Robin Mayes wrote:

"Annabel Smyth" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 at 22:41:51, Neil Williams
wrote:


In fact, there are a few underground stations in Hamburg which appear to
be totally unstaffed - bet you'd not get away with that in the UK!


Oh, I dunno - East India DLR is totally unstaffed, as far as I can see.
And I expect some other DLR stations are, too.


DLR isn't Underground


True... although at Bank, Island Gardens, and Cutty Sark it is underground.

Obviously Bank is staffed... are the other two?

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

(Gareth Davis) wrote in message . com...

[snip]

Right time for a follow up to all the responses:

I agree that most of my comments about the NYC system were about the
overall ambience of it, some American friends described the London
system as immaculate - while I wouldn't quite go that far, we are a
bit spoilt by the way our stations look and are maintained -
especially the JLE stations. Near enough every NYC station I visited
showed some sign of renovation in progress - be it closed entrances
and escalators or freshly painted walls. If the money is going into
the infrastructure then it is better spent there, I would rather have
dirty stations than a dangerous infrastructure. I admit I didn't
mention the cars were air-conditioned since I didn't get to experience
it at this time of year, although my American friends inform me that
it tends to fill the sub-surface stations with uncomfortably hot air
as the trains pull in - which I believe is why we don't use it in
London.

Passenger information was my biggest problem while using the system. I
did have some quite substantial waits (i.e. 7+ minutes) during weekday
afternoons for trains. The London platform dot-matrix boards do help,
even if it does say 8 minutes you do at least know a train is
(usually) going to turn up and you can watch it count down as it
approaches - barring the dreaded 'Correction' message.

The NYC express running system I did like since it had dedicated
tracks set aside for it, tracks that I saw used for rerouting trains
at the weekends to allow maintenance work to take place without a full
line shutdown. Without a map I found it difficult to work out when to
change from the express to local lines as there was no indication or
announcement on some trains as to what the next station was. Putting
an underground map on every platform is all that is needed to solve
this - but every station I needed to check one in had them outside the
gateline along with the only member of staff to ask. Also the width of
the 4 lines running together meant that the surface entrances for
uptown and downtown could be a road, or nearly a block apart when
interchange to another line was involved - like at 50th Street E line
where I had problems finding the right entrance on the surface. Again
this would be resolved with better signage.

Overall it was not a bad experience using the subway, just a little
frustrating at times. Although whoever thought it was a good idea to
start putting the station clocks forwards the day before summer time
started deserves to be shot - the clock on 42nd Street FV platforms
caused me to get very worried about catching my flight on time. At
least in London we know the clocks won't get touched until the
following Tuesday

--
Gareth Davis

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:42:26 +0100, Annabel Smyth wrote:

True, but it's still run by TfL, and they still require tickets, and
sell tickets.....

That's not the issue - an Underground station must be staffed for safety
reasons (in case an evacuation is required) because of being, umm,
underground. There have been recorded instances of stations being closed
on LUL due to short staffing.

Admittedly most of Hamburg's stations are much closer to the surface, but
Hauptbahnhof-Nord is a deep-level tube station and to my knowledge is not
staffed at any time.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 12:11:09 +0200, Gunnar Thöle wrote:

I'd say more than 95% of stations are completely free of any staff.
There's just one station with full-time platform staff (Hauptbahnhof
S-Bahn platforms) left, i think.

Even after the S-Bahn withdrew their dispatch staff, I recall the U-Bahn
kept them on to move people along in the peaks - have those been pulled
out as well? Been a while since I was in HH...

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...
Robin Mayes wrote:

DLR isn't Underground

True... although at Bank, Island Gardens, and Cutty Sark it is
underground.

Obviously Bank is staffed... are the other two?

Yes, they must be. They are known as "Section 12" stations after the law
which controls underground stations. Even Liverpool St BR is a Secton 12
station and must always be manned or closed.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Neil Williams writes:
That's not the issue - an Underground station must be staffed for safety
reasons (in case an evacuation is required) because of being, umm,
underground.

What about the many Underground stations that are not underground, then?
--
Mark Brader | "For the stronger we our houses do build,
Toronto | The less chance we have of being killed."
| -- William McGonagall, "The Tay Bridge Disaster"

"John Rowland" writes:

Yes, they must be. They are known as "Section 12" stations after the law
which controls underground stations. Even Liverpool St BR is a Secton 12
station and must always be manned or closed.

What's the rationale? (Around here, all underground stations are
unstaffed, remote surveillance (and random private security staff)
only.)

"O-V R:nen" wrote in message
...

What's the rationale? (Around here, all underground stations are
unstaffed, remote surveillance (and random private security staff)
only.)

Kings Cross fire and the resultant Fennell report.

In message , "O-V R:nen"
writes
What's the rationale?

Safety, especially fire.
--
Roland Perry

Neil Williams schrieb:
Even after the S-Bahn withdrew their dispatch staff, I recall the U-Bahn
kept them on to move people along in the peaks - have those been pulled
out as well? Been a while since I was in HH...
Yes. U-Bahn was faster than S-Bahn with getting rid of staff. Drivers
doing the dispatching themselves on the S-Bahn is still pretty new.

For the interested reader, train dispatching in Hamburg is quite
complicated:
The S-Bahn system has 3 different methods:
a) Staff on platform
this is now very rare, in Hauptbahnhof (the station where all (!) lines
meet) it is done during the day, in other stations very rarely (when
something fails like when Harburg station lost its technology during the
tunnel fire last autumn, or at Stellingen where there is a stadium, and
also in Elbgaustraße where one line ends and the other line's trains are
shortened with the first half continuing to Pinneberg and the second
half staying in Elbgaustraße)
b) Driver does it
on more and more stations an infrared beam apparatus sends the pictures
of the station cameras onto monitors inside the train. The driver then
does everything himself / herself.
c) "Zentrale Zugabfertigung"
(central dispatch)
Other station's cameras are linked to central dispatch where somebody is
sitting all day looking at station cameras and giving "Stand clear"
orders and notifying the driver to go off.
This must be a very boring job...
With a) and c) there will be a special signal at the end of the platform
that can show a white T letter: "Close doors now" and another one with a
green ring: "Go!"

The U-Bahn doesn't seem to have staff doing the dispatching any more,
but i am not completely sure 'cause i don't go by U-Bahn very often.
What i know is their very cool self-dispatch system:
Machinery on the station knows each train's timetable.
U-Bahn trains are driven by accelerating out of the station and after
reaching some speed they coast to the next station (Except on difficult
track layout where there are more acceleration and braking phases.).
When a train is in the station the machinery constantly calculates the
speed to accelerate the train to, so that, if it starts in this very
moment, it will be at the next station exactly on time.
This info is overlaid onto the station camera images and sent to the
train by "leaky feeder" cable antennas.
I hope this was understandable... To clarify, driving an U-Bahn is as
follows: In station, watch people get off and on, then say
"Zurückbleiben bitte", press door button, doors close (bang), read speed
value from monitor, accelerate to this speed, let coast, brake into next
station.

Happy easter
Gunnar