On 29/01/2013 19:45, Peter Smyth wrote:

Would be nice if they could provide the full weekday service before
worrying about Sundays.
Queues back beyond the top of the ramps at Waterloo at 9am today,
which usually means at least one train out of service.
Who on earth thought running a timetable that required 100%
availability was a good idea?

So you would rather they always ran a four train service, even when all
five trains are available? It seems better to run five trains when
possible, and accept that sometimes one will be out of service.


By all means, use all 5 when available. However, during the 2006
'upgrade', commuters were sold a 'capacity increase', which was actually
nothing more than sweating the existing assets by requiring 100% train
availability. This was never going to be realistic in the long term,
especially given the reliability of 1992 stock and the limited
maintenance facilities available.

If TfL had wanted to provide a genuine capacity increase, they should've
looked at increasing train lengths (plenty of spare platform at both
ends) or improving the signalling to allow tighter headways and faster
platform reoccupation, instead of the trains crawling along and waiting
at signals or in the depot as they do now.

The W&C seems the ideal application for ATO, or even driverless trains.
You could even have a human responsible for dispatching the trains at
each station, and still save on staff.