please empty your brain below
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Well said. This is one of my bugbears with the new East London line. At Dalston, all you want it a big arrow to the platform for the next departing train, as per the old Walthamstow sign. Instead there is a very complex digital display that requires quite a big of study to find out the next train. Similarly on other platforms, esp northbound, I just want to know how long to next train. But instead of LU-style countdown you have to read what time train is next; then when it is expects; then read what time it is now; then work out how many minutes till the train. Please, just tell us "Dalston 2 min, Dalston 7 min" etc. instead of "1756 Dalston Jct 1757; 1802 Dalston Jct On Time; 17:52:46".
Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to announce the last train so people don't stand around at Canada Water after the last train has left (ridiculously early- an hour earlier than it did under LU) waiting for a train that will never come. Grrr....!
SELondoner | 10.11.10 - 7:36 a.m. | #
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Someone with bad eyesight needs to raise a fuss. They are really tiny and are often placed in really silly places.
BM | 10.11.10 - 7:42 a.m. | #
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no no no ... DON'T run for your train, that's the last thing TFL want you to do!
With a lot of these boards at certain stations, the 'Next train' DISAPPEARS from the board when it would normally change from 2 mins to 1 min, because that might cause you to RUN to catch you train.. Health & Safery, y'see?
So almost every day i go home from work, I walk into the ticket area at White City, and watch the next Ealing Broadway train go from 2 mins to .. blank! Disappear, but I know i've got 90 seconds to casually stroll through the barrier and down the stairs where it's coming in on the platform. Plenty of time, but they don't want you to know that .. GRRRRR.
geofftech | Homepage | 10.11.10 - 7:54 a.m. | #
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Don't apologise: for those with less-than-perfect eyesight your not-great-focus photo reinforces your point admirably!
Gordon | 10.11.10 - 7:58 a.m. | #
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In all fairness, I don't think the people who actually install these things are the same people who decide where they go. There is usually a 'Standards Manager' who goes around assessing (un)suitable sites.
Vulpine | 10.11.10 - 9:13 a.m. | #
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After they installed the new display screen both the screen and the light-boxes worked together for a while, then the light-boxes stopped working.
So I suspect this is due to a fault, not by design - whether they will bother to fix it though is anybodies guess...
Dan | 10.11.10 - 10:27 a.m. | #
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As geoff says National Rail started doing this (removing trains due to leave in less than 2 minutes) when they upgraded the screen as well. I had a work around which was to download the internal carriage working notice (issued to staff) which states the platform a train is booked to depart from, even when it's been removed from the screen. Then you just need to check the destination is what it should be and you can beat the system, but it's a bit if a pain to carry round the relevant pages.
Jon Combe | Homepage | 10.11.10 - 1:22 p.m. | #
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This is also true at the other end at Brixton, as I found out this morning.
Simstim | 10.11.10 - 4:36 p.m. | #
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What bugs me terribly about the 2 minutes thing, is that some stuffy managers have sat round in an office board room, and arbitrarily decided on the '2 minute' rule of when a train should disappear to stop people possibly moving a bit smarter to get it at the last moment.
they didn't consider how this might work at different stations, and that not everyone runs .. faster paced walking people might catch a train that slower walking person might not - and what's wrong with that?
i've known people hurrying to the station, see that board - think "oh there's no train coming" so they stop to buy a newspaper, etc.. than walk down to the platform to see the train they wanted just pulling out : they could have caught it if the information screen hadn't of lied to them about when the next train really was.
it's up there (ironically) with information overload telling us what line we're on, what this station is, and to mind the gap every bloody two minutes. they treat us like idiots who think we need to be shepherded around the stations.
but i'd much rather just catch a train by speeding up the last few seconds, rather than miss one and have to wait 8 cold minutes on the platform at White City which is what happens otherwise. not very good, TFL. eh?
geofftech | Homepage | 10.11.10 - 4:51 p.m. | #
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"information underload". I fear it's the future.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 10.11.10 - 5:16 p.m. | #
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Hang on, i'm not done... i just passed thru White City on my way home and all it did was fire me up!
i realised .. WHAT'S THE POINT of them having these square boards out in ticket hall areas if they're NOT showing imminent trains? because... that would be helpful, right? if the next train isn't for 6 minutes... then you're not going to miss it in the 60 seconds that it takes you to walk down to platform level, is it? so actually.. the board is completel useless and serves no purpose.
AND!! (oh yes, there's more..)
it goes against what i see at certain stations (Great Portland Street and Tooting Broadway are two that come to mind), where at the ticket hall level they have a monitor of a CCTV camera that's pointing at the platform-level display boards, so you REALLY CAN see if a train is 1 minute away... encouraging you to run down the stairs/escalators to catch it. how does this fit in with the new "square board" policy, huh?
BONUS TIP: (for reading this far, well done). When entering Balham tube station, look at the control room monitors on your left as you approach the escalators. the left hand monitor shows the southbound platform, and the right hand monitor the northbound. if you see a train pulling in, you have time (20 secs!) to pace it down the escaltor and make it .. have done this many times. otherwise, just walk.
right. i'm done now, no. really.
geofftech | Homepage | 10.11.10 - 5:37 p.m. | #
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"Simple. Effective. Dead." Thus is 'progress'!
And while we're having a moan, The number of times a train leaving Edgware indicates 'via Charing X', but by the time it reaches Burnt Oak it's now 'via Bank'!
Blooming pointless having the indicators at all as you always have to check on the front of the train, just to be certain!
CornishCockney | 10.11.10 - 6:28 p.m. | #
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Geoff I sympathise. I used to use the Waterloo East/Waterloo interchange daily and as you come down from the bridge to Waterloo East into Waterloo there is a screen above the escalators down, showing the next few trains. It worked quite well, a quick glance up to see if your train was on time and from which platform was all that was needed. Then some idiot decided it would be useful to show more trains, so it now cycles between page 1 and page 2. This means if you arrive and it's showing page 2, it's useless as you can't really stop and wait for page 1 to come up when your standing at the top of an escalator. If you're train isn't on the first page you're going to have enough time to check the main departure boards when you get down the escaltor without missing your train. It turned a useful display to a pointless one at a stroke.
Jon Combe | 10.11.10 - 8:35 p.m. | #
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My local station (National Rail) has two screens for the depature information. They show two pages of "next trains". But not one page on each screen, oh no, both screens show the same information cycling through "page 1" and "page 2". Useless cretins.
Mouse A Nony | 10.11.10 - 9:45 p.m. | #
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Surely this piece should be titled 'Installed by eagle-eyed cretins?', as you have to be super sharp of seeing to make out the platform number?
If the board were installed by 'short-sighted cretins', wouldn't the implication be that they would have made it the size of an advertising hoarding so that they could read it?
Marc | 11.11.10 - 7:11 a.m. | #
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"Cretin" describes the condition of a child born with an underactive or missing thyroid.
I'm sorry you used this word when you meant idiot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretin
verity74 | 11.11.10 - 11:45 a.m. | #
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At Stratford on coming on to platform 6/8 from the reopended subway at the end you are greeted by the plaform 8 indicator over platform 6.
Tony | 11.11.10 - 12:04 p.m. | #
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Can't believe the old ones are still there at Walthamstow Central and the same problem occurs two years on!
Daniel | 12.11.12 - 9:53 p.m. | #
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