Speed of LU lines

[BanburyBlue]

Hi,

I was travelling yesterday on the H&C from Baker Street to Moorgate. A couple got on at Euston Square, and one of them was saying how much she hated the Metropolitan/H&C/District/Circle lines as the trains were so slow.

This got me thinking, as I always assumed that lines speeds on the LU were fairly stable across the network, and that the deep tube lines appeared faster as they were running in tube tunnels. I'm not sure where that came from?

So, are the Metropolitan/H&C/District/Circle lines slower than the deep tube lines, or is it an illusion as they are not running in close fitting tunnels, and quite often out in the open?

 

[Lrd]

I think it's more to do with how many stops there are on the sub surface, Ealing Broadway to Mile End is quicker on the Central than it is on the District. District being slow because it has more stations and more junctions to squeeze the service through.

 

[rebmcr]

Some of the more modern deep tubes are definitely faster.

I think the biggest difference in perception for a passenger is that the SSL accelleration is less intense. That's likely to step up with the new power supply, signalling, and timetabling over the next few years.

 

[BanburyBlue]

Some of the more modern deep tubes are definitely faster.

I think the biggest difference in perception for a passenger is that the SSL accelleration is less intense. That's likely to step up with the new power supply, signalling, and timetabling over the next few years.

Sorry - SSL?

 

[Dstock7080]

Sorry - SSL?

Sub Surface Lines; or SSR Sub Surface Railway

 

[bramling]

Some of the more modern deep tubes are definitely faster.

I think the biggest difference in perception for a passenger is that the SSL accelleration is less intense. That's likely to step up with the new power supply, signalling, and timetabling over the next few years.

Don't bank on it! Acceleration may improve, but I doubt speed will. Met is already 60 mph in places, used to be 70 mph until the 1990s, and with the CTBC signalling it's very likely brake rates will have to be set permanently to minimum or near, like we see on the Jubilee and Northern Lines. So better acceleration and higher speeds, just to offset the time lost with early braking...

All the money spent on upgrades just to be almost as good as we were before.

 

[Busaholic]

If the Met had been built in the last fifty years, there is no way that a station would have been built between Baker Street and Euston Square (Great Portland Street) or between Farringdon and Moorgate (Barbican, not that that was its original name) anymore than Temple would have opened or even St. James's Park, without its place in London's transport system, on the District Line. These station placements are much more akin to what is seen in Paris: Regent's Park and Lambeth North on the Bakerloo and Borough on the Northern are other examples from the early days of tube travel.

 

[Mikey C]

Edgware Road to Baker Street eastbound (on the SSL) always seems like a crawl. It's surprising how often Circle/H&C trains seem to stop in the tunnels as well, considering that the flat junction is after Baker Street and that the planned frequency is only every 5 minutes, so an excess of trains shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Edgware Road to Baker Street eastbound (on the SSL) always seems like a crawl. It's surprising how often Circle/H&C trains seem to stop in the tunnels as well, considering that the flat junction is after Baker Street and that the planned frequency is only every 5 minutes, so an excess of trains shouldn't be a problem.

That platform is under approach control with about 5 or 6 signals between the two stations - quite understandable considering it is downhill all the way from Edgware Road and that the junction is immediately past the platform.

 

[edwin_m]

If the Met had been built in the last fifty years, there is no way that a station would have been built between Baker Street and Euston Square (Great Portland Street) or between Farringdon and Moorgate (Barbican, not that that was its original name) anymore than Temple would have opened or even St. James's Park, without its place in London's transport system, on the District Line. These station placements are much more akin to what is seen in Paris: Regent's Park and Lambeth North on the Bakerloo and Borough on the Northern are other examples from the early days of tube travel.

The stop spacing on that section is very strange. Farringdon to KXSP is probably the longest spacing on Zone 1 - going the same distance the other way from Farringdon gets you about to Liverpool Street. Other lines don't really plug this gap either, so I wouldn't be surprised if the new Post Office Railway museum was close to the furthest point in central London from an Underground station.

