Walthamstow Central tube is closed this Saturday and the Vic line is
closed Sunday. Having pondered the reason why I asked this evening as to
whether the subway link was due to open. The worksite looks perilously
close to "break through" of the final bits of the wall.

I was told the new ticket office will be opening on Monday morning -
this certainly has a number of LU ticket machines in it as these are
visible through a small glass window. It will be interesting to see how
this works as they are part way along the subway itself. I'm also not
sure what's happening to the gateline as the manual gate moved to the
opposite end of the array a few weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see
if we gain any more gate capacity.

Looking from the bus station side the subway itself seems very close to
being finished. A lot of final fittings and permanent lighting are now
in place and operational. I can't really tell what is happening with the
lift at the bus station end as it appeared to be having a wooden hut
constructed around it the other day!

Still after umpteen years and silly delays we seem to be staggering
towards the link being opened. Now all we need is for Network Rail to
come and smash their bit of the station to pieces as part of a rumoured
redevelopment project.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
Walthamstow Central tube is closed this Saturday and the Vic line is
closed Sunday. Having pondered the reason why I asked this evening as to
whether the subway link was due to open. The worksite looks perilously
close to "break through" of the final bits of the wall.

I was told the new ticket office will be opening on Monday morning -
this certainly has a number of LU ticket machines in it as these are
visible through a small glass window. It will be interesting to see how
this works as they are part way along the subway itself. I'm also not
sure what's happening to the gateline as the manual gate moved to the
opposite end of the array a few weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see
if we gain any more gate capacity.

Looking from the bus station side the subway itself seems very close to
being finished. A lot of final fittings and permanent lighting are now
in place and operational. I can't really tell what is happening with the
lift at the bus station end as it appeared to be having a wooden hut
constructed around it the other day!

Still after umpteen years and silly delays we seem to be staggering
towards the link being opened. Now all we need is for Network Rail to
come and smash their bit of the station to pieces as part of a rumoured
redevelopment project.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Ooh! Shall have to go and have a look at some point.

In message of Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:44:51 in
uk.transport.london, Nicola Redwood
writes

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
.. .
Walthamstow Central tube is closed this Saturday and the Vic line is
closed Sunday. Having pondered the reason why I asked this evening as to
whether the subway link was due to open. The worksite looks perilously
close to "break through" of the final bits of the wall.

I was told the new ticket office will be opening on Monday morning -
this certainly has a number of LU ticket machines in it as these are
visible through a small glass window. It will be interesting to see how
this works as they are part way along the subway itself. I'm also not
sure what's happening to the gateline as the manual gate moved to the
opposite end of the array a few weeks ago. It'll be interesting to see
if we gain any more gate capacity.

Looking from the bus station side the subway itself seems very close to
being finished. A lot of final fittings and permanent lighting are now
in place and operational. I can't really tell what is happening with the
lift at the bus station end as it appeared to be having a wooden hut
constructed around it the other day!

Still after umpteen years and silly delays we seem to be staggering
towards the link being opened. Now all we need is for Network Rail to
come and smash their bit of the station to pieces as part of a rumoured
redevelopment project.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Ooh! Shall have to go and have a look at some point.

What is planned?
Recently, I found no ticket selling facilities near the gate line weird.
It cries out for a pedestrian tunnel between rail and bus stations.
Liverpool Street and Chingford PAYG connections can be pseudo-validated
as there are Oyster readers on the rail platforms.
--
Walter Briscoe

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:41 +0000, Walter Briscoe
wrote:

What is planned?
Recently, I found no ticket selling facilities near the gate line weird.
It cries out for a pedestrian tunnel between rail and bus stations.

A tunnel between the bus and tube station!

An enlarged LU ticket office where the old assistance office was. There
are several (3?) LU ticket machines as part of the enlarged office.

Liverpool Street and Chingford PAYG connections can be pseudo-validated
as there are Oyster readers on the rail platforms.

Not sure what you mean by pseudo validated. The validators on the
Liverpool St platform are really only for recording entry as you can
only proceed to Liverpool St / Tott Hale / Seven Sisters on the "one"
service from there. PAYG is NOT valid intermediately between Walthamstow
and Liverpool St or to stations north to Chingford.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:41 +0000, Walter Briscoe
wrote:

What is planned?
Recently, I found no ticket selling facilities near the gate line weird.
It cries out for a pedestrian tunnel between rail and bus stations.

A tunnel between the bus and tube station!

An enlarged LU ticket office where the old assistance office was. There
are several (3?) LU ticket machines as part of the enlarged office.

Glad to hear that this is all coming along. The 'one' ticket office
always seems somewhat deluged. Did LU run out of money to build a
proper ticket office in the first place, or were the passenger
estimates low enough to think they could get away with directing
everyone to the BR ticket office?


Liverpool Street and Chingford PAYG connections can be pseudo-validated
as there are Oyster readers on the rail platforms.

