Station Master App

Tube Strike Map

[See our post “Strike Thursday” for the latest Strike Map and information!]

With it looking increasingly likely that the tube strike is not going to be called off, Station Master has taken TfL’s list of tube services that it says it is hoping to have running, and turned it from a hard-to-understand list, into an easy-to-look at map – showing lines and stations that are opening with expected train frequencies in minutes.

Tube Strike Map – Click for full size image

We’ll live update this on Wednesday and Thursday as/if and when the situation changes.

Fit to Strike

The tit-for-tat games appeared in last night’s Evening Standard – the same issue in which TfL had a full page open letter from Mike Brown saying that no jobs would be lost during the changes, it also featured a column from Bob Crow demanding that no jobs would be lost during the changes.

It seems we all have to suffer whilst the latest round of political games is played out.

Here’s one take on it:

Boris, Mike Brown and the heads of TfL want to move ticket office staff out onto the front line. Let’s say that 100% of stations have ticket office right now (they don’t, 12 stations out of 270 already don’t have ticket offices), they’re saying they want almost NO stations to have staffed ticket offices.

The unions (rightly, as their job) are going to fight this, and they’ll probably end up being met half way in a compromise – around half of the ticket offices will go, and half will stay open.

But what if that’s what the bosses of TfL actually want the whole time? But they know that if they propose only half to close, then the unions will argue for compromise, and (say) three quarters will remain open.

So the TfL bosses go for the whole thing – complete closure, the unions argue against it, we all have to wait whilst the strikes are played out, and eventually they agree on only half of them being closed. The unions smile because they think they’ve staved off complete closure, and the TfL bosses secretly smile because they got what they wanted all along.

It’s just that whilst this happens, several million Londoners are massively inconvenienced for 48 hours.

All these changes occur as part of a new slogan ‘Fit for the Future’, that TfL are now using, as we discovered in this awkwardly-presented Mike Brown video, in which he lists five commitments. We can think of five of our own, but watch the video first and we’ll have more on that tomorrow …

Ticket Office / Tube / Video — — 04 Feb 14

Mind the Cappuccino

After the alternative concept map last Saturday, this week a new variant! Maybe Saturdays will develop into the alternative-map-day, we’ll see.

So this was doing the rounds on the internet yesterday, created by Chris Ward who spends his working life in various coffee shops around London. We can’t but help wonder if there will now be people who will go out and try and visit them all to say they’ve been to all of them.

Tube Coffee Map

Alternative Tube Maps / Tube — — 01 Feb 14

The blurry gateline

Without doubt, the funniest tube related video going round at the moment, is the ticket barrier on the gateline at Canary Wharf that sings a Blur song at you. Not sure how that can be? Play the video … we’ll be popping down to Canary Wharf later ourselves to investigate…

Fun / Tube / Video — — 29 Jan 14

Wait before you save someone’s life

We’re rather confused about this current poster campaign on the Tube. Cute little rhyming posters asking you to do things a certain way. Ok, now disposing of newspapers is one thing (even though I and many others like getting on a train and having something to read in the form of a discarded newspaper), but asking people to wait until you try and help someone who’s ill is .. odd, as far as we can see.

This Station Master had cause to use the PEA last year (Passenger Emergency Alarm), when shortly after pulling out of East Acton station heading into London, another passenger collapsed on the floor in front of us. We immediately pulled the alarm, spoke to the driver – who, with a whole 2 minutes ahead of him until White City was able to speak to the Line Controller, who in turn made sure that there was somebody already on the platform by the time our train pulled in. This meant that help was brought to that person far more quickly than if we’d have waited UNTIL the train was in the platform, and then pulled the alarm.

Also, it meant that the Line Controller was able to route the eastbound train immediately behind us (and others) through the middle platform at White City, and not have it delayed behind us.

So – serious question TfL – why are you advising people to wait until the next station until the alarm is pulled? The few minutes that it takes to get to the next station can be used to arrange help – perhaps life saving help, rather than waiting until the train gets there. Wouldn’t you want to get help to someone more quickly, rather than slowly?

Posters / Tube — — 27 Jan 14

Victoria Line set in Stone

Yesterday’s ‘flooding‘ in reality turned out to be a brand new reason as to why the Tube was delayed. It rapidly transpired that it wasn’t just water that had leaked into a signal control room at Victoria, but as part of the £695m upgrade to the station the workmen/contractors had somehow managed to fill up a signal relay room with a few feet of wet cement.

Website Us Vs Th3m got the scoop on the photos (no word as to how they were leaked, we’re guessing that someone high up in TfL was NOT happy about that). Also, with some people predicting that it might be a whole week until it was all removed and cleaned up, it was good to know that people had clearly worked very hard overnight to clear it up, and the Victoria Line was back to a normal service this morning.

