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