Station Master Geoff has been out and about again for Londonist, this time on the Circle Line – with his latest video in the series.
Tube
VirginWiFi now VodafoneWiFi
Vodafone WiFi
We noticed the other day on a Vodafone device that at stations that have VirginMedia WiFi, you now also get the choice to connect to Vodafone WiFi.
In fact, we didn’t even have to manually choose to connect to it – our iPhone just connected automatically to the network and WiFi started working just as if we had connected to Virgin Media!
A little technical digging later, and it turns out that Vodafone identify and authenticate you using the IMSI number (your unique SIM card number) and are able to tell if you’re a Vodafone customer who has the right package, and will allow you to connect.
Using the Vodafone connection instead of the Virgin one gives you a level of encryption too (whatever the value of secure WiFi is today!) but better than the “none” on the Virgin Media network (where your connection could easily be eavesdropped by a malicious third party). It also means you don’t see the “captive” WiFi portal that you see when you first connect to the VirginMedia WiFi, although Vodafone have published some help that states that you might see a captive portal every 45 minutes if you open your browser.
This is a great way of getting more people on-line on the Tube with zero-configuration and we hope to see the other operators adopt the same EAP-SIM and iOS carrier bundle settings system that Vodafone have in the future.
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
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!
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
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
S Stock Collision
S7 Damage
Details have now come out about a minor collision between two District Line trains last week.
It occurred near Putney Bridge between two of the new S7 trains running on the branch between Wimbledon and Edgware Road, and all new S Stock trains were immediately withdrawn, whilst an investigation took place.
It also led to the unusual occurrence of some C Stock trains not running to Wimbledon and being sent to Ealing Broadway and Richmond instead.
D Stock trains continued to run to Wimbledon as normal.
The story appears in the Evening Standard and on the BBC News website.
Piccadilly shortcut gone!
Oh no! One of our favourite shortcuts on the tube system – at Piccadilly Circus – is blocked off at the moment, the infamous blue hoardings blocking our way.
This is the view from the Piccadilly Line side (which is signed to the Bakerloo Line!) which lets you nip up part of the emergency spiral staircase to the northbound Bakerloo Line platforms. We can assume that it is blocked off in a similar fashion on the Bakerloo Line side meaning you can’t use it as a shortcut down to the Piccadilly platforms anymore … let’s hope it’s temporary and not permanent!
Blocked off access
Non-stop Bond Street
So the Central Line is not stopping at Bond Street for a couple of months due to Crossrail works, but on our first pass through last night, we noticed that although the ‘Station Closed’ sign was of course up, it was just the usual ‘back of the tube map’ variant swung out, and wasn’t as nice the ‘Station Closed‘ signs where the WHOLE station had been decorated as such when Edgware Road on the Bakerloo was closed recently – although that was for a much longer period of time.
Which means this is the ‘pass thru’ photo that we snapped as we travelled slowly through …
Non-stop at Bond Street
The best place to board the train …
Something that Station Master is all about is telling you the perfect carriage and door position to be in to be near the exit – and yet it’s something that we’ve never seen or heard TfL do, until now – when we came across this very friendly member of platform staff at Leicester Square the other night.
“Please DO move down the platform – it really is less crowded if you don’t all go in the middle of the train, you won’t be squashed in like a sardine, and you might even get a seat!” he was cheerfully announcing every few minutes.
Leicester Square Platform Staff
And then he did something that we’ve never heard before – advise on the best carriage positions.
“Actually, if you’re going to Waterloo” he continued “You’ll want to be in the rear car of this six carriage train as that’s the nearest exit point to the escalator” he cheerful announced. Amazing! Never have we heard a member of staff do this before, and now here it was – happening.
It was clearly a ruse just to stop overcrowding of the middle of the Leicester Square platforms, oh – and either the front or rear carriages is the place to be for the southbound Northern Line at Waterloo.
Wimbleware 7’s
We took a trip out on the Wimbleware branch yesterday to check up on the progress of the roll-out of the S-Stock to the line. It’s served by eight ‘C’ stocks normally, and so we made a note of how many were still being run by C’s and how many new S7’s we saw.
S7 at Fulham Broadway
Four is the answer … although we did spot a C Stock in the sidings at Parsons Green as well, which looked all fired up and ready to go if needed.
Which means that the days of the ‘C’ stock, really are getting close to being numbered! Any day now, there will be an announcement for a rail tour for the final run of these units, the S’s will be on the Edgware Road to Wimbledon line, which means they’ll then start to make an appearance on the rest of the District Line proper …
Victorian Northern
This still tends to confuse us .. especially if we get onto the train at Stockwell or Euston. Think you’ve got onto a Northern Line train? You have! It’s just that the units that have been refurbished for a moment make you look twice at the line diagram on the carriage wall because you think from the bright shiny floor pattern that you’re in a Victoria Line carriage.
Victoria Line Carriage?
Then you see the dark blue grab poles (You know… Dark blue, the colour of the Northern Line) and the seat patterns and all is good. But it still doesn’t look very ‘Northern’ to us, more Victorian!