Elizabeth Line / Crossrail Updates.

[Joseph_Pestell]

11 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I focused on toilets as that is an easy target

 

 

 

Not to judge from the state of them on most trains.

[The Stationmaster]

On 06/10/2019 at 23:30, Christopher125 said:

 

What do you mean? Rail use continues to grow nationally.

 

 

What 'health implications' are they were meant to be thinking of? Looking sideways out of a train isn't just normal, it's the only option normally available!

 

If there are any people who can't handle seeing the outside going past they can always look at the floor/ceiling/other people/phones/books etc, staring through the window is not compulsory.

If you sit in a normal seat you can either look backwards or forwards or at various angles to one side or the other.  Sitting in a longitudinal seat you look straight at the oppiste side of the vehicles although you can angle your head one way or another to a limited extent.  Now think of looking out of a window moving at 90mph at a green jungle flashing past - on the tv images like that in a programme come with a warning about flickering images, on these trains they don't although the flickering will be even worse.

 

There are people with various health problems who can be disturbed by flickering images - that is known medical fact yet these trains have been designed to deliberately incorporate them.  i suffer from adult onset epilepsy, you might not, although mine is readily controlled by daily medication.  There are plenty of undiagnosed epileptics around plus other people who can be disturbed by flickering images.  It's easy enough to design a train which is going to travel at speed in a way which minimises this health risk potential, in fact the rail network is full of such trains some of which have been specifically designed to pass through the centre of London.  

 

But in the case of the 345 everything in its internal layout has been predicated on high capacity loading in the central core area thus it not only has a limited number of seats (450 in a full length formation) but they only provide less than 25% of its total capacity and only a percentage of those seats face fore & aft.  Join a 345 heading west at Paddington and I'd bet a substantial sum that those fore & aft facing seats will be the first to be occupied, just as on the 387s the seats which go first are those at the full tables.

 

Oh and adult onset epilepsy is not a restricted club, the joining rate is estimated in some countries as 1 person in every 2,000 joining this club every year.  And I'm not going to travel around looking at the bl**dy ceiling or floor - that window opposite will always be there and when I'm on a train i like to know where the train is, I won't find out that from the ceiling.  Maybe the Central London Railway had the right idea?

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

On 07/10/2019 at 05:25, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Not to judge from the state of them on most trains.

 

So true!

 

Trying to keep them clean must be a soul-destroying job. "Customer hygiene executives" - probably on close to minimum wage as well? (Adding insult to injury). I wouldn't be surprised if trying to keep them clean has been officially designated as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment. That maybe the reason why they are taking away the toilets? If those ungrateful "customers" can't p1ss and sh1t in the correct places, why bother?

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

So true!

 

Trying to keep them clean must be a soul-destroying job. "Customer hygiene executives" - probably on close to minimum wage as well? (Adding insult to injury). I wouldn't be surprised if trying to keep them clean has been officially designated as a Cruel and Unusual Punishment. That maybe the reason why they are taking away the toilets? If those ungrateful "customers" can't p1ss and sh1t in the correct places, why bother?

Its still better than Le French Regional Bog...

hole in the floor, just aim for it.

[KeithMacdonald]

15 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Its still better than Le French Regional Bog...

hole in the floor, just aim for it.

 

What?

On French Regional trains?

Merde.

[woodenhead]

Interesting article here - coming soon to stations around London but not part of Oyster.  Don't ask me what this means as I don't use Oyster enough but it sounds like things will be getting confusing soon.

 

[Fat Controller]

9 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

What?

On French Regional trains?

Merde.

I don't know where you found those, but I have encountered a variety with plinth and seat, but no U-bend. Instead, there's a pivoted flap, giving a clear view of the rail-head. If you drop your phone down that, it's history.

[jamie92208]

2 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

I don't know where you found those, but I have encountered a variety with plinth and seat, but no U-bend. Instead, there's a pivoted flap, giving a clear view of the rail-head. If you drop your phone down that, it's history.

Even the relatively  modern corail stock had a view of the track.

 

Jamie

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Even the relatively  modern corail stock had a view of the track.

 

Jamie

Still does in much of Europe.

