"Bradley H. Davis" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
om...
Just what's wrong with the service on the Northern Line. I thought
things had really improved over the last few years, but things seem to
be slipping back to the old Misery Line days again.

This evening I tried to get a late Barnet branch train back from Old
Street. Never mind that the High Barnet train was corrected to an
Edgware before it turned up, I did the right thing and changed at
Camden Town. But at Camden I counted FIVE more Edgware trains while
nothing was indicated at all on the Barnet branch. Finally one
appeared - 13 minutes away.

I got the bus instead. This is no good - anyone else think it's
getting worse? Who can we complain to...?

Tonight's fiasco was caused by signals failing at King's Cross and then a
little bit later by a signal failure at Euston.

I am sorry you had a terrible journey, and indeed you did the right thing
by
doing the Camden shuffle, however just to let you know that the train
describers are not picking up all the information it needs to indicate the
next three trains. Although the Camden describer on platform 3 showed 13
minutes, I wouldn't have been surprised if a train showed up within five
and
the the describer then flashed " CORRECTION " and displayed the correct
info. This is what was happening at Old Street. The train you saw
advertised
there as " 1 HIGH BARNET x mins" was probably
the
4th or 5th train, the preceding trains were not showing and the system
managed to correct it just as the next train pulled in. The train I was
driving from Tooting Broadway showed up as many weird and wonderful
destinations en route via The City. The only place it was correct was at
Old
Street and displayed the correct destination of Hampstead.

Not an excuse, just some information for you....

I wonder how complicated these signals are and why the same ones fail time
and time again after they have apparently been 'repaired'. For example, the
signals at Totteridge & Whetstone failed two days in a row recently.

I wonder if breaking the Northern line up into smaller sections would help
simplify things. For example just running the following services; Morden to
High Barnet via the City and Kennington to Edgware via Charing Cross (I
believe the trains can easily loop and Kennington on the Charing Cross
branch, correct me if I'm wrong).

Does anyone think this is a good idea?