is “inclined lift”, and they’ve been designed into various Crossrail stations because you can run them down the escalator shaft and use the same landings – greatly simplifying the civils work (as long as you can fit the larger escalator shaft).
I also expect them to be highly used because they will be more visible, and not require any diversion to use (and thus captured by the primary signage). I’m continually amazed by the number of people who struggle up stairs with buggies and large suitcases – even when the lift is signed (or pointed out!), and only 10 metres away.
AlisonW 4 September 2015 at 16:24
” I believe, TfL are looking at ‘sloped/angled’ lifts in various places. ”
Very difficult to install lifts in many Victoria Line, and other deep stations, otherwise. TfL will probably have to become world leaders in the technology.
Alan Griffiths says “Very difficult to install lifts in … [existing] deep stations”
For difficult, read expensive. Particularly if you are considering, as you probably always would, putting the said lifts in new tunnel which has to be bored for the purpose. The key point is probably that the stations already exist, and there is no legal requirement to make them step-free (yet), though there may be a moral one, over time (for which read “in a future time on somebody else’s budget”).
Whereas the Crossrail lifts are probably legally obligatory – in new build stations – and what they cost is just what they cost, not a reason for a yes/no decision. In fact in a new design it may be impossible (or at least unnecessary) to calculate what they cost. They are just an unavoidable part of the station.
@Alan Griffiths -Not sure the UK will become a world leader in sloping lift technology. I suspect the Swiss have been there for a long time now -I can think of several Swiss hotels which have their own “sloping lifts” (aka small funiculars).
Graham H 5 September 2015 at 14:26
” Swiss hotels which have their own “sloping lifts” (aka small funiculars).”
Numbers Graham; and what’s more sufficient numbers to drive the technology forwards.
As long as TFL don’t ask the New York MTA about their experience with installing an inclined elevator at the new station at the end of the 7 line (which opens in a week or so).
Though that was more down to them messing about with the controls under some ‘made in the USA’ provision that with a problem with the Italian made lift.
@Alan griffiths – numbers indeed -the examples I have examined suggest that the technology for small sloping lifts is no different to that for full size operations (except that the lo-tech question of passing loops doesn’t have to be addressed), inwhich case Switzerland has a stock of more than a hundred of the things, some of which are fully automatic – just like a lift. I can’t imagine LU getting to anything more than a dozen or so of these installations.
I am not sure whether it’s open yet……I haven’t been there to look and the Web is vague on the subject….. but LU’s first inclined lift is at Greenford Station on the Central line.
Graham H 5 September 2015 at 19:14
” I can’t imagine LU getting to anything more than a dozen or so of these installations.”
I get you point. The slower they go, the more likely you are to be right.
To alleviate the overcrowding on the concourse, my crayons and I would like there to be another exit to Walthamstow Central: At the opposite end of the platforms that would come up in/by the Selborne Walk shopping centre. It would provide a lift directly to the platform to.
There is a new inclined lift (small funicular) at Ebbw Vale in South Wales:
https://youtu.be/LGDKgirIybU
Rubbish operating hours though : 0700-1900 on weekdays and closed completely weekends and bank holidays, probably because they need an expensive attendant on duty to operate it.
Discussion of inclined lifts should not forget London’s very own one.
TfL have published a presentation about the Walthamstow blockade as part of the Rail and Underground Panel, Oct 2015.
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/rup-20151016-part-1-item06-walthamstow-blockade.pdf
Walthamstow Writer 9 October 2015 at 10:40
“TfL have published a presentation about the Walthamstow blockade” that doesn’t address the difficult issue of neighbours complaining of increased train noise since the work.
Various articles about this work in the technical press have emphasised the use of rubber noise and vibration insulating boots and pads between the rails and the bearers and between the bearers and the base concrete. I suspect these aren’t working as efficiently as predicted
@ Alan Griffiths – yes and? I made no claim that it did or did not reference noise issues. Address your complaint to the author of the presentation.
Walthamstow Writer 11 October 2015 at 18:43
Grumpiness warning!
I wasn’t accusing you of being responsibly for the item.
You’d posted it, so I took the opportunity to draw attention to something related and, I thought, important.
Was at Victoria at about 18:30 yesterday and did some timing. The gaps between trains (door close to next door close) were on average 1m37 (1m49, 1m22, 1m23, 1m32, 2m01), with dwell times (door open to door close) from 20secs to 28secs. It was pretty impressive to see.
StephenC,
Even from this small sample one can learn a lot.
This suggests if things are running well then almost one third of the interval between trains is caused by dwell time – some people know I am a bit obsessed with timings and dwell time in particular.
It also give the strong impression that 1m22 must be around the smallest time possible given that two successive trains take within a second of the same time – the limit is being reached. So 36tph (100 seconds) would be challenging but achievable and 40tph (90 seconds or 1m30) would probably be achievable but not sustainable.
Time taken to clear the platform would be interesting as clearly it is impossible for the next train to fully be in the platform until the previous train has cleared it. If that is around 15-20 seconds that doesn’t leave a lot of time for the following train to maintain a safe distance (dependent on speed travelling) and fully enter the platform.
What could be interesting (and relevant to the article) is whether the intervals are more consistent when all trains run end-to-end as there should be very little reason then for any variation other than “passenger action”. This may be one of the reasons why London Undergound were keen to run all trains the entire length of the line – but almost certainly not the main one.
Your timings also show the nonsense in reporting the next train to the nearest minute. Ideally it should be in seconds but that would imply an accurate of prediction that can’t be justified so maybe to the nearest 10 seconds would be appropriate.
“the difficult issue of neighbours complaining of increased train noise since the work.”
Yes it is a difficult issue: as is any tracing of transmitted sound. I would expect it to take time. I would also expect it to be traced to a single source which may well be an unexpected one.
@PoP, the passengers did pretty much all clear the platform before the next train arrived, but there was probably less than 20secs to spare. And yes, the display board pretty much always had 1 min, 2min, 3min on it for the next trains.
StephenC,
I was actually interested in the time for the train to clear the platform.
However, time for passengers to clear the platform is something important that I overlooked. I presume this was southbound and it was primarily a case of passengers alighting. So, on your figures, you really need to be in a situation where 50 seconds or so after the train departs all but the final few stragglers have cleared the platform ready for the next deluge of humanity. At the termini you will have the luxury of having over 3 minutes to clear each platform after arrival and before the next train arrives.
With reference to the comments about inclined lifts LU is supposed to be installing a trial one somewhere (Greenford ?). There are some interesting design problems though – a conventional lift has a set of ‘buffers’ to stop the car safely (ie controlled deceleration) if it overshoots the landing. With an ‘end on’ lift design this is rather difficult to achieve as the lift car will hit the fixed floor if it overshoots. The sudden deceleration will not be good for customers in particular those in wheelchairs or buggies who will hit the doors rather hard. One option could be to make the section of the floor slide in some way in the event of an overshoot but this would need careful design not to pose a risk to anyone standing on the sliding section when it moved. Side entry cars are somewhat better as it is easier to organise a protected overshoot area but require more room at the side and the entry position is not so obvious to those approaching if they are installed parallel to a flight of escalators.
It will be interesting to see how LU & Crossrail approach these design challenges.
Re inclined lifts:
Almost all underground stations built since the late seventies in Stockholm includes at least one inclined lift. So it’s not exactly rocket science…
And these lifts are always installed at the side of a bank of escalators.