Not sure what you mean by pseudo validated. The validators on the
Liverpool St platform are really only for recording entry as you can
only proceed to Liverpool St / Tott Hale / Seven Sisters on the "one"
service from there. PAYG is NOT valid intermediately between Walthamstow
and Liverpool St or to stations north to Chingford.
--
Paul C

I don't understand what he means either!

A question for you Paul. If, when using Oyster PAYG, you were to go
from Blackhorse Road on the Victoria line to Walthamstow Central,
through the gates and then board a 'one' train to Liverpool Street
then you should obviously touch-in on the readers on the 'one'
platforms at Walthamstow Central - otherwise you wouldn't have a valid
ticket.

However let's say you did this anyway, I'm wondering whether the
Oyster system might not just go along with it an extend the Blackhorse
Road - Walthamstow Central journey to Liverpool Street.

Perhaps that's a bad example - a similar scenario would be a passenger
touching-in at Walthamstow Central, going to Liverpool Street, failing
to touch-out (let's say the gates were left open) then entering the LU
station through the gates and exiting the system at say Oxford Circus.
I'm inclined to think that the system might tolerate this and just
extend the journey to cover both legs rather than in leading to an
unresolved journey and hence the £4 'charge'.

Obviously this is not what passengers should do, as they'd leave
themselves liable to a penalty fare (or even prosecution) which would
be quite possible if they were checked on the train in the first
scenario.

Glad to hear that this is all coming along. The 'one' ticket office
always seems somewhat deluged. Did LU run out of money to build a
proper ticket office in the first place, or were the passenger
estimates low enough to think they could get away with directing
everyone to the BR ticket office?

Since it's Victoria line, it is safe to assume it was for cost-
cutting :-|

In message
of
Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:02:57 in uk.transport.london, Mizter T
writes
Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:41 +0000, Walter Briscoe
wrote:

What is planned?
Recently, I found no ticket selling facilities near the gate line weird.
It cries out for a pedestrian tunnel between rail and bus stations.

A tunnel between the bus and tube station!

That sounds good. I was hoping you were going to point to a URL.
I just failed to find anything useful when I searched at
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact/default.aspx for walthamstow tunnel bus


An enlarged LU ticket office where the old assistance office was. There
are several (3?) LU ticket machines as part of the enlarged office.

Glad to hear that this is all coming along. The 'one' ticket office
always seems somewhat deluged. Did LU run out of money to build a
proper ticket office in the first place, or were the passenger
estimates low enough to think they could get away with directing
everyone to the BR ticket office?


Liverpool Street and Chingford PAYG connections can be pseudo-validated
as there are Oyster readers on the rail platforms.

Not sure what you mean by pseudo validated. The validators on the
Liverpool St platform are really only for recording entry as you can
only proceed to Liverpool St / Tott Hale / Seven Sisters on the "one"
service from there. PAYG is NOT valid intermediately between Walthamstow
and Liverpool St or to stations north to Chingford.

A PAYG Oyster holder who touches in at Liverpool Street mainline station
and out on the platform at Walthamstow Central would be travelling
outside the rules on continuing to Chingford but such a breach would
probably not be detected given the lack of Revenue protection by One.

--
Paul C

I don't understand what he means either!

I hope my meaning is now clear. I like it that most London public
transport journeys are reasonably fraud proof. (I ignore gate line
vaulters who are allegedly common at some stations - including Stockwell
where my partner used to work.)
--
Walter Briscoe

On 16 Nov, 14:08, Walter Briscoe wrote:
I hope my meaning is now clear. I like it that most London public
transport journeys are reasonably fraud proof. (I ignore gate line
vaulters who are allegedly common at some stations - including Stockwell
where my partner used to work.)

Only gun-wielding ones in police uniform chasing innocent
electricians, ITYF.

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

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:02:57 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:41 +0000, Walter Briscoe
wrote:

What is planned?
Recently, I found no ticket selling facilities near the gate line weird.
It cries out for a pedestrian tunnel between rail and bus stations.

A tunnel between the bus and tube station!

An enlarged LU ticket office where the old assistance office was. There
are several (3?) LU ticket machines as part of the enlarged office.

Glad to hear that this is all coming along. The 'one' ticket office
always seems somewhat deluged. Did LU run out of money to build a
proper ticket office in the first place, or were the passenger
estimates low enough to think they could get away with directing
everyone to the BR ticket office?

There never was a LU ticket office at Walthamstow Central. It was just
like Richmond or Wimbledon in having TOC only facilities.

When we came to install the gates on the top end of the Vic Line (a
project I was Client for) we had to do something to provide for excess /
penalty fare collection. At the line's request we compromised the manual
gate installation so the window could serve both paid and unpaid sides
in order to provide some more ticket selling capacity (and income to LU,
of course).

We did look at putting a ticket office under the NR tracks but that
would have been hugely expensive and would have undermined the entire
business case for the whole gating scheme given the design and civil
engineering issues. At that time there was no thought of a new bus
station or the subway link.

