I'm with you here. The service TfL offers is generally pretty amazing - very regular buses and underground trains that can generally get you clear across London in an hour. What's not to like?
I'll say this for London Underground, they do appear to run a fantastic service to Watford. I say appear because no-one ever gets on it; 3-4 trains however will show up at King's X while everyone is waiting interminably for one on the Hammersmith and City line...
Obviously perceptions differ. I get the tube from Liverpool Street to Euston Square every day, and the H&C is one of the tubes I usually get because it is usually emptier than the Circle line. And twice a week I get a H&C directly from Euston Square to Mile End - again, rarely waiting more than 5 minutes for a train.
I suspect you have never journeyed far to see what the rest of the world has to offer. Yes there could be improvements, but that would require money and lines being shut or reduced.
*nod* Three years in Athens and I've been delayed by the metro a grand total of twice, whereas in London I could average that in a week. Also, costs are very, very reasonable - less than €40 for a monthly, and that includes buses, trains and trams too.
Both NY and Paris were built later and have the enormous advantage of areas of double track, so NY can run fast and stopping (local) services, or shut one line for work while still running a service.
And NY's length has only recently become comparable to London - there's only been a metro to jfk for a few years.
can't tell you if paris strikes less but i've spent under 7 days there in my life and hit two strikes and got stuck on trains twice.
you may be right on cost, but they need to raise funds somehow, and it's general taxation or fares...
It is true that there are parts of London Underground that are older than NY or Paris but it is also true that there are parts that aren't. For those parts certainly, we pay more and get less than those other cities.
But they are much younger systems no? The strike situation I do have to agree with you but considering London seems to transport close to some countries populations it actually does well. I think if you have ever lived somewhere that is a capital that does not have public transport then possibly you would have a different opinion.
You mean there is just room in between the Victorian sewers for a single track, and the track had to follow that exact route at that exact depth? Doesn't sound very likely.
Last year in Paris a single from anywhere to anywhere on the Metro came to about 80p. That's a fifth of the equivalent Underground ticket. And you can't say that that's because the Metro gets tons of the taxpayer's cash shoveled at it because so does the Tube!
You mean there is just room in between the Victorian sewers for a single track, and the track had to follow that exact route at that exact depth?
Actually, yes. Try doing some research before sounding off about the subject; the whole history of London Underground is available to read on Wikipedia. You're coming across as dreadfully ill-informed and over-opinionated here.
London Underground is the oldest metro system in the world. It does a damned fine job despite 20 years of chronic underfunding. The fares the customers pay cover less than 50% of the running cost of the Underground.
Parts of it are old, parts of it are relatively recent. Parts of it haven't even been built yet. That the oldest part of the Tube is older than anywhere else is neither here nor there when discussing the more recent parts.
Before tunnels are dug they are not constrained by anything (that should be obvious).
Anyone who uses the Tube daily is entitled to an opinion on what poor value for money it is.
Not especially. I just don't see why NYC and Paris (and Boston and Chicago and Amsterdam and other major cities that I've used comparable transport in) do it so much better and cheaper than we do. Fair enough, the Northern Line was probably* built before anyone figured out that double tracks might be a good idea, but it's simply not true that the entire system was set in stone (haha) by then and that was that.
* Presumably they did speak to some people with experience of operating trains on the surface at the planning stage...
Before tunnels are dug they are not constrained by anything (that should be obvious). Except for all of the other tunnels, the sewers, the building foundations, the water table, ...
And all that means that there is just enough room to squeeze a single track line in but not a double track? On any part of any of the Tube lines? I don't buy it.
There might well be space - certainly chunks of the extended Jubilee could have been double-track tunneled... except that does cost (a lot) extra, which no one wanted to fund. We got what we could afford.
And it's not just as simple as saying make all the tunnels bigger/double track - double the amount of trackwork and more than double the amount of signalling (if you want to then be able to run bi-directionally to maximise useage for engineering hours/works)
You might even be able to double-track a (very) few parts of the older tube network provided you were prepared to do without those parts of the network while the work was being done.
Oddly enough, a set of tunnels were built just proir to WW2 which parallelled the Central Line and would have allowed such a double-track system. Unfortunately the war got in the way and those tunnels were converted to other uses - deep level bunkers, storage, communications, etc.
Why do you think some of the tube lines twist and turn all over the place, or require very long walkways to connect their platforms with the rest of the station?? Basically it's because they do have to fit around what's already in the ground, some of which has been there longer (or as long) as the tube... and the newer the line (Vic, Jub) the more stuff there is down there to avoid.
It is not even the cost of the tunnelling - there is value to be gotten even from partial double-tracks. For instance, West of Earl's Court the Picadilly line is mostly on the surface, they could have double-tracked that and run a fast service to Heathrow. Instead there's a whole 'nother system for that, the Heathrow Express.
