• Google’s Tube Station Reviews (London Rail)
• Blackpool’s Heritage Trams suspended as ‘increasingly difficult’ to operate (Rail Advent)
• The future of long distance train services through the Channel Tunnel (Jon Worth)
• China Is Building 30,000 Miles of High-Speed Rail—That It Might Not Need (Wall Street Journal)
• New Year’s Eve US Special Train Rides Yule Remember (Trains)
• Blinded by the Light: Inside the War Against Headlight Brightness (The Ringer)
• New Rail & Heritage Loop Walking Trail (Footways London)
• 1963: Tribute to Closed Railway Stations: Video (BBC Archive)
- Industry News – updated every business day
- Webinars and Online Conferences
The future of long-distance “Tunnel” services …
The one thing, as far as I can see, which is not mentioned, is the real problem with any such services.
Expressed in one word – & I will say no more than that one word: “Politics”
Headlight brightness wars
I know this is a US article, but as a UK cyclist (As well as a car-driver) they have a point – I’ve been almost-blinded, more than once, after dark & it isn’t funny.
Re the 1963 BBC Tribute to Closed Railway Stations Video:
Love the fact they also included the County Donegal Railways (CDRJC) as one of the many lines proposed for closure under Beeching! Its what’s known as forward thinking!
@GregT the report is one of the better surveys I have seen. My take is that the Eurostar owners will be significant partners in any future operations.
My understanding is that an international departure is or could be a domestic arrival after the tunnel. Also there is no impetus for border controls beyond the London Paris Amsterdam orbit.
There is a case for a charter style pop-up like the weekly Bourg St Maurice ski train. Effectively one shift doing their weekly hours over a weekend.
My issue is with his detraining conclusions. There is no delay to the passengers. They have to clear controls somewhere, may as well be somewhere efficient. Similar to BA318 clearing NY controls in Shannon. There is no expectation for passengers to reboard exactly the same train. There is no reason for an international train to block a platform waiting for an hour.
Clearance will be faster with bio-metric scanning and security checking will be speedier with technology beyond sniffer dogs. Turning Lille or Calais into transit points will offer a far greater range of possible services, like Boulogne-sur-Mer. At the moment passengers for a full Paris departure, can be transferred to a vacant seat on a Brux service and ‘detrain’ at Lille to take the former Thalys onwards to Paris. All the other operators and destinations struggling with border and tunnel logistics could deliver to the domestic platforms at Lille (and Calais) for International passengers to make their own way via restaurants, stretch walks, showers, hotels to the International Platform immigration after which Eurostar could allocate vacant seats on all approaching tunnel trains.
Eurostar still operates a dozen tunnel trains on it’s Schengen services that could be used for a guaranteed capacity filler as needed operated with SE for a stopping Lille Calais Ashford Stratford link.
The review of TfL station view doesn’t even show how inexplicably bad the execution has been.
It is not just face blurring but clouding silhouettes, could they not just make them all blue people. On top of that TfL has added it’s own security clouds for ?? adverts! fire cupboards cctv. They should stop the project until rethought, random teleportation helps no one.
@Alek: I agree with you the execution of the TfL station views is pretty poor. I don’t think I have failed to show it is pretty poor, its is just a first review as no-one else has even done one – and besides my circumstances are not exactly great ATM by the way. Nevertheless I have taken your view into consideration and have explained fully in the first few paragraphs (probably more than is necessary) why the post was initially written and I have also asked whether TfL should even be doing this sort of thing if so much is blurred that the whole exercise becomes pretty useless.
What I do hope will happen as a result of this first review of the TfL station views is that others will write something too and give their penny’s worth on what seems to be a rather poor attempt at giving London’s tube stations greater clarity for any would be tube users. As for the reports this visual mapping makes the tube easier to use, well there’s no arguing the various tube stations that are depicted aren’t any easier to use!
@Rog consultation would be advised and testing one before going ahead.
Apparently it is not as easy as a walkthrough? Given they are working with the collected data we are not going to get new surveys without passengers.
Suggestions-
1. Separate Street & Subterranean.
Showing tunnels as alleyways serves neither Eloi nor Morlocks, it should be an option. Selecting the station by clicking on the location pin.
2. Distinguish between a tunnel and a street, make the tunnel ‘darker’ like purple.
3. Navigation – connect the paths. Leave the teleportation option where useful. Indicate the platform, like a black outlined ‘tunnel’ so you can start a path from arriving by train. Or from a lift or escalator.
4. Entering the system from the street. Distinguish entrances and exits on street view and for rendezvous.
5. Make outside the barrier part of street view. Force entry by a couple of forward moves to the barrier. Clicking on the barrier ‘arrow’ opens the tunnel view and navigation. To exit ‘station’ view require forward and a 180 to click an exit barrier, alternatively the navigation panel to select a street. No more auto-ejection.
6. Make escalators selectable like barriers to connect to the bottom of the escalator. Levels could be more than one and moving spatially vertically on the teleport could drop you into a different corridor.
7. Levels for mapping are not relatable to passengers, a lift user could guess. Should highlight the level displayed, is 0 always the barrier level?
8. Way finding – no easier than looking for real life pointers and worse if blurred. Images showing the correct direction to a line should show that colour bar along the bottom. Tunnel view outlines could show arrows where relevant. Platform tunnel locations could be outlined in service colour with arrows for train direction.
9. People ? Future surveys should be filmed without passengers. Was this a choice to avoid an empty system being intimidating or creepy? Impairing vision for everyone could be inclusive but not useful.
10. Silhouetting is a standard technique in architectural modelling often blue man. Colouring in outlines should satisfy identification and is more natural. The colour can also be branded. Blue general mix and exiting towards street level. Line colour when correctly heading towards a service. White or empty when facing the ‘wrong’ way in a directional tunnel.
11. TfL security blurring a CCTV camera is minimal intrusion but why. The quality is insufficient to identify a model or identification number for a hacker or escape route in a heist 123. Not even discrete as it highlights location. Would roundels over cameras and fire panels not work as well. If advertising is restricted then replace the offenders with posters from the LT collection advertising your own heritage.
Combine a dozen user panels input and you have a product improvement plan, PIP PIP.
Noticed the naffness of a “road map” as an indication of Chinese HSR plans. Apart from the obvious, the recentish public adoption of this simile for everything, concrete or abstract, with steps to completion misses the key point – the network of a plan requires all activities to be completed with indicated precedence constraints, a road map shows possible routes with many not traversed.