Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On 27 June, 11:12, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 26 June, 23:35, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-

wrote:
The other day I saw a FCC train parked at Moorgate - what was it doing there
so long after the route closed?

As others have said, the route hasn't closed. It's the bay platforms
at Blackfriars that have.

That means Southeastern trains that used to terminate at Blackfriars
have to run through to at least Kentish Town to reverse, which eats
most of the capacity between Farringdon and Kentish Town that the
Moorgate trains used to use. Therefore the plan was to run the
Moorgate trains into Southeastern territory, meaning service levels on
both routes were unaffected, though service to Moorgate would be
prematurely curtailed.

But since during the peaks there were more trains terminating at
Moorgate than trains terminating at Blackfriars, some of the trains
from the north were planned to terminate at Elephant and/or Herne
Hill*. It wouldn't have been impossible for these extra trains to have
continued to provide some service to Moorgate for the rest of this
year, when the branch actually closes.

And in fact, due to the shortage of dual voltage rolling stock, an
emergency timetable is in place which sees many Southeastern services
continuing to be provided by DC stock, reversing in Smithfield
sidings, and their paths north of Farringdon filled by trains starting
at Moorgate (not in passenger service until Farringdon), some of which
use AC-only stock (317s).


That corresponds to my experience of getting a 465 at Catford,
terminating at City Thameslink instead of running to Luton.

Also, some effort seems to be made to maintain the Southeastern
service when there's a problem with a train heading south, by turning
something else round at the sidings and cancelling the FCC part of
that service. After all, it might leave an hour gap in the south,
while there's a lot more duplication in the north.

(But not bothering to tell anyone at St Pancras, as I reported
previously.)

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

The Outer Circle appears to be deviating from its notional 10ms+10ms
+10ms+10ms interval into its actual 22ms+2ms+6ms+19ms interval.
Congestion at Edgware Road seems to be the main problem as trains get
held waiting for a platform. The Inner Circle is currently better but
presumably the teacup service cycling ensures that bad performance in
one direction gets propagated eventually to the other direction offset
somewhat by additional buffer time at Hammersmith?

--
gordon

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

Westbound departures from Edgware Rd (H&C) at 1305 hrs. showing
Hammersmith trains as follows:
Next Train 7ms; 2nd Train 17ms and 3rd Train 18ms.

--
gordon

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On 27 Jun 2009 08:21:30 GMT, Huge wrote:

FCC were tormenting the poor *******s who now have to jam onto a Tube train
at Farringdon instead.

Met Line trains from Farringdon to Moorgate aren't particularly rammed
at that time of the morning, perhaps surprisingly.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On Jun 27, 12:46*pm, " wrote:
The Outer Circle appears to be deviating from its notional 10ms+10ms
+10ms+10ms interval into its actual 22ms+2ms+6ms+19ms interval.
Congestion at Edgware Road seems to be the main problem as trains get
held waiting for a platform. The Inner Circle is currently better but
presumably the teacup service cycling ensures that bad performance in
one direction gets propagated eventually to the other direction offset
somewhat by additional buffer time at Hammersmith?


Inner Rail and Outer Rail are the conventional terms - as opposed to
Inner and Outer Circle, which were the names used for two different
routes back in Victorian times (along with Middle Circle, Super Outer
Circle, and Hyper Orbital... ok, made the last one up) - see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Th...ian_London.png

Nevertheless I find the terms Inner and Outer Rail a bit bizarre
myself - I always kinda hope that a railway track has two rails,
otherwise it has to perform a rather amazing balancing act (or more
boringly is just a more conventional monorail).

Anyway, interesting stuff you're discovering from monitoring the
situation. Would it be completely cynical to suggest that some staff
on the ground might be quite happy to see this experiment fail...

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On 27 June, 14:34, Mizter T wrote:
Anyway, interesting stuff you're discovering from monitoring the
situation. Would it be completely cynical to suggest that some staff
on the ground might be quite happy to see this experiment fail...

Possibly with good reason. As I understand it the Inner "Circle Line"
trains are supposed to show "Hammersmith" after they arrive at
Aldgate. Thus the poor wretches travelling from say King's Cross to
High Street Kensington will wait in vain for a train showing "Circle
Line" - should one turn up because the screen has not been changed
they'll potentially be conveyed Hammersmithwards under false
pretences. All the makings of a honky-tonk shambles in fact.

