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Correct – that's the stated 10% capacity increase of the new trains. It's not nothing. My disappointment comes from the fact that there are stations where the

Correct – that's the stated 10% capacity increase of the new trains. It's not nothing. My disappointment comes from the fact that there are stations where the Piccadilly just blazes through and doesn't stop. The platforms are there, maintained and in use, but the train just goes past. Those areas have been repeatedly told for the past decade "no new stops until signalling upgrades which you'll get when the new trains come – otherwise it would make the journeys longer and we can't have that on a line that services Heathrow!". Now the time has come and the signalling upgrades were axed, meaning according to the original logic, no chance of getting the trains to stop at your station. Of course new stations could be serviced, at a cost of making the journeys slower – surely the argument of "if the train stops at your station, it'll slow down the journey for everyone" applies to all stations, not just a select few? But even if we go with the nonsensical "we can't slow down the average journey time", other options could be taken, such as making the trains stop at the least used stations alternately – you don't even need to go full "Express Train" route NYC does if your issue is just a couple of stations. Still, TfL hasn't really shown any interest in touching any that and always said "you'll get your stop with the new trains". Well, the new trains are almost here and it doesn't look like it'll come with a solution, just more of the status quo. Air conditioning is of course great and I'm not advocating for maintaining old stock forever. But a shiny new train does nothing if the train won't stop at your station. And you're not going to get much gains if your shiny new trains are effectively throttled to last century speeds with last century reliability.

martinald 3y ago
The capacity increase is 10% in terms of trains per hour and another ~10% in terms of how many people you can fit in the train, so it's nearly 25% pax carrying increase. Given tube numbers are down 20%, since covid, this is a huge improvement in space per passenger. I think you are really overegging the impact of the skipped station (turnham green?) You can just get a district line train and change. Ok, it's not ideal but it's probably only adding 5-10mins to journey times. It's one station on a network of hundreds and does not justify billion+ spent for it. And I don't think there is a business case for further capacity, as not only would it require resignalling it requires another batch of trains to be built to get it up to 36tph. There isn't the demand for that post covid. This may change but there are much more pressing captial projects for tfl (bakerloo line extension for example) imo.
- TechnicalVault 3y ago
  The funny thing is the increased capacity wasn't necessarily the biggest driver for this upgrade. Part of the selling point to Boris Johnson who was mayor at the time was that he could stick it to the train driver's unions (who were having a big fight with him at the time) by introducing automatic train operation. The problem with relying on post COVID passenger reductions is that whilst tube numbers are down 20% since COVID that just means they're at the level they were in 2009/10. Even if they don't bounce back fully this year, post COVID working hasn't cut out the peaky nature of tube travel. Even if people work from home Monday and Friday, they'll often all come into the office on Tues-Thurs making peaks on those days. I agree the demand for capacity on other lines that is even more pressing. Last time I rode the tube regularly was 10 years ago and even then I recall the Victoria line during rush hour was literally cattle class, your face in someone else's armpit. The 2019 numbers put the Northern Central, Jubilee and Victoria lines are well over the 100% mark at peak time. Despite having the highest comparative fares compared to other cities the Tube is still woefully underfunded. There is so much technical debt because much of the system was built in the 1800's and early 20th century. First mover disadvantage, because we got to make all the mistakes.
seanhunter 3y ago
Turnham Green tube for example has platforms for the Piccadilly line and it actually stops after 10pm (or if there's a problem), but not at other times.
- Tsiklon 3y ago
  I’ve always suspected this is to accommodate for the last District line train to Richmond. However I’ve never checked the timetable to confirm when that is. This potentially allows users to reach this destination if they miss the last train at Hammersmith. Similar to how the last westbound central line train to Ealing Broadway holds at White City to allow the final westbound train of the night (towards West Ruislip) to transfer the last stragglers from the city
  - owisd 3y ago
    They just stop late (and early) for the more mundane reason of 'because they can', the service is less frequent at off-peak times so there's enough time to stop at Turnham Green before the train behind catches up.
- jwestbury 3y ago
  It's such a busy station for being a local station (out of the TfL station types, the least-used), and the District Line beyond this is often quite crowded at rush hour -- it's rare that I get a seat starting from Turnham Green at rush hour. Having the Piccadilly stopping here during the day would allow for better passenger distribution -- I've often found that one or the other line is brimming with passengers even when the other is half-empty.
jessriedel 3y ago
> surely the argument of "if the train stops at your station, it'll slow down the journey for everyone" applies to all stations, not just a select few? No it doesn’t. Some stations serve more passengers and transfers than others. And even if stations were identical, the opportunity cost of stopping goes up as the train gets more full. > such as making the trains stop at the least used stations alternately Yes, this can make sense. But it doesn’t necessarily have to. You have to actually check the numbers.
SoftTalker 3y ago
IDK if they still do it but Chicago used to run "A" and "B" trains that would only stop every other stop. At some stations, all trains would stop so you could get off and transfer to the alternate train if you needed to. So basically any given train was only stopping at maybe 60% of the stations.
- brnt 3y ago
  I knew some buildings that had elevators that worked that way: one for even floors, one for uneven ones. I always wondered if this really paid off. I guess in a building you almost always are either going to or coming from the ground floor, and you never need to switch elevator. But on a train line you might want to get off at any stop so ~50% of people will need to switch.
  - ivancho 3y ago
    I was curious about this too, so I decided to simulate it. It's a fun problem to model and code, with some entertaining places to trip up - for example, that brief awkward period where the elevator is full, but newly arriving people recognize they should not press the button until it leaves. In any case, the answer varies based on the rate of arrival - in some regions of the parameter space it's better if all elevators stop everywhere (intuitively, if odd people arrive every 2 min and it takes 3 min to go up and down, it becomes too expensive to have to wait for the odd elevator). But even in cases where interleaved floors performs better than all floors, there's a solution which is even better there - lower half of the floors on one elevator and the upper half (plus ground floor) on the other. This will make for a fun interactive notebook.