So if TfL doesn’t suffer from the NIH syndrome, I fail to see the problem!
@ An Engineer – work is certainly underway at Greenford. I recently saw some photos of the former disused escalator bank that is being used for the inclined lift. As TKO said this is not exactly startling new technology so provided LU has got out of “we must have our own bespoke escalators and lift” mode then the supply market, flawed as it is for L&E, should be able to install and maintain inclined lifts.
PoP etc. Re dwell time. Timing at Victoria at 1830 is not necessarity the limiting factor on dwell time. Victoria NB or Kings Cross SB at 0800, or Oxford Citcus SB at 17.45 would be better examples. However both the termini, even with stepping back are also verh significant constraints. I am confident that 36tph is doable, and I am equally certain that the line can be operated at the rate of 40 tph for a short period to catch up late running. I am equally certain that 40tph is not possible with the infrastructure that currently exists. There would also probably not be enough trains.
100andthirty,
You are of course basically correct.
However, it does not matter too much at which station (or in which direction) you do your measurements. If the capacity of the line is determined by dwell time at Oxford Circus (northbound or southbound) you can still measure the throughput at Victoria (southbound) to determine how many trains per hour are are running and how close together they are. Of course there may be some slight evening out or further bunching between Oxford Circus and Victoria.
I take your point entirely about it being different in the morning. As London Bridge has shown, one cannot assume that what will work in the morning will work in the evening as the flows are quite different.
And you say, to go above 36tph would require more trains. It was also require more depot space. If it was only sustainable for a short period then that would be an awfully expensive way of increasing capacity for a very limited period. Maybe 38tph (95 second headway) would be possible if they had the trains and the depot space but that would be extremely challenging. A five second improvement (from 36tph) doesn’t sound like a lot but to do this after all the other reductions would mean there is little fat, if any, left to cut.
The incline lift at Greenford was opened this week on the 20th I beleive. The way they have got round the problem of the lift overshooting the landing and being stopped past it’s normal stopping position is to allow it to hit the buffers every time it approaches the landing. The buffers then slow the lift to stop with the car with an acceptable gap at the landing.
An Engineer
Londonist have a video of it in operation
Update
Briefly (last Friday, 27th November) both escalators were working @ Walthamstow.
Now, the position is reversed & the southerly escalator is under replacement.
This is, IIRC ahead of schedule, so I withdraw my previous remarks – they are doing well & may finish early, if this is a guide.
However, the station-working will need to be considerably slicker by the time the new schedules are implemented, as there are still too many cases of trains approaching Walthamstow being held outside the station, & for periods up to 45+ seconds, which will really matter if you are operating a 90-second headway.
In a n other thread, someone suggested that, come 2030 or so, it may be necessary to “double-end” WHC (low-level) i.e. the Vic-line station, by putting in an access/entrance in/by the “Mall” shopping arcade.
Very expensive.
Surely a quicker, cheaper “win” would be to get rid of the centre-steps & install a 3rd escalator?
Meanwhile, some of the station’s staff/ operators/control-room (as appropriate) are going to have to sharpen their various acts up before the full timetable comes in once the current works are finished. It is still common for a northbound train to come to a complete halt outside the station, because both platforms are still blocked/occupied, even at the current service frequency with one train in 3 or 4 terminating @ 7 Sisters ….
However, the staff at the top of the escalators have taken to opening the gates in the PM rush, just to avoid dangerous crowd build-ups between there & the escalator heads. You still have to “bleep out” of course, but you don’t have to slow down …. ]
Greg Tingey,
Walthamstow Central is on London Underground’s top ten hit list of stations that need, or are getting, a major upgrade (Bank, Holborn, Camden Town, Paddington (Bakerloo) …) excluding ones where the main work is underway.
This will almost certainly involve a new entrance to the shopping centre though I don’t think that has been officially decided. Of course, none of this precludes any “quick wins”.
How long before both escalators need to run in the “up” direction in the evening peak for safety reasons and passengers entering the station have to use the stairs?
I don’t necessarily think it is a ‘given’ that a third escalator can easily be fitted in any particular escalator shaft that was built with stairs up the middle, unless that was a definite future requirement in the original specification.
The existing machinery and switchgear for the two installed escalators won’t necessarily all be sited vertically underneath them, or ‘outside’ of them, because of the curvature of the shaft.
PoP/Paul
Yeah, there are those problems – though I think tha a central escalatoe would fit at WHC.
And I haven’t even mentioned the other really horribly crowded one on the Vic-line & that’s Highbury & Islington ….
I travelled on the Vic line to Tottenham Hale for the first time in a long while this week, and saw that the direct access between the Tube and NR stations is now shuttered, necessitating a detour around the outside of the station. I assume this has something to do with the installation of ticket barriers on the NR side.
Does anyone on here know why ticket barriers weren’t installed in the direct access passageway between the two? If it is to do with space/congestion considerations, couldn’t they have configured them for one-way access at peak times (depending on the prevailing passenger flow), and leave them half-and-half at all other times?
@ Anonymously – I think you have answered your own question. There is simply not enough space in the old connecting area for a gateline. If the LU control room was removed and the aperture opened out then maybe a gateline would have been feasible. The wider problem is that there are a lot of open stations on the WAML and I suspect Abellio were “forced” to gate T Hale by the DfT (can’t prove this because other people going into “outrage” mode!). The fact that AGA regularly had inspectors at the old entrance to force people to validate their Oyster Cards for onward travel or to check their paper tickets. The huge interchange to / from Stansted is also a money earner and Abellio won’t have wanted to lose money on that. I agree that the interchange is now cumbersome, awkward and very unfriendly if you have luggage but the concept of split gatelines is maintained in the proposed rebuild of the ticket hall. The only compensation is that it will all be enclosed within a new building.
@WW….I see. Didn’t know about the proposed ticket hall rebuild…when is this scheduled to be completed? As long as it is all enclosed and has plenty of gatelines for both parts of the station, I think that should be fine.
@ Anonymously – The TfL website has some info. Just ignore the road bit as that’s all finished.
https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/tottenham-hale
I thought TfL should have been on site by now but it all seems to have gone horribly quiet. I am wondering whether the STAR works are having an effect on the design of the NR part of the station and what works have to be done for the eastern side of the station. A new footbridge, lifts, escalator and stairs have to go in but they need to decide where the extra platform will be and how wide it is. Although there is some space to expand eastwards I reckon the overall site is tight – especially if there is a plan to add a fourth track. The lack of any detail about how CR2 will impact Tottenham Hale station pretty much tells me that a lot of work is being done to get some sort of half sensible approach now that doesn’t get completely smashed out of the way in 10-15 years. I’m not even sure that financial authority has been granted yet for the actual building works and that may end up being delayed until after the Mayoral Election so that’s at least another 3 months or so.
Tottenham Hale could do with a rebuild. There was no sign of anything happening there this week as I changed from the Victoria Line to the train to Cambridge.
As of yesterday evening, all the surrounding hoardings, etc had vanished from the remaining escalator @ WHC, with a simple barrier across both ends, so if not open already, I confidently expect “Normal station working” from the passenger’s p.o.v. to resume by Monday at the latest.
Which I think is well ahead of schedule.
Remind us again – when is the fully-upgraded timetable due to come in?
