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Old August 17th 08, 03:17 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Neil Williams Neil Williams is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2003
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Default Special train on Central Line

On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:04:26 -0700 (PDT), M J Forbes
wrote:

Assuming that the PIS on the 350s is the same as SWTs 444/450s, the
driver/guard is able to display whatever they want (I've noticed a few
450s with "Happy Christmas" on the side displays in the past!).


Correct. I've seen "The Master Cobbler" being displayed on the 1823
to Northampton, and also "Football Special" by someone who was
obviously having a laugh.

As (AFAIK) the displays on the cabs cannot scroll, and "Not in
service" won't fit on the matrix, perhaps this is LM's reason for
electing to use "Special", as opposed to "Depot" on the south-of-the-
Thames Desiros.


"NOT IN SERVICE" in uppercase with 3-dot wide characters does fit -
I've seen it once. "Depot" does make a lot more sense, though, and
fits better with convention.

The Desiro displays indeed cannot scroll as they are the older flipdot
type rather than pure LED. (They are backlit by LED).

Neil

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