In article ,
() wrote:

In my experience trains from Dalston in the evening peak become very
heavily loaded by the time they leave Whitechapel; the few times I
have boarded there I tend to have to wait a long time, sometimes over
an hour, for a train where I can get a seat. I cannot stand for more
than a few stops now due to bad legs. From Dalston to Shoreditch
High Street it's not so crowded, but there's usually a net gain of
passengers at each station.

They may not be well marked but 378s have priority seats which you should be
claiming.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Incidentally, someone was describing a journey to me this morning and
she said "I get the... vertical bit of the Overground and change to
the... horizontal bit of the Overground". She sounded like she felt a
bit foolish describing it in such terms, but TfL have left people with
little choice. On querying it turned out that she has lived in Surrey
Quays for decades and is well aware that the vertical line used to be
called the East London Line, but as a young woman working in fashion she
would be particularly keen to avoid looking out of date, and she has no
up-to-date term to describe the line. The experience gelled with recent
thoughts of mine.

My own recent foray around East London presented me with confusing signs
to multiple DLR platforms at Stratford, and confusing new signs in
Hackney Central / Downs pointing from one half of the station to the
other. As I arrived at Hackney from Chingford, robobint said "Change
here for trains to Enfield Town" but didn't mention Cheshunt. And the
part of the tube map between Seven Sisters and Mile End looks like an
explosion in a spaghetti factory, utterly defeating the eyes' ability to
plan routes without having to think too hard.

I believe that the Overground brand, and to a lesser extent the DLR
brand, are obfuscating rather than enlightening.

I don't even know what promise the Overground brand is supposed to make.

"Underground" means that wherever I may have ended up, I go in here and
I can get frequent trains through Central London where I can make one
change to another frequent line that will take me home. There are a few
exceptions, like Roding Valley, but the Underground largely lives up to
that promise.

"Overground" - what is that promising? It used to mean orbital travel,
for the most part, but that doesn't hold any more. If someone stumbles
out of a party at 7am on a Sunday morning and finds himself at Turkey
Street station, what does that Overground roundel represent? 2tph to the
edge of Zone 1, and probably two changes before he gets home? That's
hardly anything for a station to brag about - there are very few
stations in Greater London that offer less (Emerson Park is ironically one).

Overground is actually a negative concept. Just as the Volkswagen brand
means "This is made by the same people who make Audi's, but it would
harm the Audi image if we wrote Audi on a car like this", Overground
means "This is run by the same people who run the Underground, but it
would harm the Underground brand if we wrote Underground on stations
that have infrequent service which only touches Zone 1 or avoids it
completely. So the Overground brand exists purely to avoid tarnishing
the reputation of the Underground.

And yet, the Overground management act as if they have an inferiority
complex, writing Overground everywhere and doing their best to
obliterate the historic line identities as if writing Overground on
something is the finest praise imaginable.

We need different colours and line names. We need the trains to
Chingford to have a different colour on the map from the trains that
call at London Fields and Cambridge Heath.

And the DLR needs to get line names too, so that the signs at Stratford
and on the District Line line guides can start making sense.
http://www.metrolondres.es/wp-conten...-mapa-tube.jpg
has four different DLR interchanges, and no clue as to which you're
supposed to use to get to which part of the DLR.

Basil Jet wrote:

Incidentally, someone was describing a journey to me this morning and
she said "I get the... vertical bit of the Overground and change to
the... horizontal bit of the Overground". She sounded like she felt a
bit foolish describing it in such terms, but TfL have left people with
little choice. On querying it turned out that she has lived in Surrey
Quays for decades and is well aware that the vertical line used to be
called the East London Line, but as a young woman working in fashion she
would be particularly keen to avoid looking out of date, and she has no
up-to-date term to describe the line. The experience gelled with recent
thoughts of mine.

