In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

On 26 Dec, 23:58, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article ,
(Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

(Mizter T) wrote:

Hounslow West, the next station along, has 425 places so might
well be a better bet.

"£No charge" on Bank Holidays I see. Luckily this will be an early
morning visit.

Zones 5-6 fare £1 on Oyster but £3 cash. I can see we'll need to
get
another Oyster card.

Perfect! Car park almost empty at 8 this morning. Daughter had a day
trip to Covent Garden on Saturday morning so told her to get an
Oyster which will eventually go to my wife. So we both had Oyster
to get to Heathrow, all in time for the flight and at sensible and
flexible parking cost. The time it took to get her checked in and
into Security the car park would have been an hour and a half's
worth.

The "sensible and flexible parking cost" being nil! Though I quite
understand what you were getting at - parking at Hounslow West only
cost you £3 total in Oyster PAYG fares on this occasion.

I was a bit worried that the car park might be full of loony post-xmas
sales junkies heading up at the crack of dawn to the west end to
"catch a bargain" / feed their consumerist habit. Thankfully this was
not the case!

Presumably they calculated (correctly) that they could do that sort of
thing a lot further East.

There's also no car parking charge at Hounslow West on a saturday (in
addition to sundays and bank holidays), and a max charge of £2.50 on
weekdays, so it's certainly worth bearing in mind for the future. Of
course it's much more likely to be full during weekday daytimes, but I
reckon it' be OK for evenings and maybe even early mornings too.

I'll mention it to my mother but she gets away with more at Heathrow with
a blue badge when she meets my brother or sister-in-law.

The only oddity at Hounslow West was no departure indicators. Surely
they will need them before T5 opens and it gets two Westbound
services?

Punters might simply be expected to either read the front of the train
or go one stop to Hatton Cross and then change if required, I suppose.

That could apply in many places but it's hardly user-friendly. I mean,
what was wrong with making people get off there and get a bus to Heathrow?
:-)

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 20:47:08 -0000, "Recliner"
wrote:

"chunky munky" wrote in message

What do they show at
present in C London for a T4, vs. T123 Direct??

Rather confusingly, all current Heathrow trains are described as going
to T123, with no mention of T4. Technically, this is correct, as T123 is
indeed the terminating point, but it's currently unnecessary to mention
terminal numbers as all trains go to all terminals;

Not so - early & late Piccs skip T4 often, with a confusing way to
find out if you have to get off at HattonX:. if there is no
announcement then T4 is probably a go, if the train driver tells T4
people to get off then it's a good bet the train is going to T123
without doing the loop; if the scrolling display tells you to get off
at HatX but there is no spoken announcement then odds are T4 will be
served non the less. I've had all such scenarios on a 7am Monday
morning to T4 and it is confusing. There is no clue in HattonX if the
next Picc is T4-bound or not. The fact that T4-123 is a loop
terminating at the latter is unfortunately covered up by the
information signs which pretend "C London" is a direct link from T4.

For trains back to "C London" from T4, the displays on the one
platform tell you "all trains stop in T123" (Eng, Fr, German, It) but
they don't explain that the next train might tip out in T123. Platform
sez C London but of course all Piccs via T4 go to T123 and it is pots
luck if they terminate there or sit a while and go east, or if the
'other' platform has the next departing train.

I suppose it depends on when they get round to renaming the station, and
Heathrow Central sounds like a suitable new name as all the Heathrow
terminals may get renamed at some stage in the future -- the proposed
rebuilt T1+2 is supposed to be called Heathrow East, which suggests that
T3 could become Heathrow Central, T4 Heathrow South, T5 Heathrow West
and perhaps a new terminal for the third runway could be Heathrow North.
Still, LU is a far more pleasant experience than the damn air
terminals it serves. Random shoes on/off, 'Fasttrack' lines that can
be longer than the nearby 'slow tracks', random change of gates; hell
of an airport.

--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

"Colum Mylod" wrote in message

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 20:47:08 -0000, "Recliner"
wrote:

"chunky munky" wrote in message

What do they show at
present in C London for a T4, vs. T123 Direct??

Rather confusingly, all current Heathrow trains are described as
going to T123, with no mention of T4. Technically, this is correct,
as T123 is indeed the terminating point, but it's currently
unnecessary to mention terminal numbers as all trains go to all
terminals;

Not so - early & late Piccs skip T4 often, with a confusing way to
find out if you have to get off at HattonX:. if there is no
announcement then T4 is probably a go, if the train driver tells T4
people to get off then it's a good bet the train is going to T123
without doing the loop; if the scrolling display tells you to get off
at HatX but there is no spoken announcement then odds are T4 will be
served non the less. I've had all such scenarios on a 7am Monday
morning to T4 and it is confusing. There is no clue in HattonX if the
next Picc is T4-bound or not. The fact that T4-123 is a loop
terminating at the latter is unfortunately covered up by the
information signs which pretend "C London" is a direct link from T4.

Ah, that's even more confusing than I realised!

On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:55:49 -0800 (PST), chunky munky wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at Harrow on
the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All Stations"
after each train they announce, despite the fact that from those
stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

asdf wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:55:49 -0800 (PST), chunky munky wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at Harrow
on the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All Stations"
after each train they announce, despite the fact that from those
stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

Then the display is correct. I don't understand why you wrote "despite
the fact that".
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:23:29 GMT, Richard J. wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at Harrow
on the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All Stations"
after each train they announce, despite the fact that from those
stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

Then the display is correct. I don't understand why you wrote "despite
the fact that".

On LU, it's not normal to show "All Stations" after each train on dot
matrix displays, in places where all departing trains stop at all
stations. (It's also redundant information, which is generally a bad
thing.)

asdf wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:23:29 GMT, Richard J. wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at Harrow
on the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All Stations"
after each train they announce, despite the fact that from those
stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

Then the display is correct. I don't understand why you wrote
"despite the fact that".

On LU, it's not normal to show "All Stations" after each train on dot
matrix displays, in places where all departing trains stop at all
stations. (It's also redundant information, which is generally a bad
thing.)

I don't see the problem with this. If you are travelling from Northwick Park
to Pinner then it is useful to know that the next train will be stopping at
all stations and not running fast to Moor Park.

Peter Smyth

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:46:42 -0000, Peter Smyth wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at Harrow
on the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All Stations"
after each train they announce, despite the fact that from those
stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

Then the display is correct. I don't understand why you wrote
"despite the fact that".

On LU, it's not normal to show "All Stations" after each train on dot
matrix displays, in places where all departing trains stop at all
stations. (It's also redundant information, which is generally a bad
thing.)

I don't see the problem with this. If you are travelling from Northwick Park
to Pinner then it is useful to know that the next train will be stopping at
all stations and not running fast to Moor Park.

So have a sign saying "All trains stop at all stations".

asdf wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:46:42 -0000, Peter Smyth wrote:

The Metropolitan line (north of Wembley Park) other than at
Harrow on the Hill doesn't have dot matrix indicators.

Northwick Park and Preston Road have them. (They show "All
Stations" after each train they announce, despite the fact that
from those stations all trains call at all stations anyway.)

Then the display is correct. I don't understand why you wrote
"despite the fact that".

On LU, it's not normal to show "All Stations" after each train on
dot matrix displays, in places where all departing trains stop at
all stations. (It's also redundant information, which is generally
a bad thing.)

I don't see the problem with this. If you are travelling from
Northwick Park to Pinner then it is useful to know that the next
train will be stopping at all stations and not running fast to Moor
Park.

So have a sign saying "All trains stop at all stations".

It is more sensible to have the information on the indicators rather than a
sign in case service patterns change in the future.

Peter Smyth