On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, jonmorris wrote:

On 12 Jun, 18:40, Tom Anderson wrote:

Jon Morris's point, which you've helpfully snipped, that "the service
frequency from King's Cross to Blackfriars makes it almost as good as
any other tube line" is also shown to be an outrageous lie - 8 tph is
barely a turn-up-and-go frequency, and not what i call tube frequency.

I think a train every 7.5 minutes - or twice that if you need go to
stations that aren't covered by the fast trains) - is quite frequent

Okay. I don't.

You can certainly turn up and go most of the time, although colleagues
at work do look at the timetable. Now, at Farringdon where I work, you
should also use a timetable for the tube lines - but I bet few people
do, even though there is obviously a set pattern for H&C, Circle and Met
line trains. Rest assured, if you need one specific service you'll
potentially wait just as long as for a TL train.

True - relying on specific services on the shallow lines is also something
i've learned not to do.

Perhaps if you've been unlucky enough to grow up out in the western
branches of the Magical District Line Tree, you might think so, but as
someone who lives at Finsbury Park, i don't.

...As someone who used to use Finsbury Park every day (but now goes
through it), I can agree that the Victoria line is certainly better -
but many - or most - other lines (especially in the outer reaches -
such as Oakwood and Cockfosters which were other stations I used a
lot) are anything up to 10 minutes apart or more at certain times of
the day. It's certainly not just the District Line which I've never
understood properly.
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Remember, if you're after the Piccadilly Line from Finsbury Park in the
off peak period and want to go to beyond the centre of town then you'll
need to divide up the service frequency between trains going to
different destinations. Lord knows how I used to manage getting to
Oakwood when so many trains suddenly changed to be turned back at Arnos
Grove with about one stations notice!

If you're heading into the branches off-peak, no, things are not so hot.
But that "other lines [...] are anything up to 10 minutes apart or more at
certain times of the day"? If by "anything up to 10 minutes apart or more"
(which as it stands covers rather a range of times!) you mean "10 minutes
apart or more", and you're referring to the major service on a piece of
track (ie not counting the Piccadilly service beyond Rayner's Lane), and
by "certain times" you don't meen right before the trains go to bed, then
i think the number of places where this is true is very small indeed.

tom

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