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Old April 10th 04, 07:44 AM posted to uk.transport.london
James James is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Apr 2004
Posts: 179
Default Subway (New York) vs Underground (London) [Quite long]

Well, LUL can't do the next train indicators either, at least they can't
do
them properly!


I've always seen them working properly, except once when it was turned off


Last week at Victoria [Westbound District} the indicator said "Northfields"
...it was a Parsons Green's train..p46


Reminds me of the following famous snippet from going-underground.com
:

District Line, hometime, me and several hundred other passengers and
indeed the station announcer at Earl's Court were thoroughly confused
by the signal men. I hopped on the tube at Victoria thinking that I
was on a Richmond bound train. At Earl's Court, the platforn indicator
said Parsons Green. I ignored this as ...well, when did you last
believe what the indicator at Earl's Court said? Anyway, there were
several loud announcements and it turned out that the train was going
to Parson's Green. Unfortunately the carriage was packed with Italian
students who didn't get off. Now maybe they knew something I didn't,
because they all carried on to Parsons Green, which is completely in
the wrong direction to Richmond. Perhaps I should have been public
spirited and said "Are you sure you all want to go to Parson's Green",
but my Italian is non existent, so I didn't!

Anyway on the platform of Earl's Court, the female announcer was
beginning to get a bit harrassed and apologises for the boards and
enthusiastically tells us that the next Richmond train is just leaving
South Kensington and will be with us in four minutes time. She then
gave us minute by minute updates apologising for the confusion.

Four minutes later and the train appears with 'Richmond' on the
platform indicator. We're all about to pile on the train, when lo and
behold it changed to 'Parsons Green' again.

"I am sorry," the announcer says "I was told this train was going to
Richmond and the signal men have changed their mind and this train is
now going to Parsons Green".

The same thing happened with a train that was supposed to be going to
Ealing Broadway and ended up going to Wimbledon instead.

Another four minutes and a Richmond train appeared. The announcer was
now in full swing "The train at platform three is not going to Parsons
Green but to Richmond. The train approaching platform two is also not
going to Parsons Green but to Ealing Broadway. These trains are not
going to Parsons Green despite what the signal men think."