On Jun 10, 5:33*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:23:48 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote:

Meanwhile TfL's own "Current Overground network status" page (which is
part of their "Live travel news" section) is as naff as ever - it only
mentions that Blackhorse Road is shut (as it's LUL managed), which is
the same message as yesterday evening. Meanwhile NRE page seems more
up to date as it currently states "Blackhorse Road station is
currently open for London Overground services, but may be closed at
short notice."

from what I could see at 0630 this morning Blackhorse Road was most
definitely open as it was at 1430 when I got back from my stint of
volunteering at Turnpike Lane.

Thanks - nothing like an eyewitness account!

Curious to know, would TfL buildings have been like ghost towns today,
i.e. what proportion of staff would have been out on the front line?
And do people volunteer or 'volunteer' to do this, IYSWIM?


I've just remembered the place to go for up to date LO information is
of course JourneyCheck - TfL/LO don't advertise the existence of it
publicly anywhere these days, though just after they took over the ex-
Silverlink routes a link to it did appear on the TfL website for a
short while - so I dare say it's aimed rather more at their own staff.
Anyway, one can get to it he
http://www.jcheck.com/londonoverground

It is very odd that the TfL website doesn't seem to deal with Overground
service status terribly well.

It's rather disappointing. I remember expecting, on TfL/LO taking over
from Silverlink, for there to be much improved efforts to communicate
information on the web. Instead, as I recall it was initially far
worse - there was nothing! No weekend engineering works information at
all (!!!), no live running information, just the same stale old
webpages on what TfL planned to do when they took over the ex-
Silverlink Metro routes - after a short while the link to the
JourneyCheck service appeared on TfL's 'live travel news' page for
under the "Rail" mode tab, but it subsequently disappeared after while
- presumably the logic being that the 'live travel news' pages would
instead be updated with up to the minute stuff. Well, they're not!

Also, LO never appears as disrupted on the real-time Tube map either,
despite the fact that it appears on the map (shaded-out, as if there's
no disruption).


It looks like the NLL and Euston Watfords are suffering a bit "due to an
unusually large passenger flow" - what a lovely turn of phrase.

It'll get flushed out of the system eventually, I'm sure.

This message has belatedly appeared on the "Current Overground network
status page:

---quote---
LONDON OVERGROUND, EUSTON - WATFORD JUNCTION: Severe delays are
occurring due to overcrowding. Trains are not calling at Stonebridge
Park, Wembley Central and North Wembley due to industrial action.
---/quote---

A somewhat disingenuous explanation perhaps, though undoubtedly it is
only happening because of the strike.

Incidentally, I've only now worked out the spectacularly complicated
way the items on that page are ordered, which I remember puzzling over
beforehand - it's that strange thing called alphabetical order!

I am however now doubting myself a little and wondering whether I had
scrolled down the page enough to see all the items that were on
display, or whether I've gone on a rant about lack of information that
was in fact there all along... That said, I'm pretty sure I looked at
it properly last time and didn't miss anything, but I can;t be sure.

However, either way it demonstrates that the way the information
presented is far from ideal - because of the alphabetical ordering of
items, really important things could appear 'below the
fold' (newsprint term) - i.e. you'd need to scroll down to see them.
Surely the most up to date, er, updates should always show at the top
of the page, whilst other more permanent items such as the info about
the 20 minute frequencies on the WLL and NLL south west of Willesden
Jn should appear further down [1].

Though I'd favour overhauling it and displaying information on a route
basis, e.g. NLL, GOBLIN etc. Yes, there is some crossover between the
NLL and WLL, but that wouldn't be a show stopper - any information
that pertains to both routes could be displayed in both categories.


----------
[1] I do just have to have a bit of a rant about this specifically,
having read and digested it. The item in question reads as follows:

---quote---
LONDON OVERGROUND (RICHMOND - CLAPHAM JUNCTION - STRATFORD): Monday to
Friday 0600-0900 and 1600-1900 trains operate every 20 minutes on each
line in both directions. As a result trains operate every 10 minutes
between Willesden Junction and Stratford.
---/quote---

Now, who could possibly blame anyone who might come away from reading
that with the erroneous impression that LO operated a service from
Richmond via Clapham Jn to Willesden Jn? I'm deeply unimpressed.