In message
,
Railist writes
Gwan then, I'll bite....
But my god, three months on and I am cursing the Piccadilly line
almost daily.
Why? It's a great line
It appears to me that a "Good Service" will invariably involve an
interminably slow journey between Cockfosters and Arnos Grove, an
extended pause at either Oakwood and/or Arnos Grove, or trains at
Arnos Grove that arrived after my one, departing first. Sometimes the
driver will tell you that the train that has just arrived will leave
first, but sometimes they don't. Minor Delays have seen me 15 minutes
or more late, and I dread to think what a severe delay is.
You really don't want to be there when there are severe delays
First of all, the booked time from Cockfosters to Green Park is 38
minutes; say 40 minutes for round figures. I would suggest that your
journey is rarely longer than 45 minutes and more often than not, closer
to the 38/40 minutes booked. I have not recently had any days when I've
been more than a couple of minutes late at any point.
The journey from Cockfosters to Arnos is a bit of a chore sometimes.
During the morning peak (and leading up to it) you will have trains
coming in to service from Cockfosters (east end), Cockfosters (west end)
and reversers at Arnos Grove, all to get the 28 trains per hour through
the centre section. The trains you see depart are Arnos Grove reversers
and are actually booked to leave before you arrive but as we have a
timetable that has a fair bit of recovery in it, CFS trains often arrive
before the reverser departs - not helped by the signalling which doesn't
allow potentially conflicting moves.
There is no hard and fast rule on advising customers of the earlier
departure but as the train you are on will almost always follow 2
minutes later and shunting people from one train to another will take at
least 1 minute, is it really worth all the effort? I would suggest not.
At Cockfosters, if you miss the announcement as to when the next train
is, you can stand around for about a minute or more waiting as the
electronic displays will only ever show the very next departure,
nothing more, or simply the text "Piccadilly Line". So you can arrive,
there's a train at each platform, with no information as to which one
is actually due to leave. And sometimes after a minute a train will
depart, with no announcement. It feels like London Underground's own
version of "Train Doors will be closed 30 seconds before departure",
but until 30 seconds before you should still know which platform to
aim for!
Having been to Cockfosters (twice) today I made a point of observing the
operation of the dot matrix indicators (DMIs, although we mostly call
them TDs, Train Describers).
After the refurbishment of Cockfosters, there are two TDs just after you
come through the barriers. One is at the head of platform 1/2 and the
other at 3/4 (actually the doors are never opened to P2 but lets not go
there!). These indicate the platform of the next departure. They come
up when the voice announcement is made which I understand is a
disability discrimination requirement as I found out when I was involved
with the Picc. line DVA (Digital Voice Announcer) project. Then each
platform has its own TD.
When the announcement of the next train is made, the TD follows this.
In my experience this information will persist until about 5 seconds
after the train receives the signal to depart, at which point the
displays blank to the generic display. This is to discourage people
attempting to board a train which is now preparing to depart and by the
time you get there, the doors will be closed and it will be on its way.
It will appear to be that trains just sit there and depart sometimes as
it's not uncommon to take a minute or so to get away after receiving the
signal.
The next train will then be announced and the process starts all over
again.
It's worth bearing in mind that with a train departing every 2-4 minutes
it will often look like the system is giving no information. In these
circumstances, it's best to just wait for the next departure to be
announced.
Some thoughts here... If a train isn't shown it's best to wait behind
the platform displays until one is. All too often I see people get onto
the train they *think* will depart first, only to watch one from a
different platform sail off west. I assume you travel at peak morning
times; at these times, some of the departures are fresh out of the depot
and don't appear on the TD until they are in the platform. The vagaries
of the timetable mean that there is often a reversing train in the
platform which gets overtaken by the 'new' train.
Since the station refurb, my experience is that the TDs at CFS are very
reliable and should be trusted to give correct information.
Then there's the actual announcements at Cockfosters, which really
grate on me.
"Piccadilly Line, the next train to Heathrow T123 and 5 will depart
from Platform 1". Hmmm. I am being a pedant, but I would have thought
that "Piccadilly Line, the next train from Platform 1 is to Heathrow
T123 and 5". God that is pedantic. But indulge me.
Some of the staff are lovely : notably at Cockfosters, Oakwood,
Southgate and Arnos Grove - but I have never really encountered a
"bad" member of staff. Although last week, someone asked a man in a
London Underground uniform if the train he was walking towards was the
next one to leave and he shrugged his shoulders. He walked up to the
drivers cab, got in, waited and indeed his train was the next to
leave. So I can either take from that that the drivers don't even know
when they are about to depart and only go by the signals, or he was
just unhelpful.
Now, you see the problem is that whilst he may not have demonstrated the
best communication skills, he was broadly right.
All a driver knows (or needs to know) is Which is my train?, When do I
need to be there? and Where am I going? When a train is in the platform
at AGR, the only indication that it will be the next one out is the TD
showing the destination. If it shows nothing, then you have no idea if
your train or the one just pulling into platform 4 is the next to
depart.
I will always attempt to unravel the situation and give a best guess,
but then it is very often only that, a guess.
Oh, and if you see me around I expect a cheery hello!
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)