 

Forget PRM, I have a hard time thinking much European stock even has running water.. and I don't just mean to wash hands. Ive seen people slide open doors and spray to the passing countryside.. must be a shock at a level crossing, but then again Ive seen an elderly gent relieve his beer in the middle of gare du nords concourse too. At least in the UK people tend to keep there privates, private, even if those facilities are digital & minging.

 

coming back to topic.. what happens when XR goes pop, and passengers are stranded for 2,3,4,5 hours with no loos... when TL properly lost its teddy a month back, some passengers had to wait from 5pm until 2am to be rescued, though they had loos on board.

Edited October 8, 2019 by adb968008

[TomJ]

48 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Still does in much of Europe.

 

Forget PRM, I have a hard time thinking much European stock even has running water.. and I don't just mean to wash hands. Ive seen people slide open doors and spray to the passing countryside.. must be a shock at a level crossing, but then again Ive seen an elderly gent relieve his beer in the middle of gare du nords concourse too. At least in the UK people tend to keep there privates, private, even if those facilities are digital & minging.

 

coming back to topic.. what happens when XR goes pop, and passengers are stranded for 2,3,4,5 hours with no loos... when TL properly lost its teddy a month back, some passengers had to wait from 5pm until 2am to be rescued, though they had loos on board.

What happens at present when London Underground goes pop and passengers are stranded on a tube train???

[Fat Controller]

3 minutes ago, TomJ said:

What happens at present when London Underground goes pop and passengers are stranded on a tube train???

Hosepipe at the depot...

[Siberian Snooper]

I for one will be using GW to PAD and changing to XR there, I'm not using a 345 outside of the core except when it's necessary to go to LHR and then I will try and use GW to HAY and change XR there as much as possible.

 

I'm like the Stationmaster, I like to know where I am, it's different in the tunnels, nothing to see out of the window anyway.

 

 

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, TomJ said:

What happens at present when London Underground goes pop and passengers are stranded on a tube train???

Increasingly they are taking matters into their own hands and survival instinct kicks in. My wife was stuck on a 455 outside Clapham junction for 2 hours a few weeks back on a rush hour train, on what should have been a 20 minute journey, she said it was getting scary on the train as it was both hot and high tensions, people were getting agitated, others were trying the doors. I missed the 7 hour TL drama by less than 3 minutes.. I let one train go, and waited for the next..turned out a very wise decision.

 

Someone will lose their life due to one of these incidents, either through medical neglect or an ugly incident on board or on egress on the tracks. Sadly it needs this to happen before action is taken and some controller or staff member indirectly connected to this incident will find themselves on a manslaughter charge and trial by British media, egged on with public support before anything changes. its symptomatic of a disjointed railway network that forgets why it runs trains, even BR had that one sussed. 

 

You cant hold passengers hostage, without water, without information, indefinitely. Yet its becoming increasingly acceptable and more frequent. Twitter should be informative but most of the time its simply statements on how to get a refund. I should add DOO has no bearing on this, when these incidents occur, staff suddenly become extinct and to be honest I cant blame them, I would too.

 

 

rant over.

Edited October 8, 2019 by adb968008

[Arun Sharma]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

"m the ceiling.  Maybe the Central London Railway had the right idea?"

Did you mean CLR, Mike or were you referring to the windowless "padded cells" of the City & South London Railway?

 

 

 

[TomJ]

Completely OT but it’s got me wondering. Why do trains on say the Victoria Line or Waterloo and City have such large windows? They run entirely in tunnels so nothing to look at except the stations. Would it have been cheaper/simpler to have small aircraft style windows? Or do passengers expect a window even when there’s nothing to look at? 

[phil-b259]

31 minutes ago, TomJ said:

Completely OT but it’s got me wondering. Why do trains on say the Victoria Line or Waterloo and City have such large windows? They run entirely in tunnels so nothing to look at except the stations. Would it have been cheaper/simpler to have small aircraft style windows? Or do passengers expect a window even when there’s nothing to look at? 

 

The City & South London Railway tried that when it opened - and even Edwardian passengers hated them, nicknaming the 'padded cells'  After a few years the CLR were forced to rebuild them with windows even though the route was entirely below ground other than the depot

 

 

 

 

While its true that there is nothing to see between stations - at stations having windows allows those on board to easily see where they are (yes I know automated announcements are made these days), it allows those on the station to see how crowded the train is as it pulls in making it easier to select a carriage with a bit more space in it.