My own recent foray around East London presented me with confusing signs
to multiple DLR platforms at Stratford, and confusing new signs in
Hackney Central / Downs pointing from one half of the station to the
other. As I arrived at Hackney from Chingford, robobint said "Change
here for trains to Enfield Town" but didn't mention Cheshunt. And the
part of the tube map between Seven Sisters and Mile End looks like an
explosion in a spaghetti factory, utterly defeating the eyes' ability to
plan routes without having to think too hard.

I believe that the Overground brand, and to a lesser extent the DLR
brand, are obfuscating rather than enlightening.

I don't even know what promise the Overground brand is supposed to make.

"Underground" means that wherever I may have ended up, I go in here and
I can get frequent trains through Central London where I can make one
change to another frequent line that will take me home. There are a few
exceptions, like Roding Valley, but the Underground largely lives up to
that promise.

"Overground" - what is that promising? It used to mean orbital travel,
for the most part, but that doesn't hold any more. If someone stumbles
out of a party at 7am on a Sunday morning and finds himself at Turkey
Street station, what does that Overground roundel represent? 2tph to the
edge of Zone 1, and probably two changes before he gets home? That's
hardly anything for a station to brag about - there are very few
stations in Greater London that offer less (Emerson Park is ironically one).

Overground is actually a negative concept. Just as the Volkswagen brand
means "This is made by the same people who make Audi's, but it would
harm the Audi image if we wrote Audi on a car like this", Overground
means "This is run by the same people who run the Underground, but it
would harm the Underground brand if we wrote Underground on stations
that have infrequent service which only touches Zone 1 or avoids it
completely. So the Overground brand exists purely to avoid tarnishing
the reputation of the Underground.

And yet, the Overground management act as if they have an inferiority
complex, writing Overground everywhere and doing their best to
obliterate the historic line identities as if writing Overground on
something is the finest praise imaginable.

We need different colours and line names. We need the trains to
Chingford to have a different colour on the map from the trains that
call at London Fields and Cambridge Heath.

And the DLR needs to get line names too, so that the signs at Stratford
and on the District Line line guides can start making sense.
http://www.metrolondres.es/wp-conten...-mapa-tube.jpg
has four different DLR interchanges, and no clue as to which you're
supposed to use to get to which part of the DLR.


I agree. We need line numbers on the Underground, Overground and DLR, just
as bus routes have numbers. Maybe they could have an alpha prefix, but it
would be much clearer if every route had a unique number.

It's particularly confusing to non-locals on the subsurface Underground
lines where similar looking trains serve many different routes from the
same Circle line stations.

On 19/11/2015 01:00, wrote:
In article ,
() wrote:

In my experience trains from Dalston in the evening peak become very
heavily loaded by the time they leave Whitechapel; the few times I
have boarded there I tend to have to wait a long time, sometimes over
an hour, for a train where I can get a seat. I cannot stand for more
than a few stops now due to bad legs. From Dalston to Shoreditch
High Street it's not so crowded, but there's usually a net gain of
passengers at each station.

They may not be well marked but 378s have priority seats which you should be
claiming.

How does one go about doing so? Is there a defined protocol apart from
just asking? Having recently been hobbling around on a severely
sprained ankle but apart from a pronounced limp show no sign of being
(albeit it temporarily) disabled and in pain, it's of some passing
interest. What if I have acquired the seat and e.g. a pregnant woman
boards?

It's better now to the point of not worrying whether I can get a seat or
not, but the first couple of weeks were not so good.

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 21:29:03 +0000
eastender wrote:
On 2015-11-18 18:48:13 +0000, e27002 aurora said:

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:36:14 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

I took the ELL from Highbury this morning for the first time in about 6
months.
Even after the obligatory 7 minute wait for the train to leave it was still
only a 3rd full in the middle of the morning rush hour. Compared to last
time
I used it this is virtually empty. I can only assume the poor service
frequency and slow journey times (25 mins to do the 4 miles to canada water
this morning) have put people off as they did me. What a waste of an asset.

This is sad to hear. The Overground has such great potential. But,
the speed on its routes are excruciatingly slow. Surely all that
investment should allow for a more sprightly system.

