"John Rowland" wrote the
following in:

What I meant was that although they are very useful on the
Victoria Line and certain other lines, there are stations on the
Circle Line where the nice multiline LED displays only tell you
about one train[1], and only when it is practically in the station
anyway.

The westbound District and H&C lines at West Ham are a classic example.
You can see the train in the distance either before or at the same time
as being able to see it on the indicators. That said, my generaly
experience of the indicators is that they work well and are a handy
thing to have.

--
message by Robin May, enforcer of sod's law.
I don't have a physical beard, but I feel that my spirit does.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
There are 20,000,000 women wearing kinky boots.

Annabel Smyth wrote the following in:


Although who, who, recorded the bright and breezy voice that says
"Willesden Green!" after the rather dreary "This train terminates
at".....

You've obviously missed the best ones:

"This train terminates at NEASDEN" - NEASDEN said with in a very stern,
angry tone after the almost cheery "this train terminates".

"This train terminates at FINCHLEY Road" - FINCHLEY is said about five
octaves higher than the rest of the announcement. This one's a real
classic. The first time I was on a train terminating there you could
see everyone laughing every time she said it.

--
message by Robin May, enforcer of sod's law.
I don't have a physical beard, but I feel that my spirit does.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
There are 20,000,000 women wearing kinky boots.

Annabel Smyth wrote the following in:


But they were nothing like as comfortable as DLR trains...... or
even Jubbly line (you usually get a seat at Canning Town going
East, I find).

The DLR trains have very hard seats. I've sat down on them having
forgotten that I can't expect the usualy softness of tube seats and
it's not a comfortable experience.

--
message by Robin May, enforcer of sod's law.
I don't have a physical beard, but I feel that my spirit does.

"You MUST NOT drive dangerously" - the Highway Code
There are 20,000,000 women wearing kinky boots.

On Fri, 9 Apr 2004 at 01:24:38, Robin May
wrote:

You've obviously missed the best ones:

"This train terminates at NEASDEN" - NEASDEN said with in a very stern,
angry tone after the almost cheery "this train terminates".

"This train terminates at FINCHLEY Road" - FINCHLEY is said about five
octaves higher than the rest of the announcement. This one's a real
classic. The first time I was on a train terminating there you could
see everyone laughing every time she said it.

Yes, I haven't heard those yet. Only Stanmore, which is pretty normal,
and "Willesden Green" in the isn't-that-interesting tone of voice a
friend of mine uses to speak to small children in!
--
Annabel Smyth
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html
Website updated 8 March 2004

I was very impressed by the extending platform edges on the curved
platforms at South Ferry, but was not impressed by the fact that the
rear 5 coaches (of 10) do not fit into the station and there is no
passenger connection between units 5 and 6. Anyone who could not read
the English posters might have difficulty there as the muffled
announcement did not help, and the staff made no effort to detrain
people in the wrong carrages at the previous station. I realised in
time, but there were still people in my carrage as I left and legged
it along the platform. The station is on a loop so anyone in the wrong
carrages will just get returned to the previous station.

This is a very old problem and one that has been exacerbated by the newer
subway cars that do not allow free passage between the rear cars and the
forward ones because the conductor's cab in the middle blocks passage.

The last time I was in New York (in October 2003) I was in car 5 and the
conductor made lots of very clear announcements in the previous station. Then
as the train neared South Ferry, he made another announcement and opened the
door between his cab and the 5th and 6th cars so that those who were in the
rear part of the train could get into the front to exit.

The practice of the C/R opening the cab door at South Ferry has been
banned. Any C/R caught doing that will earn a trip to Jay St.

The really irritating thing is that the 6th car actually platforms at
SF, but, as the doors can't be isolated, you can't get out.

I could see a case for putting signs at the downtown end of the uptown
side (if you get what I mean!) of Rector St station reading "South
Ferry", as it's not a long walk and is infinitely preferable to
exiting the system and paying another $2 to enter on the downtown
side. Tourists often don't realise quite how close IRT stops really
are.

The map is huge and confusing. The only thing I remember was the Q diamond,
and never understood what it did, compared to the Normal Q line.