Edited October 8, 2019 by phil-b259

[Platform 1]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

...people who can be disturbed by flickering images

Always a problem for me - roughly November to March on the eastern ends of the Central Line could be quite distressing on a sunny morning.  Maybe that's why all those rows of newspapers go up?

 

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

...the 345 everything in its internal layout has been predicated on high capacity loading in the central core

Indeed.  So why wasn't XR built to tube standards with say 12-car trains?  Apologies if this was already covered up-thread - surely it would have saved on costs (plenty of precedent, Bakerloo & Central lines)?  And perhaps thus avoided the temptation to extend as far as Reading.

 

But at least lucky Freedom Pass holders will get a bargain trip in the Thames Valley if they can put up with discomforts en route...

 

[Christopher125]

11 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

If you sit in a normal seat you can either look backwards or forwards or at various angles to one side or the other.  Sitting in a longitudinal seat you look straight at the oppiste side of the vehicles although you can angle your head one way or another to a limited extent.  Now think of looking out of a window moving at 90mph at a green jungle flashing past - on the tv images like that in a programme come with a warning about flickering images, on these trains they don't although the flickering will be even worse.

 

That's a perfectly valid theory, but longitudinal seating has been used around the world for decades - is there any actual evidence that it has health implications? 

[DY444]

14 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Increasingly they are taking matters into their own hands and survival instinct kicks in. My wife was stuck on a 455 outside Clapham junction for 2 hours a few weeks back on a rush hour train, on what should have been a 20 minute journey, she said it was getting scary on the train as it was both hot and high tensions, people were getting agitated, others were trying the doors. I missed the 7 hour TL drama by less than 3 minutes.. I let one train go, and waited for the next..turned out a very wise decision.

 

Someone will lose their life due to one of these incidents, either through medical neglect or an ugly incident on board or on egress on the tracks. Sadly it needs this to happen before action is taken and some controller or staff member indirectly connected to this incident will find themselves on a manslaughter charge and trial by British media, egged on with public support before anything changes. its symptomatic of a disjointed railway network that forgets why it runs trains, even BR had that one sussed. 

 

You cant hold passengers hostage, without water, without information, indefinitely. Yet its becoming increasingly acceptable and more frequent. Twitter should be informative but most of the time its simply statements on how to get a refund. I should add DOO has no bearing on this, when these incidents occur, staff suddenly become extinct and to be honest I cant blame them, I would too.

 

 

rant over.

 

It's not new.  I can remember regular bailouts on the SR in the 1970s. 

 

What is a more recent phenomena is the time it takes to sort incidents out which of course increases the probability that people will be tempted to bail out.  I appreciate that in BR days there were locomotives available at far more places but the big change now is the fear and consequent paralysis which has eliminated safe pragmatism and trumped the imperative of getting traffic moving again.  I always think of the HST stuck on the B&H near Westbury for over 5 hours a few years ago.  If you were writing a textbook on what is wrong with rail operations in this country then that incident alone would tell you all you need to know to fill it.      

Edited October 9, 2019 by DY444

[iands]

15 hours ago, adb968008 said:

 I should add DOO has no bearing on this, when these incidents occur, staff suddenly become extinct and to be honest I cant blame them, I would too.

 

Agree about on-board staff becoming extinct, a case of self-preservation perhaps - one against possibly hundreds. But other staff have the ability to communicate (albeit one-way) with the passengers via the cab radio. I am a bit surprised this facility isn't used more often in such cases.

[adb968008]

26 minutes ago, iands said:

Agree about on-board staff becoming extinct, a case of self-preservation perhaps - one against possibly hundreds. But other staff have the ability to communicate (albeit one-way) with the passengers via the cab radio. I am a bit surprised this facility isn't used more often in such cases.

I think its because the staff only have limited information too.

 

Train stops, the train companies have no info sit around waiting until Network rail says “go”. Thats certainly how it feels.

 

The only way the TOCs can respond is by telling people not to travel, and how to get a refund.