They can seem slow especially between stations close together but they
are main line not underground trains.

Even so, there's still no excuse for the **** poor service speeds. I've been
in a 378 when the driver was obviously running late and they can get up and
go when they need to. The trains arn't at fault - the drivers are. Also quite
why the drivers feel they need to creep into every station at 10mph beats me
quite frankly. The ELL needs ATO and fast.

--
Spud

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:32:52 -0800 (PST)
wrote:
ly then go to New cross. It could do with speeding up a bit, but it's wort=
h it to avoid central London. I don't know why, but I tend to go out via C=
anada Water and the Jubilee, and return all the way by Overground.

Avoiding the centre or the northern line was why I used to get it. Plus its
a nicer journey on the viaduct. But in the end I got tired of 10 mins being
added to my journey time so I went back to the tube.

In my experience trains from Dalston in the evening peak become very heavil=
y loaded by the time they leave Whitechapel; the few times I have boarded t=
here I tend to have to wait a long time, sometimes over an hour, for a trai=
n where I can get a seat. I cannot stand for more than a few stops now due=
to bad legs. From Dalston to Shoreditch High Street it's not so crowded, =
but there's usually a net gain of passengers at each station.

I only got it in the morning so I'll take your word for it.

--
Spud

On Thursday, 19 November 2015 07:19:44 UTC, Recliner wrote:
Basil Jet wrote:

Incidentally, someone was describing a journey to me this morning and
she said "I get the... vertical bit of the Overground and change to
the... horizontal bit of the Overground". She sounded like she felt a
bit foolish describing it in such terms, but TfL have left people with
little choice. On querying it turned out that she has lived in Surrey
Quays for decades and is well aware that the vertical line used to be
called the East London Line, but as a young woman working in fashion she
would be particularly keen to avoid looking out of date, and she has no
up-to-date term to describe the line. The experience gelled with recent
thoughts of mine.

My own recent foray around East London presented me with confusing signs
to multiple DLR platforms at Stratford, and confusing new signs in
Hackney Central / Downs pointing from one half of the station to the
other. As I arrived at Hackney from Chingford, robobint said "Change
here for trains to Enfield Town" but didn't mention Cheshunt. And the
part of the tube map between Seven Sisters and Mile End looks like an
explosion in a spaghetti factory, utterly defeating the eyes' ability to
plan routes without having to think too hard.

I believe that the Overground brand, and to a lesser extent the DLR
brand, are obfuscating rather than enlightening.

I don't even know what promise the Overground brand is supposed to make.

"Underground" means that wherever I may have ended up, I go in here and
I can get frequent trains through Central London where I can make one
change to another frequent line that will take me home. There are a few
exceptions, like Roding Valley, but the Underground largely lives up to
that promise.

"Overground" - what is that promising? It used to mean orbital travel,
for the most part, but that doesn't hold any more. If someone stumbles
out of a party at 7am on a Sunday morning and finds himself at Turkey
Street station, what does that Overground roundel represent? 2tph to the
edge of Zone 1, and probably two changes before he gets home? That's
hardly anything for a station to brag about - there are very few
stations in Greater London that offer less (Emerson Park is ironically one).

Overground is actually a negative concept. Just as the Volkswagen brand
means "This is made by the same people who make Audi's, but it would
harm the Audi image if we wrote Audi on a car like this", Overground
means "This is run by the same people who run the Underground, but it
would harm the Underground brand if we wrote Underground on stations
that have infrequent service which only touches Zone 1 or avoids it
completely. So the Overground brand exists purely to avoid tarnishing
the reputation of the Underground.

And yet, the Overground management act as if they have an inferiority
complex, writing Overground everywhere and doing their best to
obliterate the historic line identities as if writing Overground on
something is the finest praise imaginable.

We need different colours and line names. We need the trains to
Chingford to have a different colour on the map from the trains that
call at London Fields and Cambridge Heath.

