On Sat, 25 Feb 2017 19:03:52 -0600, wrote:

In article ,
(Robin9) wrote:

I've just walked past Leyton Midland Road station. The
boarding has been removed in readiness for the re-opening.
The station gate is still shut but the electric timetable display
is working again; today, of course, giving times for the

So I can assume the line will be back in service by March 11th? I'm
organising a visit to Ilford that day and the number of engineering work
closures and diversions is a bit daunting.

PS There is something odd in the way your Usenet client interacts with
Giganews (through which my newsfeed comes). The last line of your postings
is usually lost by the time it gets to me, even though your signature is
there after it. When your post is quoted by someone else it's all there
though.

I see the whole of Robin9's post, but then I use the Forte Agent newsreader.

Robin9 wrote:

Both yesterday and today, and possibly earlier, two-car
DMUs have been travelling along the line, presumably for
driver training/route familiarisation purposes.

Presumably the line's own 172s? They've been parked at Willesden during
the closure.


Strolling around Leytonstone this afternoon, I noticed that
three bridges in the elevated section in the Samson Road/
Montague Road area have been replaced.

On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 21:45:36 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Robin9 wrote:

Both yesterday and today, and possibly earlier, two-car
DMUs have been travelling along the line, presumably for
driver training/route familiarisation purposes.

Presumably the line's own 172s? They've been parked at Willesden during
the closure.

I'm surprised TfL hasn't sold them given they'll be redundant on the LO
network when electrification is complete.

--
Spud

In message , at 11:08:35 on Mon, 20 Feb
2017, d remarked:
Both yesterday and today, and possibly earlier, two-car
DMUs have been travelling along the line, presumably for
driver training/route familiarisation purposes.

Presumably the line's own 172s? They've been parked at Willesden during
the closure.

I'm surprised TfL hasn't sold them

I think the lessor (Angel Trains) would have something to say if TfL
sold them!!

given they'll be redundant on the LO network when electrification is
complete.

--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:08:35 +0000 (UTC), d wrote:

On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 21:45:36 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Robin9 wrote:

Both yesterday and today, and possibly earlier, two-car
DMUs have been travelling along the line, presumably for
driver training/route familiarisation purposes.

Presumably the line's own 172s? They've been parked at Willesden during
the closure.

I'm surprised TfL hasn't sold them given they'll be redundant on the LO
network when electrification is complete.

They will be needed when the line reopens this month, partly because
the electrification won't be complete, and even after it is, because
the new trains don't arrive till next year. There had been local
pressure for some other redundant old 4-car EMUs to be used until the
new trains arrive, but TfL hasn't shown much enthusiasm.

Robin9 wrote on 14 Feb 2017 at
16:30 ...
British politicians, particularly those in London, love to
pretend that they are concerned about traffic congestion
and the consequential air pollution. They persist with policies
which have been proved not to work, and refuse to listen
to people who drive in traffic day after day and have a
real understanding of the main cause of the problem.

It seems that in Paris someone in authority is less bigoted
than our politicians:

http://tinyurl.com/jxlb4kc

How refreshing! I am deeply envious.

Ealing have been doing that for several years, e.g. the traffic lights
at the T-junction outside Acton Town station (opposite the entrance to
the LT Museum Depot) were replaced by a mini-roundabout and a zebra
crossing about 5 years ago.

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

On 2017-02-14 23:01:46 +0000, Richard J. said:

Ealing have been doing that for several years, e.g. the traffic lights
at the T-junction outside Acton Town station (opposite the entrance to
the LT Museum Depot) were replaced by a mini-roundabout and a zebra
crossing about 5 years ago.

Luton airport for years had a terrible congestion problem on a Monday
morning. This started happening soon after a set of traffic lights was
installed at the approach roundabout.

"Get rid of them" said us regulars.

"No" said the airport.

And on it went.

Eventually they did get rid of them, and the problem went away.

The problem with traffic lights, of course, is that they block traffic
movement during the "overlap" between two phases - replace with
something else e.g. a roundabout and traffic can move all of the time.
What you replace it with does require some thought as roundabouts don't
cope well with unbalanced flows, but lights on all approaches to a
junction basically waste time. If lights are needed to balance flows,
not having lights on one branch of the roundabout works quite well -
during the "overlap" time, traffic can then flow from that branch.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:10:31 +0000
Neil Williams wrote:
On 2017-02-14 23:01:46 +0000, Richard J. said:

Ealing have been doing that for several years, e.g. the traffic lights
at the T-junction outside Acton Town station (opposite the entrance to
the LT Museum Depot) were replaced by a mini-roundabout and a zebra
crossing about 5 years ago.