@ Greg – I assume therefore that works will now start to bring the new gatelines into use and to create an entrance on the Liv St platform and close off the current exit to the street. This will then allow the perimeter gates to be switched on and those at the top of the escalators to be removed in due course.
Thus reversing the work of less-than-a-year-ago, when the direct entrance/exit to the “Up” platform was sealed off….
But you are almost certainly correct.
Though I think they will need more gates on the “Down” platform than they have at present – we will see, won’t we?
Both escalators were working normally at about 5.30pm on Friday 11 March. We now await the service transformation when all peak trains terminate at Walthamstow Central.
Greg Tingey, Fandroid,
In which case it is a bit disappointing that that the service update is so out-of-date.
One would not expect the station closures update to be fully up to date but one would at least expect it to refer to mid March rather than early April. At least the current stations status mentions March 2016 but, as it is supposedly a near live update, one would not now expect there to be an entry for Walthamstow Central at all!
As I understand it the 34tph running is due to commence in May. Given the necessity of a long lead time, not so much for the timetables but more so for the rosters, it would not be practical to bring this forward. In any case, they may not yet have the necessary complement of fully trained drivers.
I believe it is all northbound trains will terminate at Walthamstow Central (except for those going to the depot and the odd rusty rail move/driver knowledge one to King’s Cross) – not just all peak ones.
The longer term station closures update now omits Walthamstow Central indicating that both escalators are now back in use. However, the current stations status still gives the impression that work is ongoing. How hard is it to get this consistently correct?
According to Modern Railways (April 2016) “from this month will provide 34tph across the whole length of the Line”.
There is a rather amusing first sentence in the publication introduction (Welcome page).
Both courtesy Roger Ford.
34tph ACROSS the line? How many are going along it?
……….and how many along the whole width of it?
PG & timbeau
Presumably the same number of people who are “using the whole length of the platform” and “using all the doors” & “standing behind the yellow line at all times” (even when getting on or off a train, or taking “All their personal belongings with them”
And all the other old favourites of bad English & poor comprehension that TfL/LUL inflict on us ….
Talking of which & signalling ( & peripherally Victoria Line ) & also Thameslink-related …
I trust every body has also seen R Ford’s very public “open letter” slapping Mark Carne down, for denigration of his own business &, by extension the people working in it?
A remarkable piece of work.
Right, lots of really nerdy timetable comments …
The LU timetable updates from 15th May 2016 have been published. The only one of interest with any real change is the Victoria line one [PDF file] which, as fully expected, has a train every 105 seconds between Brixton and Walthamstow Central in the peak. Off peak it is every 135 seconds – as now.
Apart from the extending the current Seven Sisters terminators to Walthamstow Central, the really big news is that, probably for the first time ever in the UK, the timetable gives times in hours, minutes and seconds. Timings are actually to the nearest 5 seconds. It makes a bit of a mockery of Network Rail still working to the nearest half minute but, to be fair, so do LU on lines with manually driven trains. It also makes a bit of a mockery of the customer information screens only showing “next train” to the nearest minute.
The timings throughout the timetable all include seconds except for last train connections and depot departure/arrival times. So, for example, we know that the off-peak running time from Brixton to Walthamstow Central is 1830 seconds and in the other direction it is 1785 seconds.
If you do a search for “tph” then you won’t find anything.. “Trains Per Hour” is only referenced in the revision list – and that is probably just a temporary thing and there are only four references. So thinking (at least on the Victoria line) has changed from “trains per hour” to the more precise “seconds between trains”.
Other really nerdy comments:
– rather delightfully, the timetable continues to be compiled by a lady called Victoria
– the timetable requires 39 trains in service (of out a total stock of 47 so still a few more trains available). The previous timetable also required 39 trains in service so it doesn’t require any more trains to run all trains to Walthamstow Central which shows how much time was spent turning back at Seven Sisters. I am led to believe more train operators are required though, due to stepping back at Walthamstow Central from early morning to late at night.
– The evening peak is stated to have a train every 105 seconds. The morning peak is every 105-135 seconds which strongly suggests the problem of getting all the trains out in the morning is quite a challenge (so probably a suggestion of half price fares before 7.30 a.m. wouldn’t go down too well with those trying to run the Victoria line).
– Not untypically for the Underground these days, the mileage operated on Saturdays (which has a train every 120 seconds at times) is more than 91% of the mileage operated daily Mondays-Fridays
I suppose a timetable using seconds must explain why some minutes seem longer or shorter ….
While installation of a middle escalator at WLT would be best move I take it space won’t allow a Greenford solution with an ascending lift providing step free access and extra capacity in up direction.
PoP………I still find the stats of the Underground incredible. I even used to present to national rail engineers and they were amazed at both the build up of the services in the morning and that 50% of the peak trains in service were still running at midnight.
What the Victoria line has achieved is truly amazing and a testament to the teamwork of ALL the players throughout the industry – even the architects of the Journey Time Metric that was so heavily criticised in the run up to the PPP. Those working on the project seven or 8 years ago were aiming for a stretch target of 33 trains per hour using 43 out of the 47 trains. All trains (or almost all) running to Walthamstow wasn’t on the plan. Once we had found out how well the system ran, and that we could achieve 30TPH with some 35 trains, the notion of shooting for 36 trains per hour was born.
Incidentally, the PPP and the JTM never specified the required TPH.
PoP & subsequent commenters ….
I look forward to the 105-second departure intervals, but I wonder if the “Platform” staff are up to it.
Not as frequently as before, but still too often, one gets held on the approch to Walthamstow C, because the previous outgoing train hasn’t left yet. Usually only 2-5 seconds at a standstill, but – & once about 2 minutes, last month.
The other problem is going to be clearing the exits. On Thursday, whilst heading towards the “Blue Posts” I had great difficulty actually reaching the next departure, as the platform-level area below the escalator was almost completely wedged with homecoming people from the previous two northbound trains.
“They” may have to think about either converting the middle staircase to an escalator, or building a second entrance [ See previous discussion ] sooner than was thought of.
Um.
100andthirty,
I, too, find this absolutely incredible given the history of the Victoria line and the struggle to run a decent 27tph service in the peak hours as recently as five or six years ago. The build up of traffic east of Seven Sisters since opening is really remarkable and now they run very nearly 27tph (actually a train every 135 seconds) end to end on a Sunday morning. I think it was about 6tph at the northern end on a Sunday when originally fully opened.
However, I am totally baffled by your comment about aiming for a stretch target of 33 trains per hour using 43 out of the 47 trains as it would appear to suggest that those running the project were incapable of doing the simplest of mathematics one would hope an 11 year-old could do with the aid of a calculator app. A simple bit of thinking would show that this was either nonsense or that those working on the project expected dwell times to be huge or that they totally failed to appreciate how modern traction and a beefed up power supply could speed things up.
Imagine on Sunday 15th of May you are standing at any intermediate station platform on the Victoria line at around midday. There are 30 trains in service (the timetable tells us that on page 4). The trains are running 135 seconds apart (page 3). You remain on the platform and count the trains going past. Thirty trains later the train that comes along must be the train that you first saw. So this train takes 30 x 135 = 4050 seconds to do a round trip.
You can do the very same basic mathematics at the start of the morning peak period on Monday 16th May. There are 39 trains in service and they are 105 seconds apart. So a round trip takes 39 x 105 = 4095 seconds.