And the DLR needs to get line names too, so that the signs at Stratford
and on the District Line line guides can start making sense.
http://www.metrolondres.es/wp-conten...-mapa-tube.jpg
has four different DLR interchanges, and no clue as to which you're
supposed to use to get to which part of the DLR.


I agree. We need line numbers on the Underground, Overground and DLR, just
as bus routes have numbers. Maybe they could have an alpha prefix, but it
would be much clearer if every route had a unique number.

It's particularly confusing to non-locals on the subsurface Underground
lines where similar looking trains serve many different routes from the
same Circle line stations.

I'd prefer letters: DLRA DLRB etc.

London Overground was always a terrible name. It should have been given a monicker in the same way that the Jubilee Line was - how about the Dickens Line? And that abbrev.: LOROL! Faites-moi une faveur, mec!

LOROL also should have letters to differentiate its several parts.

In article , d () wrote:

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 21:29:03 +0000
eastender wrote:
On 2015-11-18 18:48:13 +0000, e27002 aurora said:

On Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:36:14 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

I took the ELL from Highbury this morning for the first time in about
6 months. Even after the obligatory 7 minute wait for the train to
leave it was still only a 3rd full in the middle of the morning rush
hour. Compared to last time I used it this is virtually empty. I can
only assume the poor service frequency and slow journey times (25 mins
to do the 4 miles to canada water this morning) have put people off as
they did me. What a waste of an asset.

This is sad to hear. The Overground has such great potential. But,
the speed on its routes are excruciatingly slow. Surely all that
investment should allow for a more sprightly system.

They can seem slow especially between stations close together but they
are main line not underground trains.

Even so, there's still no excuse for the **** poor service speeds. I've
been in a 378 when the driver was obviously running late and they can get
up and go when they need to. The trains arn't at fault - the drivers are.
Also quite why the drivers feel they need to creep into every station at
10mph beats me quite frankly. The ELL needs ATO and fast.

Are you suggesting the drivers set the timetables? That's what they have to
drive the trains to. So perhaps you are pointing the finger in the wrong
direction?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Someone
Somewhere) wrote:

On 19/11/2015 01:00, wrote:
In article ,
() wrote:

In my experience trains from Dalston in the evening peak become very
heavily loaded by the time they leave Whitechapel; the few times I
have boarded there I tend to have to wait a long time, sometimes over
an hour, for a train where I can get a seat. I cannot stand for more
than a few stops now due to bad legs. From Dalston to Shoreditch
High Street it's not so crowded, but there's usually a net gain of
passengers at each station.

They may not be well marked but 378s have priority seats which you
should be claiming.

How does one go about doing so? Is there a defined protocol apart
from just asking? Having recently been hobbling around on a
severely sprained ankle but apart from a pronounced limp show no sign
of being (albeit it temporarily) disabled and in pain, it's of some
passing interest. What if I have acquired the seat and e.g. a
pregnant woman boards?

It's better now to the point of not worrying whether I can get a seat
or not, but the first couple of weeks were not so good.

The moquette on the priority seats is different (lighter coloured on 378s
IIRC) and there are labels marking them as such on the walls above. n my
observation most people are very considerate if asked but there are
exceptions.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Thu, 19 Nov 2015 06:18:09 -0600
wrote:
In article , d () wrote:
Even so, there's still no excuse for the **** poor service speeds. I've
been in a 378 when the driver was obviously running late and they can get
up and go when they need to. The trains arn't at fault - the drivers are.
Also quite why the drivers feel they need to creep into every station at
10mph beats me quite frankly. The ELL needs ATO and fast.

Are you suggesting the drivers set the timetables? That's what they have to
drive the trains to. So perhaps you are pointing the finger in the wrong
direction?

I imagine there's a certain amount of leaway built into the timetable to
allow for the idiotic decision to link it into the southern network with all
the vaguaries of the trains there. And I get the feeling the drivers use that
leaway to the max. They really do drive dog slow a lot of the time. It really
should have been kept as a self contained tube line with a once every 2 min
service from highbury to new cross(gate) with better interchange facilities
at the 2 southern stations.

--
Spud