Luton airport for years had a terrible congestion problem on a Monday
morning. This started happening soon after a set of traffic lights was
installed at the approach roundabout.

Putting traffic lights on roundabouts has always struck me as a ridiculous
thing to do. Its as if the traffic planners didn't quite understand the
purpose of a roundabout or how it worked and assumed it was no different
to a 4 way junction. Once you've added the lights the roundabout is now
completely redundant and you'd probably get better traffic flow if you did
replace it with a simple junction.

What you replace it with does require some thought as roundabouts don't
cope well with unbalanced flows, but lights on all approaches to a
junction basically waste time. If lights are needed to balance flows,
not having lights on one branch of the roundabout works quite well -
during the "overlap" time, traffic can then flow from that branch.

Roundabouts generally work pretty well on their own. Stirling corner on the
A1 has intermittent lights. The only time serious queues build up is when they
switch the damn things on.

--
Spud

On 2017-02-15 09:38:59 +0000, d said:

Putting traffic lights on roundabouts has always struck me as a ridiculous
thing to do. Its as if the traffic planners didn't quite understand the
purpose of a roundabout or how it worked and assumed it was no different
to a 4 way junction. Once you've added the lights the roundabout is now
completely redundant and you'd probably get better traffic flow if you did
replace it with a simple junction.

Roundabouts work very well where there is a reasonably balanced traffic
flow on all 4 (or more) arms. They fail badly where the traffic is
highly directional, e.g. towards a city centre.

Consider a typical 4 arm roundabout with arms A, B, C and D positioned
at noon, 3, 6 and 9. If at certain times of day you have a very large
flow from arm B (3 o'clock) to arm D (9 o'clock), it is basically
impossible to get out onto the roundabout on arm C (6 o'clock) because
there is a constant traffic flow preventing this. There are a number
of roundabouts in Milton Keynes where this causes peak time queueing,
particularly as the A421 passes through eastbound in the morning peak
and westbound in the evening peak.

The way to prevent this is to place traffic lights on all but one of
the arms, having no lights on an arm that is not a "blocking" flow but
does have reasonable demand. In the example above, putting them on all
but arm C would allow continuous traffic flow, but would regulate arm B
such that those on arm C could get out and queueing is prevented.

This has an advantage over a traditional traffic light junction as
traffic is always flowing - when the lights are on amber or all on red
for the "overlap", C can flow. With a traditional junction there is
dead time, which with certain designs of junction can be as much of 25%
of the time - reducing overall capacity of the junction. With the
roundabout, this doesn't happen.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In article , d () wrote:

On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 00:10:31 +0000
Neil Williams wrote:
On 2017-02-14 23:01:46 +0000, Richard J. said:

Ealing have been doing that for several years, e.g. the traffic lights
at the T-junction outside Acton Town station (opposite the entrance to
the LT Museum Depot) were replaced by a mini-roundabout and a zebra
crossing about 5 years ago.

Luton airport for years had a terrible congestion problem on a Monday
morning. This started happening soon after a set of traffic lights was
installed at the approach roundabout.

Putting traffic lights on roundabouts has always struck me as a ridiculous
thing to do. Its as if the traffic planners didn't quite understand the
purpose of a roundabout or how it worked and assumed it was no different
to a 4 way junction. Once you've added the lights the roundabout is now
completely redundant and you'd probably get better traffic flow if you did
replace it with a simple junction.

What you replace it with does require some thought as roundabouts don't
cope well with unbalanced flows, but lights on all approaches to a
junction basically waste time. If lights are needed to balance flows,
not having lights on one branch of the roundabout works quite well -
during the "overlap" time, traffic can then flow from that branch.

Roundabouts generally work pretty well on their own. Stirling corner on
the A1 has intermittent lights. The only time serious queues build up is
when they switch the damn things on.

If you made any attempt to understand traffic engineering, there are
conditions when roundabouts really don't work. If traffic levels are high
and flows unbalanced then some arms can't get out onto the roundabout unless
traffic lights are installed.

--
Colin Rosenstiel