So my wife has got stuck because of the victoria line being down. Just
how many "signal" failures per day are there? Would it not be possible
to design something which doesn't fail quite so damn often and also
design procedures so reversing trains doesn't take forever so at least
the rest of the line can continue running some semblance of a service?

B2003

wrote in message
...
So my wife has got stuck because of the victoria line being down. Just
how many "signal" failures per day are there? Would it not be possible
to design something which doesn't fail quite so damn often and also
design procedures so reversing trains doesn't take forever so at least
the rest of the line can continue running some semblance of a service?

B2003

I have often wondered why signalling systems are so prone to falling over
all the time. Mind you they are installing a new system on the Victoria line
so was it really a failure or may be due to the installation work.
The DLR is the one that gets me. It was built in the 80's and plagued with
problems since day one.

Kevin

On Feb 17, 8:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:06:08 -0800 (PST), wrote:
So my wife has got stuck because of the victoria line being down. Just
how many "signal" failures per day are there? Would it not be possible
to design something which doesn't fail quite so damn often and also
design procedures so reversing trains doesn't take forever so at least
the rest of the line can continue running some semblance of a service?

Not many at all on the Victoria Line in my experience over recent
months. Considering work is still continuing I am surprised it's been as
good as it has. *New conductor rail is now appearing on the north end of
the line.

This morning I was caught immediately behind the first train failure -
the report was that a set of doors had been knocked off their track by a
passenger. *I'm guessing that's because they barged their way into the
train at the last second at Seven Sisters and when the train was
entering Finsbury Park (downward slope and bend) that the door moved
sufficiently for the brakes to apply. The train ended up half in, half
out of F Park s/b platform.

We eventually made it in but then got stuck while the failed train
reversed at Highbury. *Needless to say that as we were the first train
through for about 20 minutes the platforms were a bit busy!

I see that there was then a subsequent signal failure at Victoria -
don't know the cause yet. *That resulted in multiple partial line
suspensions and then a full line suspension at the height of the peak.

I would agree that signal failures are not acceptable but they can
happen for all sorts of reasons. To effect quick turnarounds you need to
roster in "stepping back" which is used at Brixton. However you can't
just magic drivers out of nowhere to make it happen at Warren St or
Highbury when there is a major disruption. *I know you'll say that's a
typical useless LUL response but it's an honest one.

When I tried to get on at Victoria this morning the information was
that it was suspended between Brixton and Warren Street. I was
surprised that they could turn round at Warren Street (if they really
did). I suppose there is one crossover.

On 18 Feb, 00:53, MIG wrote:

On Feb 17, 8:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:06:08 -0800 (PST), wrote:
So my wife has got stuck because of the victoria line being down. Just
how many "signal" failures per day are there? Would it not be possible
to design something which doesn't fail quite so damn often and also
design procedures so reversing trains doesn't take forever so at least
the rest of the line can continue running some semblance of a service?

Not many at all on the Victoria Line in my experience over recent
months. Considering work is still continuing I am surprised it's been as
good as it has. *New conductor rail is now appearing on the north end of
the line.

This morning I was caught immediately behind the first train failure -
the report was that a set of doors had been knocked off their track by a
passenger. *I'm guessing that's because they barged their way into the
train at the last second at Seven Sisters and when the train was
entering Finsbury Park (downward slope and bend) that the door moved
sufficiently for the brakes to apply. The train ended up half in, half
out of F Park s/b platform.

We eventually made it in but then got stuck while the failed train
reversed at Highbury. *Needless to say that as we were the first train
through for about 20 minutes the platforms were a bit busy!

I see that there was then a subsequent signal failure at Victoria -
don't know the cause yet. *That resulted in multiple partial line
suspensions and then a full line suspension at the height of the peak.

I would agree that signal failures are not acceptable but they can
happen for all sorts of reasons. To effect quick turnarounds you need to
roster in "stepping back" which is used at Brixton. However you can't
just magic drivers out of nowhere to make it happen at Warren St or
Highbury when there is a major disruption. *I know you'll say that's a
typical useless LUL response but it's an honest one.

When I tried to get on at Victoria this morning the information was
that it was suspended between Brixton and Warren Street. *I was
surprised that they could turn round at Warren Street (if they really
did). *I suppose there is one crossover.


A little more info on a rather calamitous morning for the Vic line
yesterday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7894793.stm

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 07:17:25PM -0000, Zen83237 wrote:

I have often wondered why signalling systems are so prone to falling over
all the time.

Because they're designed by paranoids to be hypochondriac and always
call for a doctor when they've got a bit of a sniffle.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

You may now start misinterpreting what I just
wrote, and attacking that misinterpretation.

On Feb 17, 8:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
I would agree that signal failures are not acceptable but they can
happen for all sorts of reasons. To effect quick turnarounds you need to
roster in "stepping back" which is used at Brixton. However you can't
just magic drivers out of nowhere to make it happen at Warren St or

Why would you have to magic up a driver? The train already has one and
since he can't get to where he was going anyway why can't he just
drive it back in the other direction?

Highbury when there is a major disruption. *I know you'll say that's a
typical useless LUL response but it's an honest one.

All it shows is that LUL have little in the way of fall back
procedures in place when things go pear shaped. A broken door or dodgy
signal should not end up with 5 trains worth of people stuck in a
tunnel for an hour. Broken signal? Fine , drive through it on caution
and let everyone detrain. Whats the problem? Broken door? Reverse
train back into platform , empty pax and take it away again. Sorted.
Why do these simple procedures take LUL hours and hours to sort out?
The odd occasion one can accept , but every single time theres some
failure on a line this sort of thing occurs. I suspect it will take
someone dying in a stuck train and the relatives suing LUL for a small
fortune before someone pulls the corporate finger out however.