If they were intending to run 33tph (a train every 110 seconds roughly) then 37 trains would almost certainly suffice (37 x 110 = 4070). At worst you should need 38 trains in service.
For those that like this sort of stuff, you can immediately see that running a 100 seconds between trains (36tph) requires 41 trains to give a round trip time of 4100 seconds.
In fact, as far as number of train goes, they have sufficient to run a 95 second service (38tph) with 43 trains (4085 seconds round trip) which would require a train availability of slightly under 91.5% – not really stretching it by modern day standards.
PoP You are right, but you have to remember you have the advantage of a) observing what is actually happening and b) looking back on what happened. My comment related to the forward look from the days when PPP was a little fraught and the signalling system was still being designed and therefore couldn’t forecast that all our “goals would be scored”. In the intervening years since the “33TPH stretch target”, everyone started working together. In the early days, everyone included a performance margin as there were serious penalties for failure to deliver the JT Capability demanded. What wasn’t quite so obvious to everyone was that the target figure also had a margin in it – including for dwells – the point you made. When the components of the system started to come together, engineers and operators started to see some tweaks that might unlock capacity and once the signalling system was proven, then all you reported became possible. These tweaks included the operational processes to manage dwells and the terminals, the facility to control coasting automatically, and a great deal more work on the power system than had been envisaged at the beginning.
What is also fascinating is that the numbers you quote don’t require the trains to run flat out. During normal operation and when stations stops are more or less on target, trains accelerate up to speed, then coast to the braking point for the next station. If a train is impeded, or departs a few seconds late, then coasting can be cut out to allow it to catch up. Clearly this doesn’t work for more than a few seconds delay! The objective is to get that regular 100 or 105 second heartbeat, which should allow trains to get into the terminals with minimal impediment. Moreover, if trains present regularly at stations this gives the station staff and train operators their best opportunity to minimise the variation in dwell time which is an issue on all metro lines.
100andthirty,
Thanks for the insight. The biggest problem now appears to be the depot as it appears that they can’t get the trains out (and in) fast enough. So roll on resignalling it in a few years time.
Back to an earlier comment and having half the trains in service at midnight isn’t as great as it sounds. Most are already heading back to the depot. The southbound service at Victoria then is approximately every 5 minutes (300 seconds). On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights you really need something better.
One of the little stated advantages of the night tube is that you can have a decent service at around midnight because you no longer need to get all the trains back to the depot or allocated sidings by approximately 1 a.m.
PoP. I have specifically asked the question re the depot and am informed that the problem is “cracked”.
Resignalling in a few years time? That’s a new notion on me – it’s only about 5 years old!
100andthirty. Well according to the Northern line upgrade 2 briefing paper paragraph 4.10 Depot signalling is being progressed as part of a combined package with Northumberland Park depot to realise economies of scale.
As I understand it, they need to do this before they can run a decent a.m. peak service for the entire peak. It is not due to be implemented until 2018 because the depot won’t be resignalled until then. This is why VLU2 is not due for completion until 2018 even though they will be running a train every 100 seconds (36tph) during the some of the morning peak from later this year.
@ PoP – interesting to see the new timetable and frequent service. The variable dwell times inserted at various places looks to be a key feature to stablilise the service away from the termini and to cater for demand variations. As you might expect I’ve checked to see if I’d have benefitted from an improvement if I was still commuting at my old travel times. Unfortunately my AM journey would see no benefit precisely because of the “get trains out of the depot” syndrome. Boarding north of Seven Sisters prior to about 0700 sees no gain and I used to travel just before then. The headway hasn’t changed at the time of day for a long while precisely for the reasons you cite. Obviously the rest of the time the service headway is very impressive indeed and it will be interesting to see how achieveable it is in practice. I doubt I will be forcing myself into the AM peak melée just to find out though. 😉
Oh and in the early 1980s the Sunday headway to Walthamstow was every 12 mins with just a 4 min headway between KX and Victoria. Trains used to regularly turn at Kings Cross and Victoria as well as Seven Sisters and the line termini.
PoP…When they told me they’d “cracked it”, it must have meant that they know what to do even if they haven’t done it yet.
It’s interesting that there are economies of scale between the Northern and Victoria lines given that the depots are different and so are the ATO/ATP systems.
@CXXX
Is what is really meant is that there is a key resource dependency between the two dissimilar schemes, and they have been bundled together to time-manage that resource?
Surely the requirements of a depot signalling system are completely different to the main line? I would have thought an entirely different system would be installed.
In a depot you only need, indeed only want, low speed. You probably want various kinds of personnel protection (e.g. “Not to be moved”) built into the system. I suspect a modern system would have the ability to call up and park a train (without a driver present) – even if the facility was not initially used.
I see no reason why the same system could not be installed at two depots on different lines with different signalling on the main line.
Neasden depot was resignalled by Thales at a time when Metronet were favouring Westinghouse for running lines resignalling: http://www.railwaystrategies.co.uk/article-page.php?contentid=5214&issueid=200
A big complication in depots is the density of points. Some train detection solutions are not terribly reliable/operations friendly in this scenario.
The slow speeds, and trains of different lengths (and axle spacing with the engineering fleet) stopping in all sorts of places further complicates things. Magnetic position detectors sometimes don’t deal terribly well with train wheels stopping on them and a slight ‘rocking’ as the train comes to a complete stop/status moving. Very unlikely on the running line – a regular occurrence in the depot.
I understand Neasden was a huge headache in this regard.
Conventional track circuits could (if you believe everything you hear) have made some of the trouble less problematic. But I haven’t heard/can’t recall the original reasoning for not using track circuits in this scenario. Everything in engineering is is a trade off – there would be downsides for sure.
In short: signalling a depot is a completely different beast to the running line.
Trying to interpret rolling stock electronic systems log files or design some train systems logic flow is (irrelevant here) but also far more complicated as staff do a lot more unexpected things in depots than on the line! (But also for good operational reasons)
I find the variable (as between stations) dwell times interesting & also a sensible use of planning resources.
There are three, possibly four stations ( at present) on the V-line where you really need a longer “Doors Open” period – those where the visitors / tourists / vast crowds appear, &people not used to major-city metro systems will screw it up, if you aren’t careful.
King’s Cross-St P / Victoria / Oxford Circus & possibly Green Park. I think Euston will get added to that list once HS2 is open – oddly enough it doesn’t seem as bad as the others, at present,
PoP and Londoner. The issue with the depots is that they are all different and (because of the points) quite intense in terms of signalling kit/unit length. Northumberland Park Depot has a form of signalling dating from when the line was new, whereas, I believe, Golders Green still has at least some hand worked points.
The signalling/ATO systems on the main line sections always impact on the depots as there has to be a transition between one and the other which on LU is always done with the train stationary – if only because the train operator has to throw a switch which can’t be reached from the driving position. Then on entry to the ATO sections the system goes though some self checking. The location of this changeover location (always within the depot) impacts on the detailed design of the depot signalling depending on how far into the depot this changeover location (or locations) are positioned.
Re 130,
That sounds much more like what I’d expect to be causing the issues.
I suspect altering the depot track to have 2 exit and 2 entry roads (or equivalent in the peak flow direction) to allow the swap over between systems to take place would be part of the solution as would removing a few other pinch points in the depots (not at Northumberland Park as it doesn’t have the Northern depot legacy issues) too?