 

going by the incident my misses got stuck in, it was suggested it might be a trespasser on the track on twitter, so everything stopped for 2 hours... did someone go looking ?, dunno, did they have much luck finding someone in the dark ?, dunno, or did they just sit down and wait for 2 hours to assume enough time had passed. Dunno... was it a track worker, dunno. But all 4 lines at Balham saw no movement for 2 hours between 6pm and 8pm, no explanations, no expectations of how long the delay was.. lead to inevitable twitter comments of “run them over”..  In the end my misses headed off the stress by me relaying traksy movements to her to relay to the train that something was happening, and she shared with others including a guy who was ready to break a window and egress after two hours being just about able to see the platform he wanted to get to.

 

To rub salt in it, my wife uses a pay wave credit card, which charged her a penalty fare which she cannot dispute as its not a paper ticket, oystercard or toc issued rfid card and time between tap-in and tap-out exceeded the max time limit (If anyone has experience of handling this pm me please). Sadly this is one example.. as mentioned early TL managed at least 10 straight days of multi-hour disruptions in the last two weeks, each one with its own unique horror story. TL staff at this point are battle hardened frontline soldiers.

Edited October 9, 2019 by adb968008

[iands]

15 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I think its because the staff only have limited information too.

 

Train stops, the train companies have no info sit around waiting until Network rail says “go”. Thats certainly how it feels.

 

The only way the TOCs can respond is by telling people not to travel, and how to get a refund.

 

going by the incident my misses got stuck in, it was apparently a trespasser on the track, so everything stopped for 2 hours... did someone go looking ?, dunno, did they have much luck finding someone in the dark ?, dunno, or did they just sit down and wait for 2 hours to assume enough time had passed. Dunno... was it a track worker, dunno. But all 4 lines at Balham saw no movement for 2 hours between 6pm and 8pm, no explanations, no expectations of how long the delay was.. lead to inevitable twitter comments of “run them over”..  In the end my misses headed off the stress by me relaying traksy movements to her to relay to the train that something was happening, and she shared with others including a guy who was ready to break a window and egress after two hours being just about able to see the platform he wanted to get to.

 

To rub salt in it, my wife uses paywave credit card, which charged her a penalty fare which she cannot dispute as its not a paper ticket, oystercard or toc issued rfid card.

Sympathy to your misses and all the other passengers that get caught up by such delays. But apart from some of the most remotest of lines, the whole idea of IECCs and ROCs is to have "integrated control rooms" whereby such information flows can (should?) happen automatically. At these locations it shouldn't be too difficult to get the signaller to make a call via GSMR to an individual train, or a group call to all trains in an affected area, to keep passengers advised of what is (or is not) happening. The technology is there to be used (and has been for about 30 years on DOO Radio fitted stock) but I suspect at times "following correct procedures" may get in the way of a good idea.

[billbedford]

51 minutes ago, iands said:

Agree about on-board staff becoming extinct, a case of self-preservation perhaps - one against possibly hundreds. But other staff have the ability to communicate (albeit one-way) with the passengers via the cab radio. I am a bit surprised this facility isn't used more often in such cases.

 

The first responsibility for the crew of a failed train is, and always has been, that they should protect the train. Which means, in effect, that someone has to walk about half a mile back up the line to place detonators on the rail. Unfortunately with DOO it so only the driver that can do this.

 

The idea that any train crew would abandon their passengers to their fate seems to me to be an utmost, unthinking, calumny.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by billbedford

[billbedford]

22 minutes ago, iands said:

At these locations it shouldn't be too difficult to get the signaller to make a call via GSMR to an individual train, or a group call to all trains in an affected area, to keep passengers advised of what is (or is not) happening. The technology is there to be used (and has been for about 30 years on DOO Radio fitted stock) but I suspect at times "following correct procedures" may get in the way of a good idea.

 

The 'cab radio' is seen as part of the signalling system, and AFAIK are not integrated with the passenger PAs. I can think of a number of reasons why breaking that separation would not be a good idea.

[iands]

1 minute ago, billbedford said:

 

 and AFAIK are not integrated with the passenger PAs.

Yes they are, and have been since DOO Radio systems were introduced in the mid-1980s. However, NRN cab radio's were not interfaced with the train PA system.

 

Not sure why (current) cab radios are seen as part of the signalling system. The emphasis on cab radios may well change when ETCS Level 2/3 is fully established however.