Yesterday I wrote about transport and today I'm going to do it again. Sorry, I know you're not especially interested, you'd rather read about a cul-de-sac in Mitcham. But hopefully you'll read what follows in case I mention something tangentially interesting, and don't worry, this selection is resolutely bus-free.
Rail News
If you've ever waited for a mainline train at Euston station you'll have joined the masses stood within its cavernous shell to look up at the big departures board. Well not any more because they've turned it off.
Instead they've added two new electronic departure boards in the centre of the floor space, both double sided, and now you get all your information from those. Crucially they're aligned perpendicular to the original board, an orientation which divides those waiting into four separate groups, and hey presto the single expectant throng has disappeared. This has supposedly improved circulation around the concourse and made it much easier for those alighting from trains to filter through to an exit. So that's a win. But the boards are also much smaller than those they've replaced, so that might be a loss.
Each display board is divided into five sections, starting with a big space to show the next six departures. Those you can board are topped with a green box and those you need to wait for are topped in blue. This kind of colour coded display has already been introduced at other London termini, for example at Victoria. There's room for at least a dozen calling points plus information about coaches underneath, which seems more than adequate. Departures seven to ten share a smaller space to the right with calling points scrolling through, and departures eleven to sixteen appear with destinations only.
The 'Next fastest train to' strip is rather narrow which has triggered some unfortunate design compromises. For example Edinburgh Waverley has become Edinburgh Wav and Harrow and Wealdstone appears as Harrow & Wston. More awkwardly the display has to distinguish between fast and slow services so two rows are needed for many destinations. For example one "Birmingham Int" alternates with "Avanti" and the other alternates with "LNWR", making it hard to keep on top of what you're reading. Also the destinations are split across three pages, and the end result is like trying to read a flashing list on Ceefax on a very narrow telly.
Overground trains get their own special permanent strip (with a white background) rather than mixing with long distance trains, which works well. And the final section just says Welcome to Euston station and tells you what time it is because that has to be somewhere. You'll see what I mean next time you're waiting for a train at Euston station. What you probably won't see is the old departures board because I bet Network Rail are lining up that space for some ginormous digital advertising screens. Progress giveth and progress taketh away.
River News
Thames Clippers are running a special 'Sailing Santa' service on the afternoon of Saturday 17th December. You don't have to pay extra, it's not a Dangleway-style ripoff, you just get on a normal boat and ooh look Santa's on board. Sorry no presents, but first-come first-served selfies are available and that's also one up on the cablecar's offering. The four Sailing Santa services are:
12:05 - Battersea Power Station Pier to North Greenwich Pier
13:25 - North Greenwich Pier to Battersea Power Station Pier
14:35 - Battersea Power Station Pier to North Greenwich Pier
15:55 - North Greenwich to Battersea (where Santa will disembark at 16:58)
Santa also rode these boats last Saturday but for some reason he's having this Saturday off.
Crossrail News
TfL like to crow about how fast the Elizabeth line is, and it does indeed speed you across central London impressively quickly, but have you ever wondered how much of that journey is spent going nowhere? Trains seem to have a lot of 'dwell time' sitting in stations, and the wait outside Paddington heading east is often seriously prolonged. So I got my stopwatch out on a journey from Paddington to Canary Wharf and I can confirm that I spent about 30% of my time going nowhere.
Station
Dwell time
Time to next station
Paddington
1m 15
2m 10
Bond Street
0m 35
1m 25
Tot Court Road
0m 55
2m 05
Farringdon
1m 05
1m 25
Liverpool St
1m 00
2m 00
Whitechapel
0m 45
2m 50
Canary Wharf
1m 05
Board a train at Paddington just after it pulls in and you'll arrive at Canary Wharf 17½ minutes later. But you'll have spent a total of 5½ minutes of your trip on a static train, and that's 31% of your journey time. The proportion is even higher if you travel from Paddington to Liverpool Street where dwell time exceeds one third of the entire trip. It makes sense that trains should wait on platforms at busy times to make sure passengers have alighted and boarded. But this puffed-up dwell time is baked in across the timetable, even off-peak, which is why it feels like there's a heck of a lot of sitting around.
It's even worse if you start your journey at Ealing Broadway, which is what I actually did. To ensure the timetable meshes properly eastbound trains are often timetabled to wait for up to seven minutes outside Paddington, which is exactly what mine did. Worse, for the previous five minutes the driver had been blatantly slowing down in order not to reach the red signal too early. So of the 18 minutes it took my train to reach Paddington from Ealing Broadway, 5 minutes (28%) was spent purposefully decelerating and 7 minutes (39%) was spent waiting alongside a row of cement mixers at Westbourne Park. It made for a pretty poor customer experience.
Ealing Broadway → Paddington(18 minutes)
normal speed
slowing down
stopped
nor mal
Bashing the figures, from the train pulling into Ealing Broadway to arriving at Canary Wharf, 41% of the time was spent not moving. To Farringdon and Liverpool Street it was 44%, and the worst percentage was for Ealing Broadway to Bond Street at 47%. It's expected that the final Crossrail timetable in May 2023 will iron out the Paddington issue but it's not yet certain if dwell times will be shaved down. In the meantime yes, the Elizabeth line is fast, but it could be noticeably faster if some of the slack was shaken out.
Pedestrian News
There's little better than watching TfL respond to a Freedom of Information request from a petty bigot who thinks he's caught them out but totally hasn't. Take this classic of the genre published last week:
Dear Sir / Madam,
GENDER-NEUTRAL, LESBIAN & GAY SYMBOLS ON TRAFFIC LIGHTS
this is a repeat of an e-mail I sent back in April as, just last Sunday, I came across one of these just off Trafalgar Square. Considering just 2% of the entire UK nation - I don't have the figures for our capital - is either lesbian or gay I respectully ask how much did it cost London taxpayers to fund this stunt?
It's always 'taxpayers' these blinkered miseryguts bring up, how dare 'taxpayers' end up paying for something I don't agree with? In this case the TfL case officer politely pointed out that the cost was zero.
The diversity pedestrian traffic signals were installed in 2016 ahead of London’s Pride celebrations. The signals were manufactured and installed without any cost to TfL. There is no ongoing additional cost to the public above a standard green pedestrian crossing symbol.
Ha, go hide back under your stone until you've learnt a bit of tolerance.