I assume all the track between Northumberland park and Seven sisters is bidirectionally signalled so you could have trains entering into service Northbound at P4 and Southbound via P5 simultaneously? (If not that would be very near the top of my list!)
ngh – I think you’re spot on!
@Londoner
Yes, axle counters have a peculiar reliability problem if a wheel stops right above a sensor then moves partly or wholly away in the other direction, a phenomenon known as ‘wheel rock’. Sometimes the section that axle nearly entered doesn’t resolve a count out after a count in and remains falsely occupied. That’s a failsafe response, but inconvenient for operations normally requiring a ‘sweep train’ to run through under caution to reset the section. In the west Midlands NR are proposing to equip the complex Birmingham New Street layout with axle counters nevertheless under resignalling. To overcome the wheel rock problem a new technique (for the UK) is to be applied using additional supervisory detection sections. In a siding or platform divided into three train detection section A, B and C, there would be an additional logical supervisory section A-C monitoring the overall count such that, if there is a disturbance at one of the intermediate sensors leaving one of the short sections falsely occupied, the longer supervisory section going clear will perform an automatic reset on the shorter section. See this article:
http://www.railengineer.uk/2015/11/24/west-midlands-resignalling/
The fairly recent Nottingham resignalling took a slightly different approach with axle counters being employed throughout the scheme except in the long platforms at Nottingham station, which are split into several sections separately indicated on control screens so signallers can accurately judge the space available when admitting subsequent trains into an already occupied line. With axle counters in such an application, wheel rock would clearly be a risk, as at Birmingham, but with the supervisory section solution unavailable at the time Nottingham chose to use traditional track circuits along the platform lines alone to eliminate that particular performance risk.
Thameslink has also chosen to use track circuits in the core tunnels. Many of the new ETCS block sections will be shorter than a 12 car train, so if axle counters were used there’d be a fairly high probability of wheels regularly stopping directly over a sensor with a risk of wheel rock miscount say if the train then rolled back a little on releasing the brakes after a brief stop. In such a important high capacity location the delays resulting from having to run sweep trains under caution to reset train detection would be unacceptable.
ngh,
I assume all the track between Northumberland Park and Seven Sisters is bidirectionally signalled
Done in 2012. I am fairly certain it was done in July having been delayed a couple of months. I am fairly sure it was the last big resignalling item. As far as I can see there are still only two very early morning trains that start northward to Walthamstow Central having come from the depot and reversed at Seven Sisters platform 4. I suspect the overlay necessary prevents trains using platform 3 when entering platform 4 from the depot – not a problem for the first train of the day! Basically, I suspect the frequency of trains that can be supported by the link from the depot to Seven Sisters on one line exceeds their current ability to “line them up” at the depot.
I am also fairly sure that practically everything that sensibly can be done on the main line (all but the above ground depot bit) has been done. The only thing left to do is a fit-for-purpose depot resignalling.
I don’t really share 100andthirty’s concern over changing from one signalling system to another. This used to invoke fear and concern but the people involved seem far more relaxed about it nowadays with planned to happen, sometimes on the move, multiple times on both Thameslink and Crossrail.
@PoP – I think that what 100andthirty is saying is that, at Northumberland Park depot, the changeover is between basically a ‘manual’ system throughout the depot area under the control of the signal box overlooking the site and the ATO system near the tunnel mouth/throat of the depot complex. That is not the same as switching between modes in service as e.g. per the Thameslink routes to come.
Indeed, is the transition now located there because I recall that the maximum speed between Seven Sisters and the depot was, under the original ATO system, limited to 25mph in the tunnels and the drivers drove the trains themselves between the depot and Seven Sisters?
One must remember that the depot area is host to a mass of shunting movements, not just in and out to and from the running lines but also when bits of or complete trains are hauled/driven to and from the workshops at the depot and transferred to different running sheds for various reasons.
Crayon bit: add a new bit of tunnelling to connect the depot tracks to connect northbound towards Walthamstow avoiding Seven Sisters. ngh beat me to the point about bidirectional tracks between depot and Seven Sisters.
If we’re getting our crayons out:
I’d finish the Victoria line out to the Central line and add a depot with a triangular junction at Grange Hill on a greenfield site.
But perhaps we’re not.
GF
IIRC, the ATO ended as soon as one had passed the crossover at the bottom of the “ramp” from 7 Sisters up to the depot & there was an illuminated sign to that effect, which meant manual driving only, which limited your speed to (?) 15mph (?).
It’s a very long tome since I went that way, up to the depot, &, of course, it will all have been re-arranged, now, as PoP says.
Just to confirm.
Yes, drivers did used to drive manually from Seven Sisters all the way to the depot and vice versa but now the ramp is now part of the ATO system. Since 2012, as stated, the train comes to a halt at the top of the ramp to switch from ATO mode to depot mode or vice versa – if I remember correctly from a couple of visits two or three years ago. This did not appear to be seamless and for trains leaving the depot it appeared to require the train to have arrived at the top of the ramp a minute or so before departure.
This apparent delay of waiting at the top of the ramp – preventing the next train following on shortly behind – is what I believe is holding things up.
ngh and Graham Feakins,
I really can’t see the point of an extra northbound tunnel from the depot. If that is beneficial then surely this could be achieved much easier by adding a very short dead end tunnel (if necessary) south of platform 4 so that they can install trap points so trains can reach platform 4 from the depot without affecting trains in service. They simply then depart from plaform 4 at Seven Sisters to Walthamstow. You could even close platform 4 to the general public – or selectively close it – and have auto-reverse implemented. Far, simpler , cheaper and less disruptive than an additional tunnel.
Re PoP
“This apparent delay of waiting at the top of the ramp – preventing the next train following on shortly behind – is what I believe is holding things up.”
I think we all agree on that!
With the train stationary for circa 1 minute it will be the issues with reoccupation time on that section of track given the speeds involved.
My point was that
“I suspect altering the depot track to have 2 exit and 2 entry roads (or equivalent in the peak flow direction) to allow the swap over between systems to take place would be part of the solution”
eliminates the problem but with a total of 2 entry / exit roads at the moment you would want to go to 3 so in the am you could have 2 exit swap over roads and still maintain an entry road if a unit needs to come out of service unexpectedly without effecting the entry into service of others.
One alternative way of achieving this with minimal spend would be P4 turnback…
It will take circa 50 minutes for a train leaving Seven Sisters southbound to return to Seven Sisters, (barring the out-stabled starters) that gives you a good window to use P4 northbound so might the sensible option be to use auto turnback with P4 closed to passengers during the entry into service window? If the approach speed into P4 from the depot was limited to 5mph would the overlap be sufficient give the points are some way beyond the station to not cause issues. Even if 25% of depot starting trains went out this way it would probably solve most of the issues.
Lots of Northern depots /sidings require a turnback at some point for entry into service sometimes combined with signalling swap over hence my thinking on some similarities between Vic and Northern issues and them being bundled together.
(No tunnelling suggested at all)
All who commented on my posts………..
I expressed two points: 1) that the solutions for the NL depot and Northumberland Park resignalling are unlikely to be the same. The only economy of scale is probably the reduced overhead of one supplier. However, for the interface with the main line signalling systems (Thales and Siemens Automation respectively), both suppliers must be involved at the interface between the main line and depot systems as they hold the IPR for their systems which are “black boxes”.
the other point 2) was that both systems require the trains to be stationary for the changover from depot to main line (or vv) to take place. This is how they work and are features of both the trains and the signalling systems. I am aware of the plans for Crossrail and Thameslink, but the Victoria and Northern Line systems aren’t there.
