On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Phil Richards wrote:

Why can't we close the system down an hour at the weekend or two later
then re-open the times they currently do the next morning? The engineers
etc. need to adapt, make their operations fit around the service
pattern, not vice-versa.

Exactly! And let's have daily status reports until the situation improves!
And why not halve the costs while they're at it!

I don't want to take time away from the engineers - i want to have a tube
network that runs safely and efficiently, and that means giving them
everything they need to do their job, which includes time.

Which said, as someone mentioned, they aren't making much use of the
saturday/sunday shutdown, so let's see if we can wring a couple of hours
out of that.

What if the overnight possessions could be done in a more focused way?
Rather than closing every line for five hours (or however long it is)
every night, close a couple of lines every night, perhaps even for a bit
longer, and stuff them to the gills with navvies to make the most of it.
That way, people could use the admirable flexibility of the tube network
to get around. A halfway house would be to close every line only from 0300
to 0500, to give the engineers time do basic stuff like walking the line,
replacing those clip things that always break, picking up bits of trains
that have fallen off, etc, and to have one night a week on each line of
closing at 2300, to do the real work. If you ignore the W&C, which closes
all sunday anyway, and the circle, which closes whenever another
subsurface line closes, there are ten lines - you could close two each
school night, and have friday and saturday nights closure-free. Would that
be enough time to do what needs to be done?

tom

--
Understand the world we're living in