In message , at 08:20:32 on
Wed, 20 Sep 2017, Jarle Hammen Knudsen remarked:

Exactly. It may be close to Leicester Square station underground, but
Covent Garden station is nevertheless a busy station in its own right. And
the surface route between them isn't direct or obvious.

It looks pretty straight on Google maps along Cranbourn St and Long
Acre, but I don't think I have walked that way when I've been in
London.

Perhaps because of the talcum powder?

Joking apart, I've walked down there a hundred times, and that's without
ever having lived or worked in the vicinity.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:33:23 GMT
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
Its got to the point where its just painful to use in the mornings and
unsurprisingly the vast majority of people bail out at Finsbury and get on
the victoria line putting added strain on that.

Why is it so slow and so unreliable with frequent train gaps of 5 or 6
minutes
the rush hour?

Trains?
Drivers?
Signalling?
Dwell times?
Stations too close together in the centre with too much stopping?
All of the above?

Here's an interesting article about how the Victoria line, with new
automatic trains and signalling, achieves its very high frequency:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/...aking-victoria
frequent-metro-world/

Maybe, when the Piccadilly line also has state of the art trains and
signalling, it will do the same. But it will still have a route with
curvier tunnels and more stops than the much newer Victoria line, opened
more than 60 years later.

The picc only has sharp curves at holborn and kensington. The rest of the line
is pretty straight with a long no stopping section between hammersmith and
acton that should in theory allow drivers to catch up if they're running
late.

On 19/09/2017 18:28, wrote:
In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
14:13:20 on Tue, 19 Sep 2017, Robin remarked:
I wonder why covent garden was spared? Its a small cramped station
that can't really cope with evening crowds and its literally a 3-4
minute walk to leicester square. Its a bit of an anomoly IMO.

IMO the explanation is lots of tourists, who support lots of shops and
restaurants, who pay lots of business rates,

Unlike the rest of the country, are London business rates kept by the
local authority, or are they just general revenue kept by the
Treasury?

Not really, though it does sort of come back to local authorities now.


Without wanting to get into a Boris-style battle, since 2013 it is not
all paid over gross to central government. Broadly, LAs handed over
half and kept half, but the half they keep is subject to various
reductions adjustments (levies? circumcisions?) and additions. A
government Bill in 2016 proposed 100 percent retention but that fell
with the General Election.

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

wrote:
On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:33:23 GMT
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
Its got to the point where its just painful to use in the mornings and
unsurprisingly the vast majority of people bail out at Finsbury and get on
the victoria line putting added strain on that.

Why is it so slow and so unreliable with frequent train gaps of 5 or 6
minutes
the rush hour?

Trains?
Drivers?
Signalling?
Dwell times?
Stations too close together in the centre with too much stopping?
All of the above?

Here's an interesting article about how the Victoria line, with new
automatic trains and signalling, achieves its very high frequency:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/...aking-victoria
frequent-metro-world/

Maybe, when the Piccadilly line also has state of the art trains and
signalling, it will do the same. But it will still have a route with
curvier tunnels and more stops than the much newer Victoria line, opened
more than 60 years later.

The picc only has sharp curves at holborn and kensington. The rest of the line
is pretty straight with a long no stopping section between hammersmith and
acton that should in theory allow drivers to catch up if they're running
late.

Not really. They're scheduled to run fast on that section anyway, and the
old signalling doesn't allow them to run closer. Mostly they run slower
than they theoretically could on that section because they're following
another train. And they may slow down to a crawl towards Hammersmith or
Acton Town as the platform is still occupied by the previous train (that
happened to me yesterday). So there's little or no scope to catch up if
"they're running late".

wrote on 20 Sep 2017 at 09:41 ...
On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:33:23 GMT
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
Its got to the point where its just painful to use in the mornings and
unsurprisingly the vast majority of people bail out at Finsbury and get on
the victoria line putting added strain on that.

Why is it so slow and so unreliable with frequent train gaps of 5 or 6
minutes
the rush hour?

Trains?
Drivers?
Signalling?
Dwell times?
Stations too close together in the centre with too much stopping?
All of the above?

Here's an interesting article about how the Victoria line, with new
automatic trains and signalling, achieves its very high frequency:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/...aking-victoria
frequent-metro-world/

Maybe, when the Piccadilly line also has state of the art trains and
signalling, it will do the same. But it will still have a route with
curvier tunnels and more stops than the much newer Victoria line, opened
more than 60 years later.

The picc only has sharp curves at holborn and kensington. The rest of the line
is pretty straight with a long no stopping section between hammersmith and
acton that should in theory allow drivers to catch up if they're running
late.