 

[LiftFan]

I do tend to notice it's because on the sub-surface lines since they are all running on the same tracks they tend to stop more often between stations, also noticeable on the Piccadilly in the Action Town/Ealing area where it merges with the District. The Northern improved massively after the signalling upgrade but for average speed the deep level lines come out on top, with the Victoria, Central and Jubilee taking top three with the Met coming fourth because of how far it goes out and the fast stretches. Acceleration also comes into play with the 2009 stock having an impressive acceleration, much to the dismay of anyone who has to stand!

 

[Roast Veg]

Isn't the 09 stock limited to 1.3m/s/s? The Crossrail Aventras are apparently set to 1m/s/s, so that's some pretty impressive drive behind them.

 

[D365]

All the money spent on upgrades just to be almost as good as we were before.

Right, not like they’re going to be operating 32tph or anything

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Acceleration also comes into play with the 2009 stock having an impressive acceleration, much to the dismay of anyone who has to stand!

It's not that strong; I have made many standing trips on the Victoria Line without having to hold on...

 

[Tetchytyke]

The stop spacing on that section is very strange. Farringdon to KXSP is probably the longest spacing on Zone 1

Kings Cross St Pancras Met station was moved about 500 yards westwards; the original station became the Thameslink platforms. The original entrance was, I think, opposite the Scala. To be fair, even now there's still not much between Mount Pleasant and Kings Cross to merit a station . It is a long old drag though.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Kings Cross St Pancras Met station was moved about 500 yards westwards; the original station became the Thameslink platforms. The original entrance was, I think, opposite the Scala. To be fair, even now there's still not much between Mount Pleasant and Kings Cross to merit a station . It is a long old drag though.

Not quite - the original Met platforms are still passed by Met trains (and have even been used for emergency detrainment).

 

[bramling]

Right, not like they’re going to be operating 32tph or anything

Time will tell on that. Based on performance on the Jubilee and Northern, I think the system is going to struggle. Look at the day the Northern was running over an hour late just because platform 5 at Golders Green was unavailable for the day.

The sub-surface lines have many more flat junctions and much more open-air running, and the Seltrac system doesn’t cope efficiently with either of these factors.

There is going to have to be a *lot* more attention to detail compared to the Northern Line if the system is going to deliver something transformational, and given it’s many of the same people by and large working on it, I find it hard to be optimistic that is going to happen.

 

[MikeWh]

Look at the day the Northern was running over an hour late just because platform 5 at Golders Green was unavailable for the day.

That looked ridiculous at first glance, until I consulted carte-metro and found that 1/2 and 3/4 serve opposite sides of the same track. Thus it's a 3 track station with 5 being the zone-1-bound track. If that was out of use it presumably meant that Golders Green couldn't turn trains round without heavy use of reverse movements into the sidings. I think that situation would have struggled under any signalling system and maybe the current one did in fact help. I doubt Colindale could cope with many more terminators as it only has two tracks so the empty train has to be checked before moving forward to the siding.

But I'm no expert, so might be completely wrong.

 

[bramling]

That looked ridiculous at first glance, until I consulted carte-metro and found that 1/2 and 3/4 serve opposite sides of the same track. Thus it's a 3 track station with 5 being the zone-1-bound track. If that was out of use it presumably meant that Golders Green couldn't turn trains round without heavy use of reverse movements into the sidings. I think that situation would have struggled under any signalling system and maybe the current one did in fact help. I doubt Colindale could cope with many more terminators as it only has two tracks so the empty train has to be checked before moving forward to the siding.

But I'm no expert, so might be completely wrong.

You're on the right lines that loss of the middle platform would certainly have an effect on anything booked to use it, or for service recovery, however not that much is actually booked to use the middle at Golders Green, so this wasn't the main issue. The issue was simply that the TBTC was not capable of passing trains through the middle at anything like the throughput required to sustain the full service. It was necessary to wait for each train (at 10 mph) to be well south of Golders Green before the following train started moving. Then trains were getting further delayed by a pointless TBTC-related stop in the tunnel between Golders Green and Hampstead. As every train lost time due to all this, so the service got later and later.