Finally, as far as I know there is no plan for auto turn-back on the Victoria Line – but I could be out of date!
100andthirty,
I know of no plan for auto turn-back on the Victoria line either. I am just suggesting, if implemented, it could help. Whether it would be worth doing is not something I am capable of intelligently commenting on (and I don’t have the necessary background information anyway).
With getting trains out of the depot in the morning you have the additional constraint of those needing to go into the depot at the same time. Due to it’s relatively awkward location from an access point of view, Northumberland Park depot is one of the few (the only ?) LU depots that has timetabled staff trains to get those taking trains out of the depot in there in the first place !
Re PoP & 130,
My suggestion for 25% of trains leaving the depot using P4 at 7 Sisters with reversal wouldn’t need auto turnback but any more than that probably would…
Update:
It is getting very noticeable the surge in ridership at the Walthamstow end, after a 7-Sisters hiatus train.
I think next Monday’s change to “all-Walthamstow” is going to be needed to smooth the flow – I mean full_&-standing to Blackhorse Rd from an 20.10 departure from “the cross”?
Secondly, the slow reversion/rebuilding at Walthamstow C proceeds.
The old foot tunnel used to come out on to the “up” platform, until a new external exit was put in & the original one bricked up, about 18 moths back, prior to the, very fortunately aborted attempt to completely segregate internal passenger flows into dangerously restricted volumes.
Now, less than 18 months after construction, the original “hole” is now open again, though temporarily behind hoardings. They are obviously going to switch to a “complete-enclosed station” with barriers on all the exits, but internal free-flow, probably with a removal of the head-of-escalator ticket gates.
A very sensible idea, if so.
Watch this space (in more ways than one !)
@ Greg – I noticed a week or so ago that a new “Bostwick” sliding gate had been installed on the Liv St platform albeit against a “solid” brick wall. Seems they’ve now taken the bricks away. As you say reverting back to how things were before.
Greg Tingey 12 May 2016 at 23:19
“They are obviously going to switch to a “complete-enclosed station” with barriers on all the exits, but internal free-flow, probably with a removal of the head-of-escalator ticket gates.”
If I understand you correctly, that will be very inconvenient for pedestrians from the new footpath link who are heading for the bus station. It used to be possible for pedestrians to pass under the Chingford line tracks without passing through barriers.
@ Alan G – correct. The walk through route will go. However it is worth saying that there’s no train service in a few weeks time and the bridge at Queens Rd station is being sealed off so the walking route will not be subject to much use in the short term. Once we get to February 2017 then yes it will be a pain in the posterior.
This really a Goblin comment, but the last notice I saw on the line ( last week) suggested an imminent end to weekend services, but complete closure will not happen until September. That notice was a Gospel Oak, so Walthamstow Queens Road might be singled out for more drastic action.
@Fandroid
“Walthamstow Queens Road might be singled out for more drastic action.”
Indeed it will be more drastic there, although WQR isn’t particularly singled out; the whole line east of South Tottenham will be closed from June 4th, but west of there will remain open until September
https://tfl.gov.uk/status-updates/major-works-and-events/london-overground-closure#on-this-page-0
@ Fandroid – yes weekend services have ceased except at Bank Hols when we get a Sat service because NR can close on Sunday and Monday. East end of the route closes in early June until Feb 2017. The track is going to be lowered at Queens Rd hence the need to shut off the station. Personally I think this is a bit of an own goal as the link across the station is very convenient. I dare say there are good reasons for the closure.
WW
If you have an Oyster or similar, perhaps not – “bleep in” at one end of passage, “bleep out” at the other – no fare charged.
( Correct ? )
The track is going to be lowered at Queens Rd hence the need to shut off the station. Err… does this mean that the refurbished platforms are going to have to be lowered, or not? They will have to be re-surfaced along a greater part of their length, anyway for the longer trains when they eventually arrive.
BTW – any progress, anywhere on stopgap longer units (diesel or electric) after Feb ’17 re-opening?
@ Greg – if you have a concessionary pass of some sort or a Travelcard valid in Zone 3 then yes a click in and out is possible. If you do “in” then “out” in short succession on PAYG then you are very likely to be charged.
from the TfL website
Same station exits
A same station exit is recorded when you touch your Oyster card on a yellow reader when you enter a station, but then touch out to exit at the same station within a set time. This can happen when you change your journey plan, for example, because of service disruption. If you touch in and out at the same station without making a journey, the following charges apply:
Between 0 and 2 minutes: a maximum pay as you go fare of up to £8.80. If, having touched in and out within two minutes, you then re-enter the same or a different station within 45 minutes, the maximum pay as you go fare will be refunded and a new journey started. This does not apply if you touched out on a yellow card reader that is not on a ticket gate or take a bus or tram before re-entering
Between 2 and 30 minutes: the minimum pay as you go fare from that station
More than 30 minutes: the system will assume that two separate journeys have been made. However, they will both be incomplete, so you will be charged two maximum pay as you go fares of up to £8.80
We apply these charges to discourage fare evasion.
I expect all platforms will be receiving some level of attention during the GOBLIN works. No idea about specifics at Queens Road.
As you know TfL have steadfastly refused to entertain the interim use of extra / longer trains on the GOBLIN. From what I’ve gleaned from a variety of comments it seems the wires may not be switched on come Feb 2017. There are references to more weekend closures and early finishes until at least June 2017 in order to finish all the work. The longer it takes for electric running to be possible then the shorter the time period for any interim arrangement to “pay back” before the new EMUs arrive and can start work.
The only unknown in all of this is the attitude of the new Mayor and whoever is appointed as Deputy Mayor for Transport. I will not be shocked if a lot of pressure is applied to the Mayor to “do something” by people in the Labour party including Mr Corbyn who has a long record of supporting improvements to the GOBLIN. While I completely understand why there will be pressure / criticism when the Class 172s start running again after the blockade I genuinely doubt there is a cheap or “value for money” way to secure short term improvement. It’s clear there are no guarantees class 315s will be available or that they could run on the route.
WW
D-trains ?????
@ Greg – all the same issues apply. Stock training, maintenance, clearances, performance, reliability, stabling space, expense vs benefit. I think you’re a bit of a “D train” fan whereas I am sceptical they’ll ever turn a wheel in day to day service anywhere on the NR network. I know that probably ranks as heresy but I’ve never been convinced despite the pedigree of people behind the project. I just think politics (both railway industry and Westminster varities) will stop it happening.
If the new class 710s can be got into service fairly speedily or even just on one or two critical diagrams covering the worst of the peak then we are talking about less than a year of potential gain from running any alternative stock on the GOBLIN. As I said before I can’t see anyone providing a short term stock lease that is affordable nor why a lot of time and money should be expended for barely a year’s benefit.
Re Greg and WW,
I think there are lots of potential logistical issues of getting extra stock on the goblin before the 710s:
Where would the extra stock be maintained?
For example Ilford with 315 / 317 / 321 experience (which is most of what will be coming of lease in the time frame) is getting rebuilt and they will be busy trying to start introducing 345s etc. as well…
Willesden is at the limit and will be busy with dealing with 710 introduction.
Nowhere sensible with experience maintaining 319s that will also be coming off lease.