It's not really any more confusing than the Southern Region local
trains in London. It's just a completely different style of system
from the Underground.

As for the late Q-diamond, as far as you were probably concerned (I
assume you only used it between 57/7 and Prospect Pk) it was no
different to a regular Q train. South of Prospect Pk, the circle ran
local and the diamond express. Since February 22nd (when the North
Side of the Manhattan Bridge reopened), the circle Q remained as it
was and the 6th Av B train became the Brighton Express. This caused
quite a stir as the historical pattern was Q Brighton Express, D
Brighton Local, and B West End.

The one thing that annoyed me. You swipe the tickets in a turnstile like
they do with Credit cards in a shop, but my card refused to swipe and I
spoke to the unhelpful man in the glass box and he muffled something to me
in another language, and he opened the side gate, which I went through, and
held open for about 3 others. Their revenue protection is awful. Anyway, I
missed a train and sat on a horrible platform with 10 buskers and watched
the dogs/rats run along the track and loud trains whizz through the middle.
Think of the Central line at bank and times the noise level by 5.

There's certainly a knack to swiping your Metrocard.

But nowhere does it obviously tell you that the diamonds are express and the
circles are local; if you look very closely in the corner of the map, in
very small print, you may notice that the word 'express' tends to be seen
near diamonds, but it's far from obvious. The squares seem to be
terminating points, but I'm not certain about that. The previous poster
said "The map is huge and confusing", I would say that is an understatement.

Diamonds are used rather inconsistently - they simply denote a
part-time service, which often happens to be the express. Obvious
examples of diamonds which aren't any more of an express than their
circle counterparts are on the 5 (where it simply denotes that it's
running to Nereid Av instead of Dyre Av) and on the B (although this
hardly ever appears on the trains - denoting that it's running local
to Bedford Park Blvd whilst the D train, which remains a circle, runs
express).

There are maps on at least some platforms, but they tend to be positioned
behind seats, so when someone is sitting there you can't see them! This
also seems to be the case with the maps inside cars. These maps seem to be
the same size as the ones you can get in folded form brom the booth at
stations, about 50x80cm. This map really could do with receiving the
attention of Mr. H. Beck. This map shows land masses and areas of water,
there's a lot of water around New York, and other features, such as parks
and some streets. It's not a diagram like the London one, but it's not a
true scale map either. If you don't have some idea of where the station
you're trying to reach is, geographically, there's no easy way to find it on
the map. To be fair, the Subway is a much larger system than the
Underground, and producing a really clear map would not be easy, but I'm
sure they could do better than the present one.

Maybe not H. Beck, but that treatment has appeared in print in Metro
Maps of the World. It was the work of British academic Max Roberts.
You can access his map online:

http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~mjr/N...-c-mjr2004.pdf
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~mjr/N...-c-mjr2004.pdf

My one criticism of Max's map (which I didn't notice until he himself
pointed it out to me) is the mispositioning of Hoyt/Schermerhorn Sts
on the A/C/G in Downtown Brooklyn.

The signs on the side of the cars are difficult to see as the train pulls
into a crowded platform, there are no London type 'Next train' indicators on

If you've ever waited at Liverpool St Met Westbound in the rush hour,
you'll realise why NYC doesn't adopt these - there are difficulties on
a branching system in predicting quite which train will be next.
Furthermore, just because a train says it's a 7-diamond at Times Sq
doesn't mean the dispatcher isn't going to send it local at Queensboro
Plaza.

Some stations have more than one name, if youare on the N, R ow W line, and
want the Staten Island ferry terminal, you need to get off at Whitehall
Street. This is shown on the map as being by the ferry terminal, but the 1
and 9 lines terminate at South Ferry station, which appears to be some
distance away. In fact, as you leave Whitehall Street station the New
entrance to South Ferry station is only about ten seconds walk away, and the
old entrance, closed since 9-11, little further. To confuse things further,
some of the previously mentioned signs on the columns at Whitehall Street
actually say South Ferry. The 4 and 5 lines serve nearby Bowling Green
station, all three stations being closer than exits from some single London
stations.

