AlbertBeale
Established Member
I was puzzled, earlier, when on the northbound Northern Line platform at Waterloo a train arrived with "High Barnet (via Bank)" showing on the front. I did a double take, given the incompatibility of "via Bank" and being at Waterloo... (The platform indicator wasn't showing destinations of the next trains, just giving a "Northern Line trains" text.)
On board, both the public address system and the visual displays also kept saying "... via Bank"; but the other information, interspersed with that "information", was correct - "The next station is Embankment; change for ..." etc. Then, immediately after that, the "... via Bank" again as part of the destination information. There had been a few minutes' wait for the train, and it picked up quite a number of people at Waterloo; many of them were obviously out-of-towners or tourists - the sort of people who keep an eye on a tube map or in-car diagram to check where they are. At least a couple of those looked puzzled (more puzzled than visitors normally look on the Underground...).
The repeated reference to Bank, interspersed with the correct "next station" information, was still going on when I left the train at TCR.
So is the seamless looking and seamless sounding information output in the carriages actually being sourced from two parallel systems, that are capable of contradicting one another?
On board, both the public address system and the visual displays also kept saying "... via Bank"; but the other information, interspersed with that "information", was correct - "The next station is Embankment; change for ..." etc. Then, immediately after that, the "... via Bank" again as part of the destination information. There had been a few minutes' wait for the train, and it picked up quite a number of people at Waterloo; many of them were obviously out-of-towners or tourists - the sort of people who keep an eye on a tube map or in-car diagram to check where they are. At least a couple of those looked puzzled (more puzzled than visitors normally look on the Underground...).
The repeated reference to Bank, interspersed with the correct "next station" information, was still going on when I left the train at TCR.
So is the seamless looking and seamless sounding information output in the carriages actually being sourced from two parallel systems, that are capable of contradicting one another?