The District and the Piccadilly do in fact share a 4-track formation between Baron's Court and Acton Town/Northfields and there is the facility to run on the 'other' line's rails which is occasionally used for engineering work or to work around a failed train or other defect. The Picc do run fast between Hammersmith and Acton, non-stopping the stations between. The Picc to Hounslow pre-dates Heathrow Airport - by the time the Airport was built it was too late to double-up the Picc as the area expanded to meet the railway - yes with hindsight the Picc formation could have been 4 track, but it isn't *shrugs*
The other thing he could have mentioned is ice on the juice rail - had the tendency to stop the flow of elastictrickery from the juice rails to the motors.
Yes... they are meant to go out and spray de-icer overnight and at intervals during the day (assuming trains, crews and unfrozen points...) but this relies of the Met Office warning us there will be snow... oh wait...
She. severe_delays is a female Train Operator, and a damned good one.
LUL will have been running sleet trains through the night (basically cancelling engineering hours so they can run trains with de-icer units through the night), but that presumes there was enough glycol to mix up for de-icing; I can remember at least one occasion during my time as Line Controller of the District Line that the InfraCos had tried to cut costs by not ordering enough glycol and trusting to over-diluted fluid to do the same job. We had train technicians literally hacking ice off train wheels in the depots to get the first trains out, and District de-icers pushing Picc trains over points when the wheels froze to the running rails.
Oh, plus there was the fiasco of the point heaters put in by the InfraCos that failed to work....
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I use the tube every day and find the service to be fine. It's rare that I wait more than 5 minutes for a train, no matter what time of day it is.
What line are you using?
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Yes there could be improvements, but that would require money and lines being shut or reduced.
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And NY's length has only recently become comparable to London - there's only been a metro to jfk for a few years.
can't tell you if paris strikes less but i've spent under 7 days there in my life and hit two strikes and got stuck on trains twice.
you may be right on cost, but they need to raise funds somehow, and it's general taxation or fares...
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I think if you have ever lived somewhere that is a capital that does not have public transport then possibly you would have a different opinion.
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Last year in Paris a single from anywhere to anywhere on the Metro came to about 80p. That's a fifth of the equivalent Underground ticket. And you can't say that that's because the Metro gets tons of the taxpayer's cash shoveled at it because so does the Tube!
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Yes, it is expensive. I know that. It gives me a heart attack every time I pay %10 of my wage every month to use it.
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Actually, yes. Try doing some research before sounding off about the subject; the whole history of London Underground is available to read on Wikipedia. You're coming across as dreadfully ill-informed and over-opinionated here.
London Underground is the oldest metro system in the world. It does a damned fine job despite 20 years of chronic underfunding. The fares the customers pay cover less than 50% of the running cost of the Underground.
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Before tunnels are dug they are not constrained by anything (that should be obvious).
Anyone who uses the Tube daily is entitled to an opinion on what poor value for money it is.
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* Presumably they did speak to some people with experience of operating trains on the surface at the planning stage...
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Except for all of the other tunnels, the sewers, the building foundations, the water table, ...
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And it's not just as simple as saying make all the tunnels bigger/double track - double the amount of trackwork and more than double the amount of signalling (if you want to then be able to run bi-directionally to maximise useage for engineering hours/works)
You might even be able to double-track a (very) few parts of the older tube network provided you were prepared to do without those parts of the network while the work was being done.
Oddly enough, a set of tunnels were built just proir to WW2 which parallelled the Central Line and would have allowed such a double-track system. Unfortunately the war got in the way and those tunnels were converted to other uses - deep level bunkers, storage, communications, etc.
Why do you think some of the tube lines twist and turn all over the place, or require very long walkways to connect their platforms with the rest of the station?? Basically it's because they do have to fit around what's already in the ground, some of which has been there longer (or as long) as the tube... and the newer the line (Vic, Jub) the more stuff there is down there to avoid.
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The District and the Piccadilly do in fact share a 4-track formation between Baron's Court and Acton Town/Northfields and there is the facility to run on the 'other' line's rails which is occasionally used for engineering work or to work around a failed train or other defect. The Picc do run fast between Hammersmith and Acton, non-stopping the stations between. The Picc to Hounslow pre-dates Heathrow Airport - by the time the Airport was built it was too late to double-up the Picc as the area expanded to meet the railway - yes with hindsight the Picc formation could have been 4 track, but it isn't *shrugs*
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The other thing he could have mentioned is ice on the juice rail - had the tendency to stop the flow of elastictrickery from the juice rails to the motors.
Yes... they are meant to go out and spray de-icer overnight and at intervals during the day (assuming trains, crews and unfrozen points...) but this relies of the Met Office warning us there will be snow... oh wait...
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Apparently they've been forecasting snow for yesterday/today since Friday...
or is that what you meant?
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She.
LUL will have been running sleet trains through the night (basically cancelling engineering hours so they can run trains with de-icer units through the night), but that presumes there was enough glycol to mix up for de-icing; I can remember at least one occasion during my time as Line Controller of the District Line that the InfraCos had tried to cut costs by not ordering enough glycol and trusting to over-diluted fluid to do the same job. We had train technicians literally hacking ice off train wheels in the depots to get the first trains out, and District de-icers pushing Picc trains over points when the wheels froze to the running rails.
Oh, plus there was the fiasco of the point heaters put in by the InfraCos that failed to work....