Recent content by compsci

This morning I discovered that a large countdown clock has been installed on the wall opposite the gateline at KX Thameslink, which will supposedly count down the time to the last train leaving and hence the station closing (It was stuck at 0). The whole installation completely covers the mural...

The gates at City Thameslink have been left open for over a month. When backed into a corner Ms Holt admitted that it was because they forgot to plug them in to the fire alarm. It is not entirely obvious why it is now taking so long to do this. In the meantime the barrier gnomes are varying...

I believe that the 2009 stock is a little larger than the 1967 stock, as the Victoria was built with slightly larger tunnels, which are being used to provide a little more passenger space. As such there could be all sorts of unexpected things in the way.

The wait at London Bridge is caused by a conflicting move between the southeastern and FCC services. Fixing this bottleneck is one of the items in the Thameslink project. From memory it involves a flyover and then a new two track viaduct to keep FCC separate until it goes to Blackfriars. This...

FCC make a tiny leaflet every three months, dominated by a picture of a grinning Elaine. They publish about two letters and maybe a feature on somewhere where you could go on their route if you were really bored. They have also started doing profiles of staff and passengers (I travel on a...

It's simply a way of differentiating the fast and semi fast services. If Doris says "via Stevenage" the train will stop there, and probably Hitchin as well. If she doesn't say it, the first stop will be Letchworth or Cambridge only. It would be quite an achievement to get on the wrong...

The new CIS in a One 317 that I was travelling in last night got really confused, and started announcing things backwards. Having departed from Liverpool St, it announced "We are now approaching London Liverpool St ..." at Bethnal Green, causing many passengers to fall about laughing. On...

I'd give things a bit ti develop. The LTM have got very good at arm twisting of late, the most obvious example being the 38ts tour tomorrow, which is expected to be the first of many (words of the director of the museum). They have discovered that such tours can be a massive cash cow, and I...

The passenger service between Cambridge and Bury not via Ely is pretty sparse. The signalling can cope with more, but I don't know how much.

From what I've heard the bridge is a write off and will need to be replaced. This will take at least 12 weeks. Most freight is going via Cambridge, which happens to have plenty of normally redundant siding space. The Cambridge - Ipswich/Harwich service is being lengthened from the normal...

The announcer on 450s doing the Hounslow loop service seems to get particularly confused, with a huge pause somewhere around Kew. The screen also goes blank for several seconds. Is it not very good at long sentances?

I've been surprised by just how may things that Phil can say. After a bridge strike at Baldock a couple of weeks ago the train I was on was held at Royston. Phil then came out with (for the other direction). "The XX:XX service to Cambridge has been delayed by Y minutes. This has been caused...

Those barriers are terrible. The old air operated ones at KX Thameslink suck your ticket in like a vacuum cleaner and shake the earth as they burst open. The new barriers at City Thameslink (the offending cubic ones) need to have tickets paractically rammed into them (not good for the health...

I'm sure that I've heard somewhere that only units fitted with end doors are permitted on part of the route between West Hampstead and Blackfriars (not sure which part) because of narrow tunnels, and also that 319s have additional fireproofing to cover regulations governing the route. Does...

I got a slightly blurry picture of one at KCM with my phone. I thought that only 319s were cleared to work through the tunnels on that route.