Twitter descended into a plethora of puns yesterday, with the obvious gags being of ‘Wanting concrete evidence’, ‘Mortar follow’, and ‘Workman responsible fears he may become hardened criminal’, and of course ‘The Circle Line is now the Blue Circle Line’ [Blue Circle is a manufacturer of cement]. But our favourite was actually from user @paulsilburn who came up with this:

‘Concrete on the Victoria line is affecting services to Brickston and connections to the Cementral Line’

Engineering / Fun / Tube — — 24 Jan 14

Turnham Piccadilly Green

Piccadilly at Turnham Green

Last year, living on the Piccadilly Line as we do, we saw the publicity asking people for their views and thoughts on it. In particular, it seems, whether trains should stop more often, or even on a regular, basis at Turnham Green.

This Station Master made the point that they’d like to see more off-peak trains stop there during the day time – e.g. after 10am, and before 4pm, which I suspect wasn’t a popular choice.

Anyway, TfL have now published their results, which they sent to everyone in an email. They don’t specifically say “We’re not going to stop more trains at Turnham Green”, instead they just say:

“Although we recognise that stopping more Piccadilly line trains at Turnham Green would benefit customers using that station, we do not currently do so because it would mean decreasing the service to other parts of the Piccadilly line, longer journey times for customers passing through Turnham Green station and a potentially less reliable service for all passengers on the line”

That is, until then we spotted a small link at the bottom which DOES take you to the full report, which is here. (Note, it’s a 38-page PDF but the summary is the same : No additional Piccadilly Line trains to Turnham Green).

… but the summary is the same : No additional Piccadilly Line trains to Turnham Green).

~ ~ ~

Hang on … that is of course, until you find the one small paragraph on page 24, which then DOES go onto tell you that ‘TfL plans to stop Piccadilly Line trains at Turnham Green station all day once the line is modernised’ – i.e. once there is a new signalling system in place with new rolling stock.

This is what annoys us about such lengthy reports – in the initial email you get, the message is one of “Trains will not stop at Turnham Green”, but only if you read the full lengthy report, do you find that new trains will stop there – but not until 2018. And we suspect that date will slip to 2020 in reality.

Reading the rest of the report too it does reference the fact the initial survey was to ask about people’s thoughts on the whole of the Piccadilly Line, but they do seem to have focused on the Turnham Green issue and not much else. There’s no mention of the Piccadilly Line going to Ealing Broadway for example, or whether the District Line will go to Rayners Lane instead once the new S-Stock are rolled out on that line.

Future services / Tube — — 23 Jan 14

Barking Bay Platform

Whilst on our travels on the H&C, we noticed something else had changed, that we think came into effect with the December 2013 timetable.

At Barking, there is a bay road/platform where H&C trains normally terminate and turn around in. Within the Station Master App this is what the exit information lists – Platform 3.

But now it seems that H&C trains are terminating on the same platform as District trains (Platforms 1a and 2) but whereas District trains open their doors on both sides, H&C trains only open the doors on the right, Platform 2 only.

The train then goes into sidings beyond the station, and comes back into service (as shown here) on Platform 6 instead.

A ‘S7’ stock train on the H&C line starts it journey at Platform 6, Barking.

We’re not sure if it’s a permanent thing, or just something that’s being tried out. It also seems to change depending on what time of day it is, so it is rather confusing if your starting station is Barking as to which platform to go to for the next train …

Platforms / Tube — — 18 Jan 14

An evening of Kultura

A poet, an artist, an escalator-repairing music producer, the man who can taste the tube map – but most of all last night we loved musician Shaun Buswell who gave us a presentation on how he set himself the challenge of creating an orchestra made up of musicians he met as strangers whilst travelling on the London Underground.

We’re not sure how we hadn’t heard of this before, but it was brilliant as you’ll see from the video here.

Many thanks to Andy Green from Tubespiration for organsing London’s first Tube Kultura.

Events / Tube / Video — — 16 Jan 14

A case of the false facade

We thought that we were all tubed-out in terms of Sherlock after we’d been dished up a lot of mixed up trains a couple of weeks ago in the first episode, but we knew that something might be going on when we received a text message from a friend saying “Is it true about the houses?” – as we were half an hour behind watching it on catchup.

“That’ll be a Leinster Gardens reference then” announced this Station Master, and sure enough, when we got to part in the programme ourselves, there was Sherlock, Watson and Mrs. Watson all holed up in the best-fake-addressed-house in London.

The best way to visit the houses-that-aren’t as created by the Metropolitan Line is to of course visit them yourself, but for a cosier warmer view you can just use Google Maps from above to look down on the location, where clearly there is a gap in the houses and the railway runs instead.

One thing we’re not clear on though is how much of an ‘inside’ of 23-24 Leinster Gardens there really is. When Station Master Geoff passed through last year whilst making the District Line video for the Londonist and he dropped by (scroll to 3m 38s), there was only a small crack in the window revealing a tiny room which I doubt leads to a long corridor as shown in the programme.

So if you’ve never been, next time you’re in central west London, hop out at either Bayswater or Paddington, to discover London’s best false address.

Secret trains / Tube / Tube on TV — — 13 Jan 14

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