I have some questions that I feel require an explaination. I've combinded both my NR and LUL questions together to avoid having two seperate threads.

1) Since when has it became acceptable for station staff to use personal electronic toys when on duty? At Richmond tonight the South West Trains station staff were standing at the gateline, in full uniform, in front of *open* ticket barriers and playing a Nintendo DS in the middle of the public concourse. Talk about justifying your job...

2) Not related to the Railway per se but to the operators of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport - the tube maps at the terminal expired years ago, they still show the East London Line Extension as under construction. It opened in 2010! Not a very good or helpful example to newbie passengers whom have just arrived in the country and are not associated with the network.

3) In regards to the Heathrow Express, I have noticed that the Heathrow Central - Heathrow Terminal 4 shuttle, with a journey duration of just 3 minutes, is crewed by two drivers - one in each cab, along with a dedicated cleaner who just shuttles back and forth all day cleaning the train that in 3 minutes has no possibility of ever getting dirty. Talk about over utilisation! What's wrong with one driver just changing ends at each terminal?

Now some LUL enquires:

4) Why do the internal saloon maps on C69/77 stock only show the WimbleWare branch of the District Line? It's not very user friendly and must be very confusing for a newbie passenger (yes - a passenger, not a customer, take note LUL...) who can become baffled that station maps that display the District line as a route between Upminster/Eailing Broadway/Richmond but the internal train maps only show the District Line as a shuttle service between Wimbledon - Edgware Road.

5) Why do the dot matrix destination displays at West Brompton (and I assume the rest of the Wimbledon branch stations, I haven't checked) show District Line services towards the east as "City via Victoria"? What's wrong with "Upminster via Victoria"? or "Barking via Victoria"? Again, more confusion for unassociated users, any newbie to the network would probably assume that "City" is a station somewhere along the route.

6) The Circle Line T-Cup service is a joke and whoever designed such an absurd timetable should be locked up and the key thrown away, any passengers with luggage traveling clockwise from Paddington (Circle) have to travel one stop to Edgware Road and haul their luggage up and across the staircase to the adjacent platforms for a connecting service towards the east, there are also no lifts at the station. Under the previous and genuine Circle Line service there was no need to change. I would imagine that LUL's intention is to have all airport passengers use the H&C platforms which are miles away from the mainline concourse that Heathrow Express service arrive. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...?

7) Since the modernization of the Victoria Line the new service has been nothing but awful. Last night I had to wait 8 minutes for a service to Walthamstow and even at midnight at almost every station my train was waiting for 2-3 mins to "regulate the service". Regulating the service past midnight? What a load of absolute Bow Locks. My understanding for the installation of ATO is to increase the service capacity and reliability but it seems to have the opposite effect on the Victoria Line because services are required to wait at stations because of being constantly early and ahead of schedule. Why can't a more intense service be operated so that journey times are shorted and the service is constantly moving and not waiting for time at every station? Apart from the new rolling stock the service itself has been sabotaged - it never operated like this prior to modernization.

8) Finally, I had to chuckle because also on the Victoria Line there are advertisements for Virgin Media phone and internet deals that state you to give them a call as soon as you're out of the tunnel - except that on the Victoria Line the trains are constantly in tunnel except for at the depot at Northumberland Park - where there are no passengers...

I feel genuinely sorry for users of the London Underground who are required to negotiate through these complications, and it's only going to get worse when thousands of overseas visitors begin using the network for the 2012 Olympics.

I have answered the multi-post of this posting in uk.railway and cross-
posted here. If this thread goes no further, all readers should be able
to see all postings.

In message 815585.2389.1331779741904.JavaMail.geo-discussion-
forums@vbze11 of Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:49:01 in uk.transport.london,
writes
I have some questions that I feel require an explaination. I've
combinded both my NR and LUL questions together to avoid having two
seperate threads.

[snip]
--
Walter Briscoe