Paul Corfield wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:33:23 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:

There are off peak journey times shown on timetables for each tube
line on the Journey Planner so you can see exactly how long a trip
should take. Peak trips obviously take substantially longer due to
more trains running and extra congestion.

Obviously? More trains running ought to make journeys quicker.
But it would need better signalling and/or ATO and/or operating
efficiency to prevent the increased dwell times that make journey
times longer. London is still catching up with Paris in this
respect, 20+ years later.

I take the point but we all know that LU is not at that level of
sophistication yet. Lines like the sub surface ones tend to crawl
in the rush hours as there are so many flat junctions and without
absolutely on time running you will get tail backs.

The same is true for the Northern and Piccadilly Lines where Camden,
Kennington, Arnos Grove and Acton Town are all pinch points.

Acton Town is only a pinch point because of slack operating practices.
In each direction there are two platforms to handle 31 tph (24 tph
Piccadilly and 7 tph District in the peaks). In my experience, the
trains queue up on the approach to Acton Town because crew changes are
often too slow and signallers don't make full use of both platforms.
(I'm not familiar enough with the others you mentioned to comment on
them.)

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)