On Sep 12, 10:42*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:13:22 -0700 (PDT), Andy
wrote:

Personally I think the biggest problem for many areas is the lack of
coordination between National Rail and LU as to when closures take
place. There have been occasions this year when both the Bakerloo / DC
lines and the Met line have been closed at the same time and these two
route run fairly close most of the way out of London. The same applies
to the Victoria where on occasion the closures have coincided with the
Liverpool Street - Seven Sisters / Tottenham Hale / Walthamstow being
closed.

While you are correct about the parallel closures you're right about the
co-ordination point. There are huge planning and booking timescales
mandated on the Infracos so far as LUL closures are concerned. There are
also rules about avoiding too many journey opportunities being lost. The
process does include liaison with Network Rail, DLR and the TOCs to try
to ensure that viable opportunities remain for people to get about. In
addition there has to be a sanity check with the bus companies to make
sure they can resource the envisaged scale of rail replacement services.
I appreciate that it can look as if no one has bothered to talk to one
another but the opposite is usually true.

However there are occasions when things change and that can really
knacker things. Network Rail seem (to me) to be a law unto themselves in
terms of just postponing and rescheduling stuff. The woeful performance
on the GOBLIN resignalling, which is now months late, is my nearest
example and I am not impressed given what it is doing to plans to give
us a better, more frequent service.

I suppose we are now paying the penalty for the lack of renewal work
done in past years and playing catch up is going to be painful until
it is finished. I do wonder if some summertime big-bang projects might
be worthwhile, in a similar vein to the Jubilee lengthening closure
between Christmas and New Year, but instead over the week before the
August Bank Holiday, when I understand the Underground is at its
quietest.

I think you're partly right in your first sentence. A lot of what is
happening is not renewal work, it is enhancement and new line works. I
am very grateful that we are getting that money spent but the relative
efficiency with which the work is delivered is the real issue. I
appreciate DLR is the new kid on the block but they do seem able to
dismantle and reconstruct their network with relatively little pain and
disruption. Everyone else is just so much worse. *


Does renewal work really mean less disruption than enhancement? Taking
the Victoria line as an example, the existing signalling and trains
are at the end of their life and so need to be replaced. Surely there
is little difference in the disruption between introducing new
hardware with enhanced capacity or new hardware with the same
capacity. I do agree that some disruption will be purely down to
enhancement, the big one being on the SSL and their problems of
introducing longer trains. Station closures for capacity enhancement
already happen (such as Shepherd's Bush) but these are easier to cope
with as only local buses are needed.

While I am fed up with the Victoria Line closures I suspect we have seen
nothing yet in terms of network disruption. I understand the Walthamstow
crossover has to be replaced in 2011 so I'll have no service at all for
a few weeks when that happens.

A few weeks? The Piccadilly Circus crossover on the Bakerloo seemed to
need four days for a single crossover, so why so long for a scissors
crossover? Is the Brixton crossover due for replacement too?


The problem with August closures is that while the peak is quieter the
off peak most certainly is not. Having chunks of the Tube shut down for
weeks during the peak holiday season is perhaps not the best idea. There
isn't an ideal time to do it but Christmas and New Year is probably
better although weather can play havoc with the best laid plans. *

But peak loadings are still higher than off-peak. If you look at the
number of trains in service (as a guide to demand), the weekday off-
peak is nearly the same as the Saturday now (details are in the July
2009 Underground News) and on some lines Saturday actually has a more
frequent service. So if it is OK to disrupt these Saturday passengers,
why not the off-peak weekday ones? Closures might only be on parts of
the lines and more trains could potentially be run on other lines off-
peak to take some of the passengers. Maybe the closures could be
limited to the outer zones.

If they can't get that right how the heck would they cope
with a typical AM or PM peak loading?


The same way that the Central line coped during the traction motor
problems, people will adapt their journeys or plan holidays if there
is a week long closure in summer.