The railway is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and unfortunately the Northern Line's implementation has a lot of these weak links. The normal timetable is still sufficiently sparse that these weak links are, just about, masked by the normal service with everything is running normally. But as soon as problems start happening they rear their head very quickly and can often cause total chaos. The SSR needs to learn this lesson, but as I say with the same people by and large doing the implementation I don't think it will happen.

 

[simple simon]

Oh the joys of automation..... its just as well that trains were still human driven when (a few years ago) something went badly wrong with a night engineering train where an unstaffed / unbraked part of the train that was being hauled northbound (towards Golders Green) at a location where there is a steep uphill gradient broke free.

Readers may recall that to avoid being smashed into from behind the first passenger train of the day had to travel in "emergency: flee for your life" mode, in the process passing through several stations at speed until it reached Camden Town where it could be sent via one of the two branches and the runaway train sent via the other branch.

Thankfully no-one was hurt in the incident but I strongly suspect that had CBTC been in control then the engineering train would have reached and crashed into the passenger train.

As for train speeds on the subsurface lines, with one exception I can only go by perception when looking at the passing tunnel walls whilst travelling between stations and as a general theme it does seem that trains are slower than they used to be.

The place where I notice this the most is on eastbound trains travelling Stepney Green - Mile End. Here they seem to be significantly slower than they used to be.

When I was a schoolboy in the 1970's and the train driver would leave the cab door open (or even let me ride in the cab) A stock trains travelling Farringdon - Kings Cross easily reached 40mph and often even 45mph+ I question whether trains still reach these speeds.

 

[bluegoblin7]

A stock trains travelling Farringdon - Kings Cross easily reached 40mph and often even 45mph+ I question whether trains still reach these speeds.[/QUOTE]

They do.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

A stock trains travelling Farringdon - Kings Cross easily reached 40mph and often even 45mph+ I question whether trains still reach these speeds.

They do.[/QUOTE]

A stock trains frequently ran at 70 MPH and more (70 was top of the clock and you could lose that easily on some stretches) something I doubt S stock will ever achieve.

Also a skilled driver could bring an A stock to a halt with no jolt whatsoever. When was the last time you were on any tube or surface stock when that happened ?

 

[bluegoblin7]

They do.

A stock trains frequently ran at 70 MPH and more (70 was top of the clock and you could lose that easily on some stretches) something I doubt S stock will ever achieve.

Also a skilled driver could bring an A stock to a halt with no jolt whatsoever. When was the last time you were on any tube or surface stock when that happened ?[/QUOTE]

For the best part of the last 20 years A stock were limited to 50mph; Met linespeed is 60 and S8s also hit this daily.

As for smooth stops, yesterday. Multiple times.

You really can't compare journey times between the 80s/90s and today. Network passenger growth has been huge with many more, longer trains running to meet demand. That slows down throughput in and of itself and is nothing to do with the trains - generally it is offset by the faster acceleration and deceleration.

I expect a buffer factor in showing down lines will be resignalling, which we have seen on the Jubilee and Northern lines.

 

[bramling]

They do.

A stock trains frequently ran at 70 MPH and more (70 was top of the clock and you could lose that easily on some stretches) something I doubt S stock will ever achieve.

Also a skilled driver could bring an A stock to a halt with no jolt whatsoever. When was the last time you were on any tube or surface stock when that happened ?

It's quite possible to do it on any of the current trains when the driver is driving, it's just a case of throwing the handle into off & release or minimum brake a second or two before the train comes to a stand. A lot depends on whether the driver has been taught to do this, whether they have the confidence and ability to do it, and lastly whether they can be bothered and are in the right mood to be bothered! If done correctly it shouldn't cause any time loss.

