On Thu, 18 Aug 2005, Alan OBrien wrote:

"Adrian" wrote in message
. 244.170...

a Tracy Emin reinterpretation of a Hogarth painting.

I have _no idea what this means_ and yet i love the description.

Anyway - The question is... Will LU reflect this in extending the time
of the last trains? It's a bit pointless pubs applying for later
licences if people still have to leave at the same time to get home.

I suppose people will have to drink in a pub near home.

Or catch a night bus. Or cycle.

I don't see why the tube should close at night. People will say it is
for engineering work to be carried out. Hooey. EW starts at about 1:00am
and finishes at about 4:30 or 5:00am - and what is done in those 3-4hrs?
As Michael Kenyon showed, very little. The only way to get things done
on the track is by line closures. The Central Line closed last year for
months - unfortunaltely LUL did not have the money to make use of the
time to do large-scale work. But it showed that LUL *can* close a line
for a few months and get everything done.

I think there are two kinds of maintenance. One is minor, routine stuff,
like replacing lost rail clip thingummies and sweeping up train fluff or
whatever, and the other is serious engineering. The former is why we have
the few-hour overnight closures - it needs to be done often, but doesn't
take long. The latter is why we have weekend and multi-week closures.

I do wonder if the routine stuff could be done every other night, though;
if we could have half the tube lines open each night, that would make a
colossal difference.

Alternatively, spend some money on getting, say, the Central and Northern
lines to the state where they can run all night almost every night (buying
extra-strong rail clips and shaving the trains, say), and use those as the
backbone of an all-night transport system.

I say let three or four lines run all night long, with trains about
every 10 minutes.

I say that too.

tom

--
If you tolerate this, your children will be next.