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Normal crap service resumed
On Jan 6, 12:31*pm, John B wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:57*am, Patrick Osborne wrote: Whilst I don't want to encourage Boltar's constant negativity about everything, it is amazing how on the tube the minute one small thing goes wrong, everything screws up totally. Let's take a look at the above scenario. *A train is stalled at Cockfosters, right at the extreme end of the line. *There's a turning point at Arnos Grove. *Why can't they just switch the signalling to immediately turn all trains around at Arnos Grove, so the only disruption is between Arnos Grove and Cockfosters? *In this situation, passengers south of Arnos Grove shouldn't have noticed a thing. 1) the depot is at Cockfosters. Not sure what time this incident took place, but if the train died in a place where it blocked or significantly impaired depot access, then that's going to have an obvious knock-on effect on the line 2) normal line operation is based on turning some trains at Arnos (6ish) and some at Cockfosters (18ish). There are three reversing platforms at Cockfosters; there is one at Arnos. If suddenly 24 trains have to be reversed in the one platform, this is going to create some fairly obvious bottlenecks. Compare this to the excellent action taken by First Great Western this morning (I'm not making this up!) on my trip to Bristol. *There was a major signal failure between Swindon and Bristol. *They immediately rerouted my train to run via Bristol Parkway and we arrived at Bristol on time. *They managed it despite having to deal with intersecting lines and having to find paths between other trains; why can't the tube do it on a single line with no junctions when the disruption is at an extreme end? The excellent action will have been taken by Network Rail, although FGW may have been involved in the planning process for What To Do If There's A Failure. Anyway... while junctions make life more complicated, they also provide diversions and alternative routes. Whereas when you've got a railway that's fundamentally two tracks with trains separated by only a couple of minutes, any disruption is going to have instant and rapid knock-ons - and the only way you can deal with that is to add extremely expensive redundancy (in this case, adding signalling and track work at Arnos so that it can be used as a full-capacity terminus mirroring Cockfosters, or turning one of the stations north of Arnos into an alternative reversing point - in either case, these will only be useful for the few hours a month when access to Cockfosters has completely failed). Trains can also be turned in Cockfosters depot from the Oakwood end. Of course, this relies on there being staff at Oakwood, to check the cars are empty before entering the depot. I do occasionally see an Oakwood service on the line, especially when services are being reduced at the end of the peaks or at the end of the day. Trains also enter service from Oakwood at the start of service and at peak periods. |
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