Not all the civils works will be completed before the end of the blockade.
The need to keep rail access open for logistics reasons such as spoil trains for some of track lowering means that some of the bridge replacement will take place in weekend closures after the blockades (also you can’t close all the road access in an area at the same time as NR had to rediscover in Wiltshire etc.). Therefore 5 days a week vs 7 for payback on short term leased stock really undermines the business case. There will be weekend closures for bridge deck replacement etc even into in 2018.
(remember the freight needs, the works aren’t just about electrification but higher line speeds for freight too and the need to divert some freight from the GEML pre-crossrail being full open)
@ Ngh – thanks for those comments. We’ve done the train maintenance issue before and I did mention it briefly. I knew bridge replacement was planned as it’s in the scope plus someone mentioned (on another forum I think) the blocking of the Lea Navigation while the large bridges there are done. What I didn’t appreciate was that civils works stretch right into 2018. Although I hadn’t mentioned freight specifically I was aware of the need to get more freight moved onto the GOBLIN permanently. IThe need for some rail access during the works makes obvious sense. Let’s hope that at the end of all of this the line can be left alone for a while!
Is it still the case that the wiring of the connections to the ECML and MML is scheduled for later or has it been rolled up into the main programme of works? [it was shown as two distinct phases in NR’s CP5 enhancements plan ]
Announcements, for over three weeks now about “Upgrade work will soon finish” & statement about gates being activated, but nothing visible on the surface station – I’m assuming that an extra pair or three of gates will be installed in the outside hole to the tunnel. But no sign, yet.
Meanwhile, I encountered an interesting anomaly.
As I drew level with the platform-entrances beyond the foot of the escalators, the doors of one train shut, I immediately looked at the digital-clock display which said:
Hour, 3min 2 seconds, [ I was going to time the departure-interval from the clocks] except that, about 3 seconds later, the platform digital display said:
Hour, 1 min 17 seconds (which was not only completely wrong, but disagreeing with a n other LT clock all of 20 metres away).
Has anyone else noticed these, err, little differences?
@ Greg – I don’t believe there will be any more gates installed. When the switchover happens the “hole in the wall” will simply be closed off using the bostwick gate that is in place. People will be directed through the ticket hall. The “hole” will no doubt be retained as it eases engineering access if they ever need to bring bulky items into the station that can’t be got through a gateline. Any gates installed there would protrude out of the building requiring a shelter or canopy and I’m sceptical they’d get planning permission for that so why bother?
Haven’t noticed the clocks but having made a return trip to Kingston (Timbeau land) the other day I was completely gobsmacked at the speed of the journey. I was very, very lucky with connections but I did my front door to stepping out of Kingston stn in 70 mins. The bus came promptly, I stepped directly into a Vic Line train and then just managed to do the connection at Vauxhall in 3 mins into a Shepperton train. Given I’m not exactly fit I surprised myself at such a short connection time given the distance involved. On the return I re-entered at Wimbledon, up to Vauxhall then reverse to WWCS and off to the supermarket. 1 hour from Wimbledon to the Billet Sainsburys. Again the connections were pretty much flawless and I’m sure the Vic Line’s high frequency timetable with fast running times is a major part of that. Takes a lot to impress me these days but they were two very good journeys indeed. I think Crossrail 2 would be doing well to better those times.
As a tiny diversion it was interesting to be stuck behind a young couple grousing and moaning about missing their train as we slogged up the stairs at Vauxhall NR. I could tell the passengers coming down the stairs had got off a train *to* Waterloo and the couple were going “oh god, we’ve missed it, bloody useless”. When they reached the top of the stairs they were trying to open the train doors and cursing even more. I then deftly said “that’s a train *to* Waterloo”. If you want the train to Wimbledon (I think they, like others, were bound for tennis viewing) then it’s this train over here on P8. “oh oh is it really? where does it say that?” Just goes to show what happens with unfamiliar passengers who don’t look at the signs. I’m not entirely sure they appreciated being told they hadn’t missed their train. 😉
You were lucky to make that three minute connection for the Kingston train. If you hadn’t, you’d have been waiting 15 minutes (at least – I’ve had three cancellations this week, resulting in even longer waits)
However, as the couple you assisted will have discovered, the frequency on the “core”, as far as Wimbledon and raynes Park, is almost up to Tube standards.
Yesterday, either coincidentally or deliberately in time for the Night Tube, the new outer gatelines at Walthamstow Central were in use. With the old gateline at the top of the escalators still there but open, it made my usual counter evening peak entry a little bit tricky as the exiting hordes now use all gates, not just those showing a green light.
…And (IMHO) the new outer gatelines don’t have enough “slots”
Real crush when a PM peak Chingford pulls in …
[ And the gatelines were activated on Monday ( 16th August ) for the record. ]
Correction – Monday 15th August, oops.
Update on a few niggles, & showing why some people are often disenchanted with TfL/LUL ( Paging WW … )
The three digital clocks at platform-level at Walthamstow Central still can’t agree with each other, at all – thus giving rise to “trust” issues concerning messages.
Coupled with two empty low-level platforms – displays showing first train out of N platform … train pulls into S platform, one pulls into N platform, S train immediately departs – trust in messages – again.
[Snip!]
The point of all this is a bit like Diamond Gezzers’ posts on “Bus Stop M” … trust in public communications & that TfL actually have an idea of what they are doing, which may or may not be true.
Oh Greg,
What is the point of having three digital clocks if they all tell the same time?
PoP
The 3 digital clocks are not visible from each other ….
One on each platform, one on the low-level mini-concourse.
Being digital clocks, of course they SHOULD be telling the “right” time & at least two of them are not.
Greg: How sad, given Pedantic’s wonderful reply, which could have come from the master himself (though I cannot find it in Thief of Time).
But prosaically, yes it is a bit unsatisfactory.
If the three clocks are not visible from each other, how do you know what either of the other two are doing when you are looking at one of them?
Or perhaps you have inadvertently discovered a wormhole on the Victoria Line. Have you read “A Subway called Mobius”?
timbeau: what you need for this problem is a travelling clock. However incredible it may seem, one day someone will invent one which is small enough to carry about, and even take on escalators. Perhaps some sort of spring arrangement could replace the pendulum?
Alternatively, it is possible that even if you cannot see from one clock to another, there is some central point (perhaps dangling from the roof – obviously having put down your long-case clock first) from which all the clocks are visible.
The cure for Greg’s anxt is to go into modern-day Victoria Line mind-mode. Ie. ‘I won’t run for the train. There’s another one right behind it’. I realised that I had entered this perfect realm yesterday when a quick run would have got me onto the southbound train at Kings Cross, but a stroll would allow me to walk along the platform to get into position for my exit at Green Park. Then the next train arrived.
@ Fandroid – precisely. We are very lucky to have an upgraded line with trains every 2 minutes almost all day, every day (Night Tube excepted). There is no point running for trains or having anxiety attacks about clocks not being precisely co-ordinated. The line is also very reliable so there’s barely any need to check status or destination info. There are plenty of other things that can exercise my “TfL angst”. 😉
In fairness to Greg, he did make it clear that what bothered him about the misaligned clocks was not anything to do with catching a train, just the feeling that if the passenger information suppliers cannot even get that right at that particular station, then how much trust can be put in the rest of the information displayed (at that station or elsewhere)?