martinald 3y ago

The capacity increase is 10% in terms of trains per hour and another ~10% in terms of how many people you can fit in the train, so it's nearly 25% pax carrying increase. Given tube numbers are down 20%, since covid, this is a huge improvement in space per passenger. I think you are really overegging the impact of the skipped station (turnham green?) You can just get a district line train and change. Ok, it's not ideal but it's probably only adding 5-10mins to journey times. It's one station on a network of hundreds and does not justify billion+ spent for it. And I don't think there is a business case for further capacity, as not only would it require resignalling it requires another batch of trains to be built to get it up to 36tph. There isn't the demand for that post covid. This may change but there are much more pressing captial projects for tfl (bakerloo line extension for example) imo.

TechnicalVault 3y ago
The funny thing is the increased capacity wasn't necessarily the biggest driver for this upgrade. Part of the selling point to Boris Johnson who was mayor at the time was that he could stick it to the train driver's unions (who were having a big fight with him at the time) by introducing automatic train operation. The problem with relying on post COVID passenger reductions is that whilst tube numbers are down 20% since COVID that just means they're at the level they were in 2009/10. Even if they don't bounce back fully this year, post COVID working hasn't cut out the peaky nature of tube travel. Even if people work from home Monday and Friday, they'll often all come into the office on Tues-Thurs making peaks on those days. I agree the demand for capacity on other lines that is even more pressing. Last time I rode the tube regularly was 10 years ago and even then I recall the Victoria line during rush hour was literally cattle class, your face in someone else's armpit. The 2019 numbers put the Northern Central, Jubilee and Victoria lines are well over the 100% mark at peak time. Despite having the highest comparative fares compared to other cities the Tube is still woefully underfunded. There is so much technical debt because much of the system was built in the 1800's and early 20th century. First mover disadvantage, because we got to make all the mistakes.

seanhunter 3y ago

Turnham Green tube for example has platforms for the Piccadilly line and it actually stops after 10pm (or if there's a problem), but not at other times.

Tsiklon 3y ago
I’ve always suspected this is to accommodate for the last District line train to Richmond. However I’ve never checked the timetable to confirm when that is. This potentially allows users to reach this destination if they miss the last train at Hammersmith. Similar to how the last westbound central line train to Ealing Broadway holds at White City to allow the final westbound train of the night (towards West Ruislip) to transfer the last stragglers from the city
- owisd 3y ago
  They just stop late (and early) for the more mundane reason of 'because they can', the service is less frequent at off-peak times so there's enough time to stop at Turnham Green before the train behind catches up.
jwestbury 3y ago
It's such a busy station for being a local station (out of the TfL station types, the least-used), and the District Line beyond this is often quite crowded at rush hour -- it's rare that I get a seat starting from Turnham Green at rush hour. Having the Piccadilly stopping here during the day would allow for better passenger distribution -- I've often found that one or the other line is brimming with passengers even when the other is half-empty.

jessriedel 3y ago

> surely the argument of "if the train stops at your station, it'll slow down the journey for everyone" applies to all stations, not just a select few? No it doesn’t. Some stations serve more passengers and transfers than others. And even if stations were identical, the opportunity cost of stopping goes up as the train gets more full. > such as making the trains stop at the least used stations alternately Yes, this can make sense. But it doesn’t necessarily have to. You have to actually check the numbers.

SoftTalker 3y ago

IDK if they still do it but Chicago used to run "A" and "B" trains that would only stop every other stop. At some stations, all trains would stop so you could get off and transfer to the alternate train if you needed to. So basically any given train was only stopping at maybe 60% of the stations.

brnt 3y ago
I knew some buildings that had elevators that worked that way: one for even floors, one for uneven ones. I always wondered if this really paid off. I guess in a building you almost always are either going to or coming from the ground floor, and you never need to switch elevator. But on a train line you might want to get off at any stop so ~50% of people will need to switch.
- ivancho 3y ago
  I was curious about this too, so I decided to simulate it. It's a fun problem to model and code, with some entertaining places to trip up - for example, that brief awkward period where the elevator is full, but newly arriving people recognize they should not press the button until it leaves. In any case, the answer varies based on the rate of arrival - in some regions of the parameter space it's better if all elevators stop everywhere (intuitively, if odd people arrive every 2 min and it takes 3 min to go up and down, it becomes too expensive to have to wait for the odd elevator). But even in cases where interleaved floors performs better than all floors, there's a solution which is even better there - lower half of the floors on one elevator and the upper half (plus ground floor) on the other. This will make for a fun interactive notebook.