please empty your brain below
My local station is Ravenscourt Park, where the indicators can say two things: District line (stating the obvious) and Piccadilly line (stating a lie - it doesn't stop there). No times, no destinations.

Greg S | 17.08.16 - 7:31 a.m. | #

Surely it can't be too long before TfL management create a Bow Outer Area Taskforce (BOAT) to deal with passenger issues at Bow Road and nearby destinations (Project BRAND).

Frank F | 17.08.16 - 7:33 a.m. | #

IT WILL NEVER END

Bert | 17.08.16 - 7:46 a.m. | #

Look, next week - after TfL have fixed this and you write a blog about it called "What happened next..." can we (your readers) just email you a list of transport things that we think need fixing, then over a course of a year, you can liberally sprinkle them into your blog.

They'll then slowly all get fixed and that'd be just bloody brilliant, thanks.

(*cough* You should get down to the southbound Overground at Canada Water one day, and see how hopelessly wrong the DMI is there. always a laugh. *cough*)

Geofftech | 17.08.16 - 8:02 a.m. | #

Geofftech, Southbound at Canada Water is usually correct in my experience.

John | 17.08.16 - 8:05 a.m. | #

Agree on the poor and inconsistent next train signage on London Underground, but in another country there is a different approach. From recent travel experience on the most excellent Moscow and St Petersburg Underground systems, the only signage in the station is a clock that shows how long since the last train left the station! It helps that train frequency is very regular at c 1-2 minutes during peak - which appears to be most of the day- and there are station announcements (in Russian!) which may well have provided next train information.

REB | 17.08.16 - 9:39 a.m. | #

It''s not the destinations that are wrong it's the timing!

TRAIN APPROACHING it says and you look up the line to see the train pulling into the platform at Rotherhithe. Pulling IN! silly. Someones made that DMI work on distance not taking into accounr how close Rotherhithe is.

Then it'll sometimes days '2 mins' for the next trains when it actually IS pulling into Canada Water station. So odd. And so inconsistent. Just wish it actually was setup properly ...

Geofftech | 17.08.16 - 9:43 a.m. | #

There's no live information at all for Wood Lane, or indeed most (all?) of the stations on the Hammersmith and City Line west of Paddington. Not in station, not online.

Except there someone knows how to handle it and does frequent tannoy announcements to let you know what's going on. Probably because they've been dealing with this situation for years and know exactly what to do.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 17.08.16 - 9:47 a.m. | #

I AGREE BERT

Grumpy Anon | 17.08.16 - 9:52 a.m. | #

When catching the H&C at Paddington before the Circle Line got unwound; I remember that when a train left Hammersmith they would make a long line announcement saying as such, and then listing each station up the line and saying how many minutes before it would arrive there.

I assume they still do this now, though Paddington probably got upgraded during the great unwinding of the circle so has an indicator

mdb0 | 17.08.16 - 10:05 a.m. | #

Another relevant rant; why can't TfL open data provide accurate timings for trains departing from Ealing Broadway? From my experience the data on the TfL website and citymapper is never accurate for departing trains. I mean the data is easily available and accurate on the internal Trackernet, but its almost impossible to find out as a customer when the next district line is due out.

jetblast787 | 17.08.16 - 10:16 a.m. | #

@jetblast

Off-peak, all District trains leave Ealing Broadway on the 8's.

08, 18, 28, 38, 48 and 58 mins past the hour.

Geofftech | 17.08.16 - 10:22 a.m. | #

Also, Hammersmith to Latimer Road is going yo be the first section of the H&C/Circle to get upgraded. Could start as soon as next year.

It'll be like when they closed the Northern and Jubilee for chunks at a time though as they do the work. Trains will then be automated, but they'll be able to (finally) say exactly where the trains are on this section!

Those annoucements come from the control room on the north/eastbound platform at Ladbroke Grove. I'll kind of miss them in an odd way when they go ...

Geofftech | 17.08.16 - 10:27 a.m. | #

@Geofftech

That's actually useful thanks!

Although live data would be preferable. You can never know when one train is cancelled which will cause a 20 min wait without any information. Also peak trains unfortunately don't seem to have a set pattern bar 5-6 min intervals.

jetblast787 | 17.08.16 - 10:32 a.m. | #

By the makers of the highly acclaimed Blockbuster 'Bus Stop E', starring the very same Diamond G, with TfL again in a supporting role as 'The Villan', we now bring you a wholly new saga: Bow Road Station. Unsigned and in a data black hole, will we find out which trains rumbling past, carrying busy commuters on their journeys around London, are going where, and when? Will TFL win the vendetta againt Bow? Will DG thwart his mighty foe? Will he catch the right train? Stay tuned dear readers - our hero is in peril!

