Station Master App

A real good service

One of the things which we like to grumble about the most (and we hear others do too – including drivers) is the fabled ‘Good Service‘ announcement which plagues our eardrums on platforms and stations, and often gets automatically announced by a system which isn’t good enough to react quickly to situations on the tube where it’s gone wrong.

Nothing is more annoying when tube travelling than (say) the time when we waited 23 minutes for a Piccadilly Line train whilst being told several times that there was a ‘Good Service‘ when there clearly wasn’t.

Which is why we love this – Andy Drizen’s Tube Map Live. Yes we’re plugging another App which we have no problem doing here if it’s one we really love, and we really love this one. Andy first produced the excellent Tube Tracker, and then subsequently came up with Tube Map Live, which plots the positions of the trains (from a feed from TfL) on a tube map.

The result? You can actually see for yourself the gap between the trains on any particular line, and thus judge for yourself if there really IS a ‘Good Service‘ or not.

Tube Map Live!

Instead of the wasted money on the ‘rainbow board’ in every station bleating on about there being a good service, how great would it be if all stations actually had a display like this, showing you how the trains were actually running. In the meantime, download the App (it’s free!), and watch them for yourselves. Sometimes we watch them, just for fun – even if we’re not taking a journey anywhere!

Charing Cross mismatch

While out and about on the Underground this week we noticed this at Charing Cross on the northbound Northern Line platform:

The hatchings on the platform are accompanied by this sign on the wall:

And sure enough when our train arrived the leading set of doors didn’t open here.

If our memory serves correctly this has always been the case with the 95-stock on the Northern Line, so what’s going on here?

Well it all turns out it’s to do with the recent commissioning of what’s known as ‘NMA4’ or ‘Northern Migration Area 4’. This is part (4 of 6) of the project to implement Transmission Based Train Control or ‘TBTC’ on the Northern Line – which allows the trains to be driven automatically, as is already the case on the Victoria, Central and Jubilee lines. Presently on the Northern Line, the High Barnet branch and Chalk Farm to Oval are running with automation.

When NMA4 went live recently, the stopping point at Charing Cross was moved back by 2.5 metres (for reasons unknown to us at present), however the doors and the passenger announcements (CELIA) are driven by the Train Management System (TMS) which needs a software upgrade to take this into account, but this won’t be updated until around June 2014.

Tube — — 24 Feb 14

Meanwhile …

Piccadilly Line trains are still going to Ealing Broadway, supposedly. With the rest of the Piccadilly Branch up to Rayners Lane finally have their “Next train…” DMI’s turned on, I’m really holding out and hoping that someone is going to fix this, and perhaps give us some actually times too of when the next train is actually expected.

Piccadilly to Ealing … not

Tube — — 22 Feb 14

Spacious Trains

This is first (and only, so far!) time we’ve seen this new poster up around the network. A sleek S-Stock bursting out of the roundel announcing yet another way that TfL are ‘reinvesting their income to improve the services’.

We saw this on the Victoria Line, and interestingly it does mention the new ’09 trains as being part of this reinvestment, alongside the Metropolitan, Circle and H&C lines which do have the new ‘S’ Stock.

So, just the District Line to go then …

Posters / Tube — — 21 Feb 14

Bless you

Here’s something that we’d never seen on the Tube before until recently, and now we’ve seen it happen 3 times in the space of a week. A person gets on and distributes packs of tissues with a note asking for money – they put them in places next to people sitting on the train, some who ignore, some who read, some who do give money … and the whole thing has to take place within two minutes until the train gets to the next stop.

Twice on the Bakerloo Line, and twice on the Central Line we’ve seen this, and we’re told that the practice has been quite common on the Paris Metro for several years, and now it’s here in London.

Tissues

Begging / Tube — — 20 Feb 14

Not all trains

With the last ‘C’ stock train running on the Circle line last week, the rollout of S7 trains to the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines is now complete. There are just 8 C-Stock trains left on the network – still faithfully serving the Wimbledon to Edgware Road branch, and these will be phased out over the next couple of months.

We couldn’t help notice all the ‘All trains do not stop here!’ signs on the platforms, which were put in place when S7’s were first introduced and there was a mix of ‘C’ and ‘S’ trains. Now that all the S-Stocks are out there, surely it’s time to remove these platform signs?

Not all trains … at Aldgate Station

It also leave us (Station Master) in a tricky spot. We have all the new ‘Which door/carriage?’ information ready for the next release of the App – now that trains have 7 cars rather than 6, there have been a few subtle changes in the exit information. But we’re aware that that information is ripe for being copied and used elsewhere.

So in the same way that some cartographers (including Google Maps) introduced fake roads into their maps (known as Trap Streets), we’re considering entering a piece of false/wrong data on purpose so that we’d know if anyone ever copied us!

App update / Tube — — 19 Feb 14

More Labyrinth

Ickenham Labyrinth

Time for a Labyrinth update again as we were out on the network last week, doing some bashing and picked up a few Labyrinths on the way (Ickenham is Hard, South Kensington is particularly evil).

We note though that the official Art on the Underground website, still hasn’t added a few that do exist (e.g. Russell Square), but we’re quite excited because we’ve now got up to 205 – the first time we’ve been two hundred and something, meaning that we’re on the home straight.

The distinctly non-LU stations of Heathrow 5, Richmond and Wimbledon though are still being stubborn, and I suspect will be the last stations to have their labyrinths installed.

Anyway, here’s Geoff’s list if you’re having trouble finding any, or if you think you’ve spotted any that you want to tell us about then tweet us at @stnmasterapp

Art on the Underground / Labyrinths / Tube — — 18 Feb 14

No Strike Wednesday

Strike Suspended Poster

After last week, we were all set to go again with our alternative tube map showing what services actually are running during the strike (it would have been an improvement on last week), but on Tuesday afternoon, the strikes were called off.

Londonist have an article here, or the BBC have a video as to the reasons behind it. Note that whilst the strike is ‘off’ they’re not being ruled out completely, just on hold whilst extended talks take place.

Tube — — 12 Feb 14

Acton Town DMIs

The slow rollout of platform Dot Matrix Indicators actually showing the ‘next train’ information (after years of them being installed without showing it) continues its progress as we notice they’re now working at South Ealing and here shown – At Acton Town – useful when you’re going up to Ealing Common and you’re trying to work out if the Piccadilly or District service is going to leave first.

Whether a train in ‘3 minutes‘ actually arrives in 3 minutes though is another matter, and we’ve got an idea that we’ll be blogging about soon, to check the actual timings of trains.

Acton Town DMI

Infrastructure / Tube — — 11 Feb 14

Strike Thursday

9am – Based on the latest information from TfL we’ve updated our map again. There is a service running on some of the Bakerloo Line, some Metropolitan Line trains are now going to Uxbridge and the Central Line is now running as far as Marble Arch.

Tube Strike Map for Thursday

Tube — — 06 Feb 14

Recent Posts

Archives

Tube