Emergency Engineering Works 10/4 - 11/4

[superteacher]

According to Twitter, services between Seven Sisters and Walthamstow will finish at midnight with the first morning departure not until 5.47am. What is happening, and why is there nothing on the TFL site?

[Chris M]

The line currently being shown on the TfL website as operating a "Special service" rather than being "part suspended" or "Part closure" which would be more accurate. There is no detail given beyond "Emergency engineering work at Walthamstow Central".

I find it odd that the resumption time is specified to the minute, rather than something like "about 6am" even more so as there is not normally a departure at that time - 05:37 and 05:48 being the usual times. I presume that there is almost no risk of overrun and the service will resume as normal but without the trains that normally stable at Walthamstow?

[djlynch]

The current wording says the suspension is "from the start of service until 05:47", so I assume that the time was chosen to avoid ambiguity for those who know the timetables about whether the 05:48 train was running. The wording about timing has a feeling of filling in the blanks and not thinking about whether it's the most useful way to phrase the information, which leads me to wonder if it's a human being extremely by-the-book or a computer template that works in most cases but not this one.

[superteacher]

Apr 10, 2018 23:16:42 GMT Chris M said:

The line currently being shown on the TfL website as operating a "Special service" rather than being "part suspended" or "Part closure" which would be more accurate. There is no detail given beyond "Emergency engineering work at Walthamstow Central".

“Special Service” is an absolutely meaningless status.

[Deleted]

There was a cracked stock rail found last week a TSR was in place after temp weld
A new stock and switch was installed that night at Walthamstow

[Chris M]

Apr 11, 2018 6:37:32 GMT superteacher said:

Apr 10, 2018 23:16:42 GMT Chris M said:

The line currently being shown on the TfL website as operating a "Special service" rather than being "part suspended" or "Part closure" which would be more accurate. There is no detail given beyond "Emergency engineering work at Walthamstow Central".

“Special Service” is an absolutely meaningless status.

It can be a useful descriptor when service patterns are different to normal, e.g. if the District was running Richmond-Edgware Road or the Overground Stratford-Watford Junction. On the Victoria line it would appropriate if a service was running say Walthamstow-Victoria and Brixton-Seven Sisters at frequencies not too much less than normal. However I agree it's not the right terminology for a situation like last night.