"Richard J." wrote in message

James Farrar wrote on 05 April 2009
07:44:35 ...
[Assuming you mean "eastbound"...]
[wrong directions now corrected in original post below]

"Recliner" wrote in
:

I was on [an EASTbound] Piccadilly Line train from the Rayner's
lane branch at about 6:45pm on Friday that stopped for a while
at Acton Town, waiting for a relief driver. So far, nothing unusual,

That it should be viewed as "nothing unusual" for a train to stop for
a while waiting for a train operator *in the evening peak* is an awful
indictment of the current management and/or timetable of the
Piccadilly Line.

It's happened for as long as I can remember, so there's nothing new
about this. The same happens on the District at Earls Court.

but then another [EASTbound] Piccadilly train pulled into platform
4 (the [EASTbound] District platform). Normally only trains from
Ealing Common do this; I don't know which branch the second train
had come from. It would be surprising if another Rayner's Lane
train had been following our train so closely, but very rare for a
train from the Heathrow direction to be using that section of
(test) track.

I think you'll find that any eastbound train from Northfields can
access Platform 4, not just those on the 'local' (test track).

I wasn't aware of that.