London Banter - View Single Post - 2 is more likely (was London bombs

Roland Perry · July 12th 05, 04:22 PM posted to alt.conspiracy,uk.transport.london

In message . com, at
08:54:40 on Tue, 12 Jul 2005, remarked:
If they were both stopped you might not have time to
plant bomb one, cross the platform and plant bomb two before the doors
closed.

So perhaps the wrong question was asked? If the question was "how long
before any train leaves in the opposite direction" then 2-3 minutes
would be a sensible answer.

The first two bombs were in the middle of the trains (3rd and 2nd car)
so I doubt anyone was hanging out at the end of the platform.

Which cars exactly? If it was (say) 3rd and 5th [or 2nd and 6th], then
that would suggest the same position on the platform.

according to BBC eastbound was 2nd car and westbound was also 2nd car,
although the police said floor of 3rd car.

So not in the same place "across" the island platform. To place one on a
2nd car and then the other on a second car would mean you'd have to
cross the island and then walk three or four cars along.

As an addition piece of information: the only access to the platforms
from the outside world is roughly in the centre of the train, because
the "island" is very large (with a booking office and other things in
the middle) and the way it's laid out you have to go through a ticket
barrier that's about halfway down, and between, the platforms. Just to
complicate things, you exit [but not enter] through barriers at the
eastern end of the island.

Is it something relatively common? If it is
then waiting for such an occurance to start the process would minimize
the time planting the first two bombs and gives you as much as 10
minutes before you have to be at the Picadilly Line.

I would expect it to be pretty random. You might find the two trains
there, or you might easily have to wait 150% of the published interval.

I agree, that would be why I suggest showing up around 8:30 or so and
waiting. If you have trains every 4 minutes and a 1 in 5 chance of
this happening,

I think we have pretty much established that the original question was
wrong.

you will certainly catch a break before 9:00

And will have blown yourself up by 8.51 ? (If all the bombs had fuses
preset to that time).

I thought we were talking statistically here. If you have 5 to 7
trains passing in a given direction over the course of half an hour and
a 1 in 5 chance that you will have trains in opposite directions
converging on the platform, then at SOME POINT during the half hour you
are virtually guaranteed of this happening at least once.

There are more trains than that if you allow the use of Metropolitan and
Hammersmith/City trains as well as Circle. They all share the same pair
of platforms. As for the statistics, then if you want strictly *Circle*
line trains, then sod's law says it may never happen. But if you want
*any* trains, it will be happening every few minutes.

Although I'm not sure *why* the trains have to leave in opposite
directions at the same time for the bomber's plan to succeed. Perhaps
you can explain why you think this is the case. Also, whether or not the
timers were set to be 8.50 *before* the bomber knew which trains they
were going to be put on.

Given the time of detonation and the relative distances from KXSP, it
looks like that convergence would have to occur around 8:38 to 8:40

Working backwards, that seems to make sense. But would it have mattered
if one of the trains had been 3 minutes closer or further away at 8.50?
--
Roland Perry