Likewise some drivers tend to hold the train in something like half motors for the first couple of seconds when moving off. It helps avoid losing pilot light and keeps things more comfortable. This practice dates from the days of guards when there was a chance of being "pulled down" on departure, so nowadays few do it, and indeed official guidance tends to suggest going straight to full motoring nowadays. Personally I prefer the "series for the first few seconds" method - and again if done well the time loss of negligible.

As regards speed, on the Northern Line it was virtually standard practice in 59 & 72 stock days for the driver to try to go off the speedo between High Barnet and Totteridge southbound, which would be 60 mph. A 95 stock could also do it before continuous ATP came in, although less common due to the presence of data recorders on the trains. Nowadays it's 50 mph.

 

[bramling]

Oh the joys of automation..... its just as well that trains were still human driven when (a few years ago) something went badly wrong with a night engineering train where an unstaffed / unbraked part of the train that was being hauled northbound (towards Golders Green) at a location where there is a steep uphill gradient broke free.

Readers may recall that to avoid being smashed into from behind the first passenger train of the day had to travel in "emergency: flee for your life" mode, in the process passing through several stations at speed until it reached Camden Town where it could be sent via one of the two branches and the runaway train sent via the other branch.

Thankfully no-one was hurt in the incident but I strongly suspect that had CBTC been in control then the engineering train would have reached and crashed into the passenger train.

You're quite right - it's quite possible the train would not have been moved out of the way so effectively. They would have had to "drag & drop" it, or at least close all the platforms in front of it, to make it non-stop everywhere, and of course the train would have stuck very rigidly to speed limits. Despite all this, it's possible the train might have come to a stand somewhere, and in that situation there wouldn't have been any way of the driver quickly getting it moving again.

Likewise, the points at Camden may not have been able to have been moved quite so quickly behind the passenger train.

 

[Mojo]

indeed official guidance tends to suggest going straight to full motoring nowadays

I would suggest that depends on the line. Certainly where I work it is trained both for new drivers and on annual CDP that they should put the train into Series (for the uninitiated on pre-92 stock (the only ones remaining in passenger service are the 72 and 73 stock) there are three motoring positions; Shunt, Series, Parallel in increasing order) until the 1 car marker, and at other locations for even longer where there is a rail gap just after the platform.

 

[Lrd]

One of the instructors at my depot tells everyone "full f***ing parallel" but no it's series to get the train rolling then into parallel (unless rail gaps as Mojo said or speed restrictions)

 

[Mutant Lemming]

One of the instructors at my depot tells everyone "full f***ing parallel" but no it's series to get the train rolling then into parallel (unless rail gaps as Mojo said or speed restrictions)

Certain drivers would go parallel then back to inch/shunt to slow the acceleration where there was poor adhesion - though was not advisable for too long before throwing it back to full parallel..
Can't agree on the smooth stopping - it was far easier to do with an EP than with the Westcode and would imagine even more difficult on modern stock.

 

[jumble]

A stock trains frequently ran at 70 MPH and more (70 was top of the clock and you could lose that easily on some stretches) something I doubt S stock will ever achieve.

Also a skilled driver could bring an A stock to a halt with no jolt whatsoever. When was the last time you were on any tube or surface stock when that happened ?

For the best part of the last 20 years A stock were limited to 50mph; Met linespeed is 60 and S8s also hit this daily.

Ha Ha
I had quite a few of SatNav timed runs in the last years before they went on A stock between Finchley Rd and HOTH running at 65.
I have also been on an S8 just once that I seem to remember maxed out at about 65 as well
Does anyone know if the 100KPH max is rigidly fixed or is it like the HSTs when they first came out whereby there were many drivers who were members of the unoffical "140 mph club"
Regards Jumble

.[/QUOTE]

 

[Dstock7080]

S Stock are electronically locked at:
62mph maximum in weak-field areas on MET; 47mph maximum in weak-field areas on District/H&C.
42mph maximum in other areas.