What's really amusing is that until the demise of the Lo-Vs (the last
cars equipped with door isolation mechanisms), there used to be a
Shuttle from Bowling Green to South Ferry. It used the platform on the
inner loop (the track the 5 train turns on), which, as you may have
guessed, had no pedestrian crossover to the outer loop platform (the 1
train)! Was anyone really lazy enough to use this?!?

The map seems to represent tracks, or at least routes, rather than services,
the 1 and 9 lines are represented by a single red line, the N,R and W by a
single yellow one as are the Q, Q diamond and another branch of the W which
branch off at Canal Street, and turn East to cross the Manhattan Bridge,
this re-joins the other yellow line at DeKalb Av., something like the Bank
and Charing Cross branches of the Northern line, but the whole thing just

Except it just functions as a regular express run (although the trains
are LETHARGIC over the Manny B). The only confusion lies in the fact
that they drew it on the map and in that some expresses (B, Q) stop at
De Kalb whilst others don't (D, N - except of course that the N train
runs local at night - this is beginning to sound like Mornington
Crescent!).

looks a mess on the map. Somebody has drawn a London style map of the
Subway, and put in on their web-site; I can't remember the address, but
Google will find it. The creator recognises some problems, mainly caused by
the number of stations. New Yorkers seem to prefer their style of map for
some reason.

Presumably you mean Max's map I've posted the URL for.

I see nothing wrong with the plastic seats; ok, they're not as comfortable
as the London ones, but it's not as if people normally spend hours on end
sitting on Subway trains, and at least they're easy to keep clean.

They're a symptom of the sad fact that if you put padded seats on,
some scrote would rip them to shreds with a stanley knife within
minutes.

In terms of passenger information, including the map, and siignage, London
is far better, but in most other ways I think New York is better. The
stations I have seen, admittedly quite a small number were clean, at least
parts likely to come into passengers were, both stations and trains were
more larger than typical London ones. Most ticket machines seem to work,
and unless you are making a short journey, the $2 flat fare is good value,
there was a major outcry last year when it was increased from $1.50.

I think a flat fare would work quite well in London. It would
certainly discourage people from piling onto packed Northern (Charing
X) Line trains in rush hour to ride two stops (ever heard of walking?
I guess these guys would have ridden the Bowling Green shuttle!). Oh
and sod passenger information - if you don't know what you're doing by
the time you're on the platform, you never will.

Metrocards are available in unlimited ride, like Travelcard, and stored
value pre paid types. Free transfers are available to buses, and between
certain nearby stations, though strangely, not in the case of Whitehall
Street/South Ferry. For a single $2 fare it is possible to travel from the

Free transfers to buses would definitely be a cool idea in London - it
would make riding the Northern Line (ever thought this was a
misnomer?) to Morden to change for the 293 to Epsom an extremely
attractive prospect for cheapskates like me.

As for Whitehall St / South Ferry, it would kinda be useful for
Brooklynites wanting to get to somewhere on the 7th Av Line South of
Times Sq! If I understand correctly, this will be possible once the
new South Ferry station is built (and will also be possible two stops
up the line when both Cortlandt St stations and WTC on the E are
linked into the Fulton St complex).

It's a pity that the Metrocards are not valid on the other rail systems in
the area. The Subway is operated by the MTA, I think the suburban rail
lines in New York are too, but cross the Hudson, and you're in New Jersey.

There's a new initiative on the LIRR and MNRR called CityTicket, which
allows you to ride the railroads within the city limits for $2.75 at
weekends. Far Rockaway LIRR is of course excluded, and you can only
buy CityTicket on the day of travel from stations. It sucks compared
to what you can do with an all zones travelcard in London, but at
least it's progress. You're still screwed if you want to cross the
City Line though.

Linking the two are the old Hudson Tubes, now known as PATH, operated by the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, this links the World Trade Centre
and 33rd Street in New York with Newark and Hoboken in New Jersey. This
charges $1.50, but you can buy a card with 11 rides for the price of 10.
You cannot however use Metrocards, though there has been talk of it for the
future. It shouldn't be difficult, fit Metrocard readers to the gates,
record the number of triips made with them, and allocate the apppropriate
revenue to the Port Authority.

IINM they've now done exactly that.