B2003

On Feb 18, 1:50*pm, wrote:
On Feb 17, 8:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

I would agree that signal failures are not acceptable but they can
happen for all sorts of reasons. To effect quick turnarounds you need to
roster in "stepping back" which is used at Brixton. However you can't
just magic drivers out of nowhere to make it happen at Warren St or

Why would you have to magic up a driver? The train already has one and
since he can't get to where he was going anyway why can't he just
drive it back in the other direction?


The driver can just walk to the other end and drive it back, but for
the normal service, there will be a driver already in position at the
rear who take take the train straight back out. It takes a driver
longer to walk from one end of the train to the other than the time
that the train would have to turn around at Warren Street whilst still
maintaining a reasonable frequency. At Warren Street, you would be
lucky to manage a train every 5 minutes without stepping back,
especially as the platform will be crowded.

Highbury when there is a major disruption. *I know you'll say that's a
typical useless LUL response but it's an honest one.

All it shows is that LUL have little in the way of fall back
procedures in place when things go pear shaped. A broken door or dodgy
signal should not end up with 5 trains worth of people stuck in a
tunnel for an hour. Broken signal? Fine , drive through it on caution
and let everyone detrain. Whats the problem? Broken door? Reverse
train back into platform , empty pax and take it away again. Sorted.
Why do these simple procedures take LUL hours and hours to sort out?
The odd occasion one can accept , but every single time theres some
failure on a line this sort of thing occurs. *I suspect it will take
someone dying in a stuck train and the relatives suing LUL for a small
fortune before someone pulls the corporate finger out however.


There seem to be plenty of fall back plans, the problem is that the
system has enough trouble coping with a 'normal' day due to the number
of passengers. For example, "Broken signal? Fine , drive through it on
caution and let everyone detrain." is a good plan, except that to
drive through a signal at caution may take three times (for example)
as long as a normal and so the line gets blocked up with a queue of
trains and what do you do with all the people that you've decided to
detrain? Reversing a train back into a platform assumes that the next
train isn't already coming into the station. All these procedures take
time to set up for the very good reason as they often involve doing
something out of the ordinary, there have been accidents after 'stop
and proceed' at a failed signal with trains running into the back of
one another.

On 18 Feb, 13:50, wrote:

On Feb 17, 8:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

I would agree that signal failures are not acceptable but they can
happen for all sorts of reasons. To effect quick turnarounds you need to
roster in "stepping back" which is used at Brixton. However you can't
just magic drivers out of nowhere to make it happen at Warren St or

Why would you have to magic up a driver? The train already has one and
since he can't get to where he was going anyway why can't he just
drive it back in the other direction?

Highbury when there is a major disruption. *I know you'll say that's a
typical useless LUL response but it's an honest one.

All it shows is that LUL have little in the way of fall back
procedures in place when things go pear shaped. A broken door or dodgy
signal should not end up with 5 trains worth of people stuck in a
tunnel for an hour. Broken signal? Fine , drive through it on caution
and let everyone detrain. Whats the problem? Broken door? Reverse
train back into platform , empty pax and take it away again. Sorted.
Why do these simple procedures take LUL hours and hours to sort out?
The odd occasion one can accept , but every single time theres some
failure on a line this sort of thing occurs. *I suspect it will take
someone dying in a stuck train and the relatives suing LUL for a small
fortune before someone pulls the corporate finger out however.


The wider disruption on the Victoria line on Tuesday morning *was*
caused by a signal failure - see...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7894793.stm
....specifically this bit...
"The cause of the delay was signalling problems [...]".

In message
,
writes
So my wife has got stuck because of the victoria line being down. Just
how many "signal" failures per day are there? Would it not be possible
to design something which doesn't fail quite so damn often and also
design procedures so reversing trains doesn't take forever so at least
the rest of the line can continue running some semblance of a service?


I was caught up in all that at Finsbury Park and managed to get on a
Piccadilly line train. Then it was stood at the platform for a good 5-6
minutes being "regulated".

At one time the most frightening sound on the Underground was "This is
Northern Line Information". Now it's being given a challenge by "This
train will be held here to be regulated".

Why keep an already over full train stood at the platform ? People get
stressed, LU staff get stressed, and you could tell the driver was
getting stressed.

Pointless jobsworth regulation doesn't help the public and it doesn't do
much good for LU staff.

I wasn't surprised when the Pic Line was delayed because of a passenger
being taken off a train at Kings Cross..... keep people crushed like
cattle unnecessarily and they'll get ill !!

--
Edward Cowling "Last Austral-B Heretic !!"

On Feb 18, 9:01*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
example. *Total time was an unacceptable 30 minutes but that is how long
it was.

Ok 30 mins , I was just going by what the bbc news report said. Even
so , its still too long. Probably not an issue in winter but if it had
been summer with a packed train and 40C temp?

scotched and clipped or remotely secured (if that technology is in
place) to ensure the points don't move under a moving train. *Whether

Why would they? Do points often randomly move on their own when a
signals fails to red or whatever the victoria line equivalent is?
Can't they be controlled remotely from the control room or has that
cutting edge technology not made it there yet?

I disagree with the above statement because no one has died and

Yet.

I don't expect you to accept anything I've written but I have tried to
give you a reasoned explanation. *If it is any consolation I get just as

I'm sure everything you've written is accurate , but it also comes
across as "well we've made a few changes but basically this is the way
it is".

B2003