--
Gordon

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

In message of Wed, 24 Jun 2009
21:46:16 in uk.transport.london, Walter Briscoe
writes
In message
s.com of Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:55:22 in uk.transport.london, Paul Scott
writes
Noticed on TfL weekend travel a hint that a trial run of the Circle to
Hammersmith 'Teacup' service is happening this weekend. Can anyone
confirm this is the case? There are no 'service changes' displayed for
the Circle, they're just saying for Edgware Rd station:

I googled and found it in http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/real
time/tube/tube-all-weekend.html. How did you navigate there? I can only
get to the iconic report in http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/re
altime/by-date.aspx?offset=weekend


"Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 June, there is no through Circle line
service. Passengers travelling between Bayswater and Baker Street in
either direction will need to change trains at Edgware Road"

On Saturday, I shall be passing through Edgware Road on the H&C.
I will look for anything unusual.

I made 2 journeys in each direction between Baker Street and Royal Oak.
One train in each direction was stopped at the Praed Street Junction;
the eastbound for several minutes without operator PA.

All westbound services at Farringdon were marked as Hammersmith; half
the eastbound services at Royal Oak were marked as Circle Line.

There was no relevant PA at Farringdon. At KXSP, there were many
confused digital PAs telling Circle Line pax for Paddington and beyond
to change at Edgware Road. A Station Supervisor told me that PA came
from Corporate LU. There were occasional manual PAs at other stations.

There were plenty of staff to assist at Edgware Road.

I think I will now take a dead Oyster to Heathrow!
--
Walter Briscoe

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On Jun 27, 2:50*pm, " wrote:

On 27 June, 14:34, Mizter T wrote:

Anyway, interesting stuff you're discovering from monitoring the
situation. Would it be completely cynical to suggest that some staff
on the ground might be quite happy to see this experiment fail...

Possibly with good reason. As I understand it the Inner "Circle Line"
trains are supposed to show "Hammersmith" after they arrive at
Aldgate. Thus the poor wretches travelling from say King's Cross to
High Street Kensington will wait in vain for a train showing "Circle
Line" - should one turn up because the screen has not been changed
they'll potentially be conveyed Hammersmithwards under false
pretences. All the makings of a honky-tonk shambles in fact.


Hmm... I kinda regard the existing Circle line as a bit of a shambles
anyway - I'm open to the idea of the Teacup, if it works and makes the
overall service better. But people are innately conservative and don't
like change.

Extended Circle trial this weekend
 

On 27 June, 15:32, Mizter T wrote:
On Jun 27, 2:50*pm, " wrote:

On 27 June, 14:34, Mizter T wrote:

Anyway, interesting stuff you're discovering from monitoring the
situation. Would it be completely cynical to suggest that some staff
on the ground might be quite happy to see this experiment fail...

Possibly with good reason. As I understand it the Inner "Circle Line"
trains are supposed to show "Hammersmith" after they arrive at
Aldgate. Thus the poor wretches travelling from say King's Cross to
High Street Kensington will wait in vain for a train showing "Circle
Line" - should one turn up because the screen has not been changed
they'll potentially be conveyed Hammersmithwards under false
pretences. All the makings of a honky-tonk shambles in fact.

Hmm... I kinda regard the existing Circle line as a bit of a shambles
anyway - I'm open to the idea of the Teacup, if it works and makes the
overall service better. But people are innately conservative and don't
like change.

That's probably true, but I haven't particularly noticed it in these
discussions. People have been trying to come up with new ideas that
will be workable while maintaining journey and interchange options.

But the bottom line is it's a Victorian system built with lots of flat
junctions and inaccessible stations, so nothing is going to be easy.

I would welcome any change from the shambles that pretends to be the
Circle Line. I just don't really understand the explanations for the
problems (lack of depot, lack of terminus: both seem spurious and
irrelevant) and, in particular, I just can't see Edgware Road being
workable under the teacup.

But if it works I'll gladly use the tea to wash down my hat and
rejoice in the increased reliability (luckily, my trips from Putney to
Kings Cross are rare, I am fine with interchanging at Vauxhall and, as
I get older, more stations will probably be accessible and the
problems will go away).