Antipodean | 17.08.16 - 10:41 a.m. | #

Bow Road Station's hardly a wholly new saga.

Back in 2004/2005 long-suffering readers suffered daily updates from the station's dysfunctional upgrade programme, culminating in a double page spread in the Evening Standard.
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2005/06/i-was-andrew-gilligans-anonymous-source.html

'Bert' would have hated 2004/2005.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.08.16 - 10:57 a.m. | #

It's not only in Russia (see above) where Countdown is represented as CountUp. One of the Spanish metro systems (Madrid, I think) also has this curious practice of telling evetybody how long it was since the last train departed.

It's really of no help to passengers, except to make them realise that they have just missed an earlier train and who knows how long it will be before the next one !

I will refrain from suggesting that this would be a good interim solution for Bow Road, until they fix a proper method of displaying the next trains coming up the line.

petras409 | 17.08.16 - 11:11 a.m. | #

Time since last train does indeed seem odd. But it has the merit of being easily determined and probably always accurate. And regular passengers can probably use it to estimate the time of the next train.

Malcolm | 17.08.16 - 11:42 a.m. | #

Oh alright then....

Back By Popular Demand!!!! By the makers of the highly acclaimed Blockbuster 'Bus Stop E', starring the very same Diamond G, with TfL again in a supporting role as 'The Villan', we now bring you, a blast from the past: Bow Road Station ... RETURNS. The upgrade is over, but the saga continues. Unsigned and in a data black hole, will we find out which trains rumbling past, carrying busy commuters on their journeys around London, are going where, and when? Will TFL win the vendetta againt Bow? Will DG thwart his mighty foe (again)? Will he catch the right train? Stay tuned dear readers - our hero is in peril (again)!

Antipodean | 17.08.16 - 11:59 a.m. | #

Interestingly there are also no live arrival details for the District/H&C at Mile End on the TfL site:

https://tfl.gov.uk/tube/stop/940GZZLUMED/mile-end-underground-station?lineId=district,hammersmith-city

Andy Norman | 17.08.16 - 1:15 p.m. | #

As a regular Bow Road commuter I must admit I have the Bromley-By-Bow feed bookmarked on my phone, and by adding a minute or two can usually work out if there's a train due or not. Though the H&C can be a bit of a pain, as it's about 10 minutes from Barking so if the next train hasn't set up there yet then there's a grand total of nothing listed...

The announcement list on the western arm of the H&C is fine if you just want the first train but when waiting for a specific one it'd be lovely if it actually told you which line...

Moogal | 17.08.16 - 2:17 p.m. | #

Another notoriously bad train indicator is Putney Bridge eastbound.The problem is that the NR signalling system that controls the Wimbledon branch between Wimbledon & East Putney is incompatible with LU's train indicators.Thus an Edgware Road train is often shown as City Via Victoria,& vice versa.

KEVIN LUCIONI | Homepage | 17.08.16 - 3:00 p.m. | #

Circle/District line trains between Paddington and Notting Hill Gate also don't provide live data feeds, and never have. Apparently it'll be fixed when the section is eventually re-signaled.

Ed | 17.08.16 - 4:27 p.m. | #

A few more (seemingly) hyper-local posts and you will have seen BERT off.

Go for it.

Chris | 17.08.16 - 4:45 p.m. | #

Has Bert claimed his refund yet?

timbo | 17.08.16 - 5:33 p.m. | #

Haha we really do never need dg to leave Bow. Endless content

louise | 18.08.16 - 8:49 a.m. | #

I always assumed the 2 minutes showing at Canada Water when a train was trundling down from Rotherhithe reflected a departure time of 2 mins, rather than arrival time. Trains do sit at Canada Water for a minute or so, even when the doors are clear in my usual experience.

Messiah | 18.08.16 - 3:46 p.m. | #

If it is known that trains are every two minutes it makes just just as much sense to count up to two instead of down from two.

Anonymous | 18.08.16 - 7:10 p.m. | #

@Messiah

Checking the National Rail WTT (by which I mean looking on opentraintimes.com) I see that trains at Canada Water are booked to stop for 60 seconds, whereas most of the stations either side the booked time is 30 seconds. Whitechapel also has a 60-second dwell; I guess the connection is that they both have large volumes of interchanging passengers from the Tube?

It of course makes more sense to list countdowns to departure time rather than arrival time, because that's how much time you've got left to get on the train.

Sarah | 20.08.16 - 3:58 a.m. | #











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