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Monthly Archives: May 2014

Piccadilly Closures

We spotted this on some publicity the other day concerning Gloucester Road – sure Piccadilly trains aren’t stopping there whilst the lifts are replaced, but what’s this below? NO TRAINS at all for a few weeks at the end of July and beginning of August? Surely that’s just at weekends, right?

Piccadilly Closures

Piccadilly Closures

Err, no. We checked out the TfL Planned Works calendar – and there must be some major work taking place as there really are no Piccadilly services beyond Rayners Lane for 20 days, and the Metropolitan is affected too, with trains only going as far as Rusilip. This means there will be NO TUBE TRAINS at all beyond Ruislup and Uxbridge between July 19th and August the 10th. Replacement buses will of course operate

No trains to Uxbridge!

No trains to Uxbridge!

Engineering / Tube — — 30 May 14

Planet of the Apps

Station Master Geoff appears on GINX-TV’s ‘Planet of the Apps‘ last week as they asked us on to talk about the App, and we were very happy to oblige! It’s taken us a few days to capture it, but have done so now – here’s how it came out.

Media Mention / Video — — 28 May 14

Priority Lift Boarding

With major work taking place on the escalators at Cutty Sark DLR station at the bottom, there is only step and lift access when entering the station – there is only an escalator out at the moment.

So there’s a big sign up saying that the lift is for wheelchairs and prams only – as a temporary poster – but this is up next to a permanent sign suggesting that it is always the case at this station, and is the first time we’ve seen a permanent sign suggesting that this is the case at a station.

Priority Boarding

Priority Boarding

 

Accessibility / DLR / Escalators — — 27 May 14

Now You C Me

Station Master Geoff’s video of the final A-Stock trains, is finally coming out on DVD next month (via the London Transport Museum) along with a brand new video … the last days of the C Stock, the trailer of which is now online:

The tickets haven’t gone live on the LTMuseums website yet, but they soon will for the Last C-Stock Tour on Sunday June 29th.  On the day there’ll be a ‘pop up’ shop/stall at Barking station, where the DVD will be on sale for the first time, and after that – through the LT Museum shop as per normal.

The trailer for the A-Stock video (A to S) is still online here too.

Both videos are 30 minutes in length, one hour in total for the whole DVD.

 

London Transport Museum / Video — — 26 May 14

Labyrinth Update … Part 3

North Harrow Labyrinth

North Harrow Labyrinth

They’re still out there – and we’re still tracking them down!  We love the Labyrinths.

Yesterday we ventured to the middle-to-dark end of the Bakerloo Line and picked up Queens Park, Kensal Rise and the brand new one that had been installed at Willesden Junction at last.

Coupled with Wimbledon and Richmond (two tricky NR stations) that have recently been added, by our calculations there are just seven stations left now that don’t yet have their Labyrinths installed, namely:

Acton Town, West Acton, North Ealing, Perivale, Brent Cross, East Finchley and Loughton.

Why these particular stations are last or problematic in getting a labyrinth installed (perhaps the Grade II listed status for some of them?) we don’t know, but the end is now in sight.

We also spoke to Art on the Underground yesterday who told us that the ones that had been put up at Cannon Street and Whitechapel (and then removed for maintenance work), are being re-installed next week.

 

Art on the Underground / Labyrinths — — 24 May 14

Red Wine (And ten other colours)

I see what you did there, London Wine Week in having the eleven colours of the tube lines …

Eleven Bottle of Wine

Eleven Bottles of Wine

Posters — — 23 May 14

Central Stickers

There are now some nice big bright stickers on Central Line carriages, in bold red pointing out the fact that trains aren’t currently stopping at Bond Street, by removing its connection blob.

No connection

No connection

What we can’t work out though is why they felt the sticker needed to cover up Notting Hill Gate, Queensway, Lancaster Gate and Marble Arch as well when absolutely nothing map-wise has changed about these stations.

With connection

With connection

 

Map / Posters / Signage / Tube — — 22 May 14

Contactless on Buses

contactlesscardAfter our post on Contactless payments last week for the pilot on tube trains, we’re still waiting for our ‘membership card’ to turn up in the post – it’s been two weeks now and we’ve still not received it. We had a sneaky go at using our contactless credit card the other day though, and it did correctly charge £2.70 for an off-peak journey from Zone 3 to Zone 3 through Zone 1, with no ‘Error 89‘ that we had got on our previous attempt.

However, we did learn something about contactless on bus journeys at the weekend!  A revenue inspector got on board the bus we were on, and when he did, he showed his badge to the driver, and got him to print out something from the Oyster machine – when I asked what it was, he was happy to show us.

It was a list of the time and last four digits of the payment cards used by the people (in this instance just one person) that had got on board the bus and used a contactless card. Therefore, anyone else showing a contactless card whose last 4 digits didn’t match any on the printout, had NOT touched in properly and would be liable for a penalty fare.

We still don’t see how this is going to transfer and work on tube trains, but it’s interesting to see how it works on the buses anyway.

Buses / Contactless payments — — 20 May 14

Oyster Overcharge

Those of you with Pay as you go Oyster cards might want to scrutinise your online account or weekly statements a little bit more carefully after we came across a glitch in the system that resulted in us being overcharged, even though we had touched-in and touched-out correctly on the bus and Tube all day on Sunday.

£9,15This Station Master was more than a little perplexed when a £9.15 daily total popped up for what should have been a £7.70 fare cap for the day – the last journey of the day on the bus being charged at 10 pence.

TfL don’t have a £9.15 price cap!

Neither we, nor TfL customer service, could explain it, but we realised the difference between £9.15 and £7.70 is £1.45 – the cost of a bus journey, which TfL refunded immediately.

Something had obviously gone wrong somewhere and a bus journey hadn’t been counted towards the cap for the day.  (A clock wrong on the ticket machine on the bus perhaps?)

If you don’t check your Oyster online account or weekly statements regularly, now might be the time to have a quick check, just to be sure. With Contactless payments being piloted right now too, we hope this was a one off glitch!

Contactless payments / Oyster / TfL — — 19 May 14

After the Tube strike

Musical comedy (and Tube fan) Jay Foreman was on Not The One Show the other week, just after the Tube strike – and before the next strike had not yet been called off. They asked him to write a song about the strikes, and he obliged.

We saw it at the time, but we’ve only just spotted that he’s uploaded it to his YouTube channel.

Fun / Video — — 18 May 14
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