Not just at Plaistow. At my local station, Totteridge and Whetstone,
the indicators purport to show the time and route (ie Bank or Charing
Cross) of the next 3 trains. Trouble is they're almost always wrong.
You can generally double the time to the next arrival, and the routing
information changes every couple of minutes. As only about one train
in 4 goes via CX in the morning peak, it is especially frustrating to
wait for an indicated train, only to have it turn up via Bank.

I wrote to TfL about this last month, and got a 'we don't care' reply.
They said:-

"These problems will be solved by the new signalling system to be
installed on the Northern line. The systems take time to design,
manufacture and install, but should be in place by 2011."

Four more years to cure a simple problem, of their own making! How
difficult can it be to connect the indicators to the signals? Still,
as we only pay £1,328 a year for the privilege, who are we to complain?

In message .com,
"These problems will be solved by the new signalling system to be
installed on the Northern line. The systems take time to design,
manufacture and install, but should be in place by 2011."

Four more years to cure a simple problem, of their own making! How
difficult can it be to connect the indicators to the signals? Still,
as we only pay £1,328 a year for the privilege, who are we to complain?
Do you wish to pay more than the £1,328 you already do so that TfL has
the cash to deal with these non urgent matters?

At least there are plans to rectify the situation, although I agree that
monitors which show no useful information whatsoever might as well be
turned off (or is it simple to programme them just to show average
waiting times like the central line does occasionally "Next train to
XXXXXX within 10 minutes", if it is not possible to feed real time
running information through them yet?)

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

Firstly apologies for the double post last time. Don't know how this
happenned.

If its so difficult and expensive to connect the signalling to the
platform displays, then why was the system installed in the first
place? And how much of our money did that cost? Wrong information is
worse than no information.

This morning at 7:22 the indicators were indicating the next three
trains as Bank, Charing X, Bank. They arrived as Bank, Bank, Charing
X. If TfL don't know where their own trains are going, they should
admit it and switch the bloody things off.

peter wrote:

Firstly apologies for the double post last time. Don't know how this
happenned.

If its so difficult and expensive to connect the signalling to the
platform displays, then why was the system installed in the first
place? And how much of our money did that cost? Wrong information is
worse than no information.

It's much cheaper and easier to install indicators when you refurb a
station, rather than as a one-off project. So if you know the
signalling system due in a few years will fully support the indicators,
any ou're refurbing the station now, it makes sense to do it now.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Maybe someone at TfL reads this group! For the last two mornings the
indicator at Totteridge has been switched off.

peter wrote:
Maybe someone at TfL reads this group! For the last two mornings the
indicator at Totteridge has been switched off.

Several people do, but you are more likely to get an explanation if you
send it to TfL directly:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/contact_home.shtml
--
Michael Hoffman

Paul G wrote:

In message .com,
"These problems will be solved by the new signalling system to be
installed on the Northern line. The systems take time to design,
manufacture and install, but should be in place by 2011."

Four more years to cure a simple problem, of their own making! How
difficult can it be to connect the indicators to the signals? Still,
as we only pay £1,328 a year for the privilege, who are we to complain?
Do you wish to pay more than the £1,328 you already do so that TfL has
the cash to deal with these non urgent matters?


I used to get the northern line into college in the 80s just after the
indictators had been installed. And they didn't work even then then
brand new. Theres non urgent and theres we-dont-give-a-****.

B2003

"Boltar" typed

I used to get the northern line into college in the 80s just after the
indictators had been installed. And they didn't work even then then
brand new. Theres non urgent and theres we-dont-give-a-****.

The light box indicators were more useful in the '70s...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

"Boltar" wrote in news:1169220200.712897.143850
@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:


Paul G wrote:

In message .com,
"These problems will be solved by the new signalling system to be
installed on the Northern line. The systems take time to design,
manufacture and install, but should be in place by 2011."

Four more years to cure a simple problem, of their own making! How
difficult can it be to connect the indicators to the signals? Still,
as we only pay £1,328 a year for the privilege, who are we to complain?
Do you wish to pay more than the £1,328 you already do so that TfL has
the cash to deal with these non urgent matters?


I used to get the northern line into college in the 80s just after the
indictators had been installed. And they didn't work even then then
brand new. Theres non urgent and theres we-dont-give-a-****.



Well said!

Do you wish to pay more than the £1,328 you already do so that TfL has
the cash to deal with these non urgent matters?
SNIP


UK.TRANSPORT.LONDON is a great group, very helpful, very knowledgeable.
Sadly sometimes they can be completely unhelpful and smug. That reply fell
into that category.

LUL, Metronet, etc etc make a huge profit, perhaps they could spend a small
amount of it actually doing something that will help the passengers and
improve customer satisfaction (since we are now customers).

Who is to say that commissioning artwork for Gloucester Road platforms, or
a big wire elephant for Waterloo, is a better way of spending money than on
a display system that tells customers how long to wait for their bloody
train?

2011, eh? I wonder what all the electricity would cost between now and 2011
for all those useless dot matrix displays that are always switched on?
Since they don't give any information, may as well switch them off until
then and then, shock horror, they could pass the savings onto the
"customers" and make the season tickets a tad cheaper!

If a shop carried on in that way, no one would use it. But they know
they've got us by the short and curlies.

I do a lot of travel overseas, in much poorer economies, and the
information on traintimes is much better, clearer, etc. Yes, the
naysayers here will say "oh but London Underground is so old, it's not a
modern system like in other countries...." Fiddlesticks. That may be the
argument (apparently) for not running the tubes later into the night or all
night even, but no reason why we have to have sub-standard displays.

For ****'s sake, if it's a question of orange, paint the buggers orange and
get them sponsored by Easyjet or something. There's always a way. But to
send "customers" unhelpful letters such as the one Peter got really sums it
all up, to be honest.