Most of you (Apart from Pedantic, who was joking) have missed the point.
The “time-to-next-train” is usually irrelevant on the Vic line.
The matter is one of working technology ( Centrally-driven accurate clocks are over a century old ) & trust, as Malcolm says.
If a simple telling of the time can’t be trusted, why should anyone believe anything else, at all, that TfL/LUL says?
@ Greg – there are multiple systems on LU that include / drive clock displays. They are not all linked back to one central point – I should know I had to deal with “clock faults” for years. To be honest I really don’t see that clocks being a minute or so different is indicative of any sort of “trust” issue. It implies precisely nothing about the competence of staff, the safety of the railway or anything else. You might as well say individuals can’t be trusted because the times on their wristwatches, smartphones, tablets whatever are not all perfectly co-ordinated.
timbeau 8 September 2016 at 16:37
“If the three clocks are not visible from each other, how do you know what either of the other two are doing when you are looking at one of them?”
Excellent point, Dr Heisenberg.
“You might as well say individuals can’t be trusted because the times on their wristwatches, smartphones, tablets whatever are not all perfectly co-ordinated.”
Except they are coordinated. My desktop PC’s clock is controlled by some master clock on the internet; my Android phone’s clock is controlled by a master clock in the network operator’s system; and my watch is controlled by the NPL’s clock that used to be in Rugby but is now somewhere else. They all keep Universal Time, regulated to within a fraction of a second.
@Alan Griffiths – as we know from Mgr Ronald Knox, God is looking at the other two even when you are not…
@ Alan BG – ( sigh ) yes your’s may well be. Not everyone’s. The whole debate is pointless. The ability to set a clock is no way to judge the efficacy of a transport organisation. I have 5 different things with a time display in my living room. They are broadly in sync but not precisely co-ordinated. Does this mean I am not to be trusted? Is that a remotely rational way to make an assessment? No it isn’t. Look, Greg just loves “having a pop” at LU and TfL because what they do doesn’t align precisely with his expectations. He’s entitled to comment but let’s not take it any further than that. End of debate surely? (please!)
@Alan B-G: point of information. I believe the NPL clock is at Teddington; I have used it in combination with the New Network Time Protocol (NNTP) to set the clock on a Windows XP machine at home with an Internet connection. Network time servers are increasingly important as they have a function in providing security. & I’ll stop there – as we all should! (Thx for the reminder, Malcolm)
O perhaps I can add that the “right time” is also important for automated train control.
Just to add that even the “pips” on radio 4 can’t be relied on now – try playing a digital and analogue radio next to each other and the buffering in the former can introduce a delay of a second or so.
WW
There was the occasion when TfL appeared to have developed time-travel, though.
Obviously caused by a temporary snark inside their display software ….
And, I would refer y’all back to Diamond Geezer’s saga of “bus stop M” for how local mismanagement &/or lack of oversight can cause confusion & disarray, too.
[And that’s definitely enough about clocks for now. We will also, please, not discuss “bus stop M”, because what it implies (or not) is amply covered in the Diamond Geezer posts and comments there. Malcolm]
@ Greg – “whatever”. Completely different things and none of them are indicative of an organisation that is “not to be trusted”. Let’s take it as read as to what your opinion of TfL is and just leave it there. We *really* don’t need to be constantly reminded.
Re WW,
If Greg’s clock metric is used then LR can’t be trusted 😉 as the server clock runs a minute or 2 fast and I end up posting in the future according to a GPS time source!!!
@ Ngh – agreed – posts often appear on LR “in the future” by 1-2 minutes relative to the time on my laptop. I have never fiddled with the time on my laptop so I assume it aligns itself with some official clock somewhere.
Back in the late 1980s Euston Station had Inter-City time and Network South East time, and both were visible from certain locations. Only 20 or so seconds out. This was back in the days when the Network South East clock was hours, second, minutes with mechanical movement. Always fun on the hour, and even more fun at 10:00 and 20:00 when all six “screens” moved.
@Anonymous – let me start the rumour that NSE time was broadcast from Chris Green’s desk to all locations and that was therefore the official time. The clock was next allegedly to the actual screen that showed the latest TRUST position for all the system – and which was the source of minor (but seriously meant) bollocking for the TOC MDs as they attended meetings – “That’s a lot of red you have this morning, Euan”…
And here was me thinking that the adoption of London time across the railway was decreed by Brunel in 1837. Although that decree was adopted immediately by Bristol, it has nearly 180 years later and Walthamstow still does its own thing.
And, talking of Walthamstow Central rather than the philosophy of organisational trustworthiness, the old ticket gates have gone. So can we regard that as the final piece in the upgrading of that end of the Victoria Line?
@ Fandroid – not really. There is still work to do to achieve 36 tph I think. We also know that rebuilding of Tottenham Hale is imminent (or has started – I saw some test drills being done recently in the area where the new building will be). Finally, at some point, capacity expansion at Walthamstow Central is also planned. I suspect we will have to wait for the new Business Plan later this year to see what timescale TfL are considering given we are now nearing the end of works at TCR and Bond St and Victoria only has a year or so to go. First bit of Victoria should open in a few months. Obviously Holborn and Camden Town are the major priorities that we know of – I think funding papers are on the forward plan for the TfL Board (checked – papers due in about 6-9 months). With large schemes winding down there is a need to avoid a loss of momentum given you have experienced people who’ve managed large scale stn works for many years whose skills should be redeployed ASAP.
Never mind time, my local SWT station is quite capable of losing track of entire trains, even when they are standing in the station concerned. Yesterday and today, shortly after 9am, the departures screen on platform 3 showed a train was expected (not scheduled) to arrive at 0807 – yes, over an hour previously. The screens were also showing a train was expected on platform 2 at 0910. All the time, the rolling stock that formed both those services was sitting in, and would eventually depart from, platform 1.
As Greg says, if they can’t get the basic details like that right, it does not inspire confidence in the attention to detail needed to run the operation as a whole.
timbeau
Thank you – you have spotted why I get so wound up at times.
The overall “generalship” of both TfL & LUL seems excellent, their forward-planning & long-term thinking are or appear to be well ahead of the game.
Yet, when it comes to small practical everyday details, which operate & mesh together to make the day-to-day services work, far too often the whole thing, if not breaking down completely, certainly falters & stumbles far too often.
[ As in 4 successive up Chingford-line AM peak trains yesterday all being 4-car & not 8’s – the crush was impressive, with passengers left behind ]
More of the Sons of Martha are required, methinks.
@ Timbeau / Greg – clocks being slightly out of kilter at a station with a tube every 2 mins all the time is not comparable with a complete cock up of platform information provision nor the worse case of multiple short formation trains. They are not of equal standing in my view and I bet the contracts and performance regimes for the differing assets are vastly different with different consequences for the operators. That will reflect the genuinely different levels of disruption and inconvenience for passengers. If you equate everything as being of equal importance you either overspend on low priority assets or, far worse, you weaken the approach to really serious disruptions. If would, of course, be lovely to have the perfect railway but I doubt any of us could afford the fares or the tax / council tax levels required for it.
@WW “cock up of platform information provision nor the worse case of multiple short formation trains”
Whether short formations are worse than incorrect information or not depends on the circumstances. A short formation in the off peak is of little consequence. Incorrect platform information is as bad, from a passenger perspective, as a cancellation – if it causes the passenger to miss the train.