Once in New Jersey the suburban rail lines are operated by NJ Transit, as
are two light rail lines, the newly-built Hudson-Bergen, and the Newark city
Subway, which has recently received new vehicles, and been extended. All of
these systems have their own tickets. It's rather like needing one
Travelcard type ticket South of the Thames, another one on the Waterloo and
City, and different tickets on each underground line in the North.

Nah, you just have the annoying situation where certain suburbs are
beyond Zone 6 and you can only get a travelcard valid that far out if
you start from the outer end!

Well, LUL can't do the next train indicators either, at least they can't
do
them properly!

I've always seen them working properly, except once when it was turned off


Last week at Victoria [Westbound District} the indicator said "Northfields"
...it was a Parsons Green's train..p46

Reminds me of the following famous snippet from going-underground.com
:

District Line, hometime, me and several hundred other passengers and
indeed the station announcer at Earl's Court were thoroughly confused
by the signal men. I hopped on the tube at Victoria thinking that I
was on a Richmond bound train. At Earl's Court, the platforn indicator
said Parsons Green. I ignored this as ...well, when did you last
believe what the indicator at Earl's Court said? Anyway, there were
several loud announcements and it turned out that the train was going
to Parson's Green. Unfortunately the carriage was packed with Italian
students who didn't get off. Now maybe they knew something I didn't,
because they all carried on to Parsons Green, which is completely in
the wrong direction to Richmond. Perhaps I should have been public
spirited and said "Are you sure you all want to go to Parson's Green",
but my Italian is non existent, so I didn't!

Anyway on the platform of Earl's Court, the female announcer was
beginning to get a bit harrassed and apologises for the boards and
enthusiastically tells us that the next Richmond train is just leaving
South Kensington and will be with us in four minutes time. She then
gave us minute by minute updates apologising for the confusion.

Four minutes later and the train appears with 'Richmond' on the
platform indicator. We're all about to pile on the train, when lo and
behold it changed to 'Parsons Green' again.

"I am sorry," the announcer says "I was told this train was going to
Richmond and the signal men have changed their mind and this train is
now going to Parsons Green".

The same thing happened with a train that was supposed to be going to
Ealing Broadway and ended up going to Wimbledon instead.

Another four minutes and a Richmond train appeared. The announcer was
now in full swing "The train at platform three is not going to Parsons
Green but to Richmond. The train approaching platform two is also not
going to Parsons Green but to Ealing Broadway. These trains are not
going to Parsons Green despite what the signal men think."

I have a 1970s New York Subway map which is Beck-like. ISTR there is a scan
of it on the web somewhere (not on my site...)

http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/captio...al/1974map.gif

"James" writes:
...Another four minutes and a Richmond train appeared. The announcer was
now in full swing "The train at platform three is not going to Parsons
Green but to Richmond. The train approaching platform two is also not
going to Parsons Green but to Ealing Broadway. These trains are not
going to Parsons Green despite what the signal men think."

Reminds me of a visit to New York in 1978. I had boarded a subway
train in Jamaica, Queens, at Sutphin station on what is now the F line
(I think both the E and F used that section back then). I was going
to Manhattan. The line is two tracks at that distant point, but at
71st Avenue it becomes four tracks and my train would become an express.

Except that it went onto the local track. Accordingly, when it had
stopped at the platform, the train crew announced on the PA system that
it was an express train. However, there was an immediate rebuttal on
the *station* PA system, saying that it was a local train! And this
pair of dueling announcements was then repeated about four times.

If I'd just been trying to get to my destination I would have stayed
on board, I suppose, but I wanted to ride the express, and I got off
to await developments. Finally the train PA announced in a rapid voice,
"This train is local to 74th Street", and faster than even a New Yorker
could have possibly have reacted, the doors closed.

(I boarded the next express when it came. 74th Street was the next
express stop, and my train reached it just behind the disputed train --
which then proceeded to cross over onto the express tracks ahead of
mine. As I guess I should've expected. Good thing I'm not into track-
bashing, or I'd be bewailing the missed opportunity there.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "It is one thing to praise discipline, and another
| to submit to it." -- Miguel de Cervantes, 1613

My text in this article is in the public domain.