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#15
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On 25/08/2011 13:25, W14_Fishbourne wrote:
On Aug 24, 5:54 pm, wrote: You couldn't make this up. The new c.i.s. has been up and misinforming passengers for over two weeks - and nothing is being done to correct the system. This is a classic case worthy of Private Eye - who have been sent copies of the photos. It is of two adjacent and supposedly identical c.i.s. displays in the foyer by the ticket office. Spot the deliberate mistakes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisjb...7627384806727/ When asked why the ticket office staff don't switch the b&w display off they claimed that they are unable to, like there isn't an on-off switch on the monitor? Pathetic. But the new system is one that displays the next three trains on each platform. So they are having a field day in the evenings when trains start to use the fast lines AND the local lines for stopping services. Trains are now being announced in advance as arriving and departing at fast platforms 2 (to Paddington) and 1 (to Reading / Oxford). However AT THE LAST MINUTE platforms are being switched resulting in a mad dash over various bridges to the other platforms. This is kind of OK from 3 to 4 but the pedestrian route from 1 to 2 involves going outside the station, over the road bridge and back inside - passengers with luggage haven't a chance of making it. This situation has been going on for years. FGW say they know nothing about it, but that its Network Rail's fault. Just recently we had this typical - i.e. every night - situation: On platform 1 these trains were displayed: * 23.45 Oxford - five passengers were waiting on platform 1. At the *last* minute this train was suddenly switched to platform 3. I was there and held the train doors open for customers to run from platform 1 to 3 over the road bridge - not easy for them. One Japanese tourist with luggage didn't make it. He missed his train - the LAST train to Oxford. The driver couldn't give a damn and was going to depart on time regardless. * 00.10 Reading - there were 7 passengers waiting on platform 1. At my advice the Japanese tourist with luggage waited at the top of the stairs in Station Road. The train arrived at platform 1. He ran down the stairs with his luggage and caught it. I said to him that if the train arrived on platform 3 I would hold the doors open for him. If I see this appalling situation again - I WILL *ALWAYS* HOLD THE DOORS OPEN - THAT IS A PROMISE. * 00.51 Reading - this train apparently arrived at platform 1 as announced ==== On platform 2 (& 3) these trains were displayed: * 23.43 - Paddington (FGW) - about 4 passengers were waiting on platform 2 /3. Again at the *last* minute this train was suddenly switched to platform 4. They had to run over the footbridge to catch this. * 23.57 - Paddington (FGW) - arrived at platform 2 * 00.13 - Paddington (HC) - this train suddenly was displayed on the new c.i.s. system on platform 2 but only a few minutes before it was due. It normally calls at platform 4. Again passengers had to run over the footbridge from 4 to 2 to catch it. ==== And next week when they close the station foyer at H&H the chaos is going to get far worse because the only way of getting from the new entrance on platform 4 is to go outside, along Station Parade, past Tescos, past innumerable taxi cab offices, up Station Road, then down the stairs onto platform 1. This will be impossible to achieve if they suddenly switch platforms - which they will do. It take 10 minutes to negotiate that street route as a normal pedestrian; with luggage or if infirm, passengers can forget it - even if I hold the doors open for them. CJB. These systems are programmed with the Network Rail working timetable that shows which platform the train is scheduled to use. If that timetable is wrong then the system is going to give out incorrect information. The system has to assume that the train is going to use the timetabled platform until it passes a junction and occupies a track circuit berth from which it cannot run into the timetabled platform. In many cases that is just off the platform end in which case the system will trigger a last minute change of platform announcement. The only way around this is for Network Rail to feed the CIS with either the train's planned route when this is set up or the junction setting but for some reason NR will not do this. They seem to think that it will compromise the integrity of the signalling system. I think you've got it in one. Looking at the times of the trains concerned, which are towards the ends of the day's service, I would suggest the most likely cause is this. There is a four-track railway at this location - but at this time of night only two are required to run the service. So the engineers get given two tracks for their overnight work and all the service runs on the other two - fairly easy on the GW main line as the tracks are paired by use ("Main" one side and "Relief" the other) not by direction ("Up" one side and "Down" the other). But these variations are not in the standard working timetable, they are entered as "short term plan" workings - and it would seem that they are not being entered in such a way that the CIS can pick it up. So what happens is that when the approaching train finally enters the section for the (wrong) platform, the CIS detects this and then does the platform alteration. There is probably nothing wrong with the CIS. As is all too often the case, anyone who complains will get told about "computer errors" when the truth of the matter is that the poor computer has been stitched up by the humans who are too lazy or too incompetent to give it the information it needs. Does anyone here use Clapham Junction on a Sunday morning? The Sunday morning timetable there is also set up for a "two line railway" so engineering work has a minimal effect on services. Most of the morning SWT service is given "dummy" platforms on the Slow lines - I know because they go on the Departure posters there straight off the Train Service Data Base. I never hear of any issues here, but this may be because the platform number at Clapham Junction is now a required input to TSDB so the departure displays should have the correct platform numbers in if the engineering work alterations have been correctly input to TSDB. At many locations, however (and it was the case at Clapham Junction until a few years ago) platform numbers are not shown in the working timetables unless required for the signaller's information. Where trains on a particular line must pass through a particular platform, the train's route only appears at junction locations where the signaller must switch it from one line to another. The latest CIS are supposed to have the track geography in so they can use this information to calculate the correct platform. But, at the end of the day, the CIS can only tell you what someone else has told it. -- - Yokel - Yokel posts via a spam-trap account which is not read. |
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