How do you catch up if you're normally running at the 45mph limit for that section? In practice, if the service is running late, the westbound Picc trains often queue up to get into Acton Town. It's ironic that at a 4-platform station they manage to make it a bottleneck by changing drivers there and not always using the extra platform.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Richard J. wrote:
wrote on 20 Sep 2017 at 09:41 ...
On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 00:33:23 GMT
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
Its got to the point where its just painful to use in the mornings and
unsurprisingly the vast majority of people bail out at Finsbury and get on
the victoria line putting added strain on that.

Why is it so slow and so unreliable with frequent train gaps of 5 or 6
minutes
the rush hour?

Trains?
Drivers?
Signalling?
Dwell times?
Stations too close together in the centre with too much stopping?
All of the above?

Here's an interesting article about how the Victoria line, with new
automatic trains and signalling, achieves its very high frequency:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/...aking-victoria
frequent-metro-world/

Maybe, when the Piccadilly line also has state of the art trains and
signalling, it will do the same. But it will still have a route with
curvier tunnels and more stops than the much newer Victoria line, opened
more than 60 years later.

The picc only has sharp curves at holborn and kensington. The rest of the line
is pretty straight with a long no stopping section between hammersmith and
acton that should in theory allow drivers to catch up if they're running
late.

How do you catch up if you're normally running at the 45mph limit for
that section? In practice, if the service is running late, the westbound
Picc trains often queue up to get into Acton Town. It's ironic that at a
4-platform station they manage to make it a bottleneck by changing
drivers there and not always using the extra platform.

Northfields trains tend to use the westbound District platform 1; Rayners
Lane trains use 1 or 2; and Heathrow trains normally use 2.

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 08:39:13 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 21:08:35 on Tue, 19
Sep 2017, Recliner remarked:
I wonder why covent garden was spared? Its a small cramped station
that can't really cope with evening crowds and its literally a 3-4
minute walk to leicester square. Its a bit of an anomoly IMO.


IMO the explanation is lots of tourists, who support lots of shops and
restaurants, who pay lots of business rates, add up to a good case not
to make it harder for tourists to find Covent Garden (on the tube map)
and get there.

I suspect the opera house is more likely to be the reason. Covent Garden
was still a fruit market when the other Picc stations closed.

Not to mention the LT Museum — wouldn't it be embarrassing to close the
nearest station to it?

The museum opened in 1980, when were the closures of York Rd, Brompton
Rd etc?

Almost fifty years earlier I think.

I was suggesting that it survived the 1990s closures partly for that
reason. I dare say that there were suggestions to close it rather than
replacing the lifts.

Apart from Aldwych that closed for very different reasons, what others
were shuttered up in the 90's?

The Ongar branch closed on the same day as Aldwych. They could well have
closed Covent Garden on the same day, had there been a desire to do so.

The Ongar branch is the same kind of completely different closure as the
'Aldwych Branch'. There's no synergy whatsoever with closing just one
intermediate station on a line that's still operating fully.

The synergy is that they could have slipped it in to the closures list
had they really wanted to close it. But they didn't.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 08:44:25AM +0000, wrote:

Its got to the point where its just painful to use in the mornings and
unsurprisingly the vast majority of people bail out at Finsbury and get on
the victoria line putting added strain on that.

It couldn't be that people are changing trains because the Victoria line
goes where they want to go could it? That's the reason that *I* change
at Finsbury Park pretty much every time I use the Piccadilly line.

--
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

There are many different types of sausages. The best are
from the north of England. The wurst are from Germany.
-- seen in alt.2eggs...

In message , at 12:55:41 on
Wed, 20 Sep 2017, Recliner remarked:

The Ongar branch is the same kind of completely different closure as the
'Aldwych Branch'. There's no synergy whatsoever with closing just one
intermediate station on a line that's still operating fully.

The synergy is that they could have slipped it in to the closures list
had they really wanted to close it. But they didn't.

You'll need to cite rather more about the process of closures to make
that opinion stick.
--
Roland Perry

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 11:30:02 +0100
"Richard J." wrote:
wrote on 20 Sep 2017 at 09:41 ...
is pretty straight with a long no stopping section between hammersmith and
acton that should in theory allow drivers to catch up if they're running
late.

How do you catch up if you're normally running at the 45mph limit for that

Except in my experience they don't.

section? In practice, if the service is running late, the westbound Picc
trains often queue up to get into Acton Town. It's ironic that at a 4-platform
station they manage to make it a bottleneck by changing drivers there and not
always using the extra platform.

They manage that at arnos grove too. Its quite an achievement really to get
something so simple so arse about face. I guess they just let the clockwork
computer at earls court to do its thing and no one bothers to override it,
easier to just let the line block up and read The Sun.

--
Spud