The gates scheme was not at all popular with WAGN because they wanted
them at their ticket office level so they got their traffic gated as
well. However they weren't prepared to pay anything towards the scheme
nor to adjust their staffing to ensure the gates were operated at all
times - pretty much essential given the high traffic levels so as to
maximise the scheme benefits. Similarly they were enraged at the
provision of a ticket office that could sell tickets from the unpaid
side of the gateline as they felt they'd lose money and commission on
sales. Quite how "one" feel about an even bigger ticket selling capacity
in the new set up I can only guess at.

I'll readily accept the scheme at Walthamstow was a compromise but given
the lack of money we had for investment it was a case of the "art of the
possible" rather than trying for perfection and getting nothing done. I
still feel proud of those gates as I go through every day and know I was
instrumental in getting them installed. Unfortunately we were not able
to do anything about Finsbury Park but a colleague is piloting the
latest scheme through the design stage so perhaps we will get it
expanded and gated at long last!

A question for you Paul. If, when using Oyster PAYG, you were to go
from Blackhorse Road on the Victoria line to Walthamstow Central,
through the gates and then board a 'one' train to Liverpool Street
then you should obviously touch-in on the readers on the 'one'
platforms at Walthamstow Central - otherwise you wouldn't have a valid
ticket.

However let's say you did this anyway, I'm wondering whether the
Oyster system might not just go along with it an extend the Blackhorse
Road - Walthamstow Central journey to Liverpool Street.

Don't know to be honest as I am unclear as to whether Walthamstow
Central is configured as an OSI for PAYG validation. If it was then
provided there was the correct "in" "out" sequence within the time
parameters for interchange then it should charge one through fare. If
you then went out at Liv St NR and in at Liv St LU in the correct time
parameter then you're still on one through PAYG fare provided you reach
your destination in under 2 hours.

It will get interesting to see what happens when "one" extend PAYG to
their London network in January as I suppose you might argue someone
might go Blackhorse Road - Tottenham Hale - Hackney Downs and that
theoretically requires an OSI at Tottenham Hale. Thinking further though
I'd say Tottenham Hale is already like that because PAYG is valid
Tottenham Hale - Stratford on the "one" service there and taking it
further if you then changed to DLR or Jubilee Line at Stratford for
Canary Wharf you should be charged one through PAYG fare for Blackhorse
Road - Canary Wharf.

Perhaps that's a bad example - a similar scenario would be a passenger
touching-in at Walthamstow Central, going to Liverpool Street, failing
to touch-out (let's say the gates were left open) then entering the LU
station through the gates and exiting the system at say Oxford Circus.
I'm inclined to think that the system might tolerate this and just
extend the journey to cover both legs rather than in leading to an
unresolved journey and hence the £4 'charge'.

I'm not aware of any "tolerance" in the system. It's touch in, touch out
for each leg. I would guess (as I've not seen the logic) that the card
journey history is checked at each validation device and provided
entries, exits and journey times are fine then the charge will
eventually align to the overall through PAYG fare when the final value
is added back on at final exit (given that maximum fare is deducted on
each entry stage).

The only other complication to all of the above and especially the
examples from Vic Line to say "one" intermediate stations in Hackney or
even on towards Chingford is quite what the underlying ticket type is.
Zone 1 - Walthamstow is interavailable which means the LU fare and PAYG
rate applies. However interavailability does not apply at intermediate
stops in Hackney on the Chingford line and therefore tube/train rates
should apply. However these are only cash rates at present - I expect
PAYG discounted rate to emerge at the Fares Revision. Similarly the same
might apply for NR only journeys where NR zonal fares are charged - e.g.
Clapton - Highams Park. Quite how the system is going to differentiate
all of this I'm not very sure but it does it today on magnetics with
through ticketing so Smartcards should be able to cope. I wonder if the
passengers can?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:40:34 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:

Walthamstow Central tube is closed this Saturday and the Vic line is
closed Sunday. Having pondered the reason why I asked this evening as to
whether the subway link was due to open. The worksite looks perilously
close to "break through" of the final bits of the wall.


And having used Walthamstow this evening I can confirm that both the
ticket office and the subway link are open.

The office protrudes a little into the ticket hall but has a full glass
frontage with some side panes mirrored. The window is designed to serve
both sides of the gateline which has been realigned with the manual gate
back by the office.

The link subway is open and you descend about 8 steps into the subway. A
Multi fare and 2 advanced fare machines (converted few fares) are in the
new POM enclosure. Half away along the subway are automatic fire doors.
You then face a mountain range of steps up into the bus station! At
present the r/h side walkway to the lift is caged off - this is no
surprise given the upper landing is behind hoardings as well. Once up
the stairs you step out into the bus station without getting wet - much
appreciated today. Much less conflict between pedestrians and buses at
the bus station exit which is a blessing. It's also possible to walk
under cover from almost the high street right to the Liverpool St
platforms for "one" services which I think people will find very
convenient.

There were porters provided at both ends of the subway link - presumably
to assist those laden with bags or pushchairs / buggies. What I could
not tell was whether there is a mini lift at the ticket hall end of the
subway or not.

Nice to see it almost finished - just the lift to go.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!