Northbound announcement sequences on southbound train

[taylor]

You live and learn. 

Boarded sb train 227 at Highbury and Islington about 15h57 this afternoon. Rolling along, "This train is for Walthamstow Central" "The next station is Finsbury Park". (or it's parsed something like that). OK. Highbury really is a rare station for me, I must have got tangled in the passageway with the old Northern City. So, I prepare to make the best of it with some excellent Challah from Happening Bakery on Seven Sisters Road, just as the train pulls into...King's Cross St. Pancras! Alright, I must have misheard. You know how it; is self-doubt triumphs. But no! "Walthamstow Central" continues to be advised as the destination both orally and on the matrix display in the car. Leaving Warren Street the next station announcement prompts: "The next station is Euston". A fellow passenger and I try to reassure some of the several tourists that this is indeed a southbound train. At Oxford Circus there follows a veritable hokey-kokey: Believing the platform announcement, you put's your left leg in for Brixton and puts your right leg out believing the train announcement for Walthamstow. Same at Green Park even though it seems the train operator has suppressed the station announcements. I alighted at Victoria, witnessed the hokey-kokey again and mentioned it to the woman on the gate-line who'd carded me for my legitimately-held-for-15-years Freedom Pass (that made me feel good!) 

So, I learned that although the ATO is set up identifying the train along its southbound journey as No 227, the in-train DVA didn't seem to be 'talking' to the other systems. Peculiar, as the topical streamed external announcements on the Vic can sometimes be granularly verbose. Anyone any idea what might have gone wrong here? I'm assuming the operator cannot hear the in-train DVA. Is that right?

[d7666]

21st century IT

Is your internet connection 100.00% perfect?

Does every web site you go to respond 100.00% exactly per spec?

Is your windows pc perfect ?

Is your smartphone perfect?

How many trips on Vic line have you done ? daily commuter? If yes then you will know such hiccups are rare. if not,you won't know anyway.

It happens .
IT systems are garbage in = garbage out, once the train has lost where it is expect rubbish

[t697]

Possibly as simple as the wrong destination entered by T/Op in the cab. From the description other systems were 'telling' it the location and from that it expects the next station to be the next one in the other direction.
You are correct, the automated announcements are not played in the cab speakers.

[MoreToJack]

My understanding is the 09TS is still a relatively ‘old school’ train - the CIS isn’t directly linked with the train’s signalling destinations like, for instance, the (C|T)BTC lines, so if a driver doesn’t update the code - or puts the wrong one in - then this will occur. It’s not uncommon, albeit certainly not a regular occurrence.

There certainly isn’t the level of overall (on train) computer supervision as there is on the S stock, which is a computer with a train attached, rather than a train with a computer inside it.

[jimbo]

Thanks MoreToJack . I hadn't realised the two types differed greatly, since they were all part of one Metronet order for a build by Bombardier, Derby as part of its Movia family. They were built sequentially, so the final 2009 stock was photographed alongside the first S stock, showing similar design themes. e.g. link I always imagined that S stock was a surface stock version of 2009TS, as D stock was of the 1973TS, C stock was of 1967TS and A stock was of 1959TS. You have opened my eyes after 12 years in service!

[brigham]

Aug 2, 2022 20:22:27 GMT d7666 said:

21st century IT

Is your internet connection 100.00% perfect?

Does every web site you go to respond 100.00% exactly per spec?

Is your windows pc perfect ?

Is your smartphone perfect?

How many trips on Vic line have you done ? daily commuter? If yes then you will know such hiccups are rare. if not,you won't know anyway.

It happens .
IT systems are garbage in = garbage out, once the train has lost where it is expect rubbish

I suppose we have to be thankful that the IT system isn't doing the driving.

Oh...!

[class411]

Aug 3, 2022 7:27:34 GMT brigham said:

I suppose we have to be thankful that the IT system isn't doing the driving.

Oh...!

Presumably the announcement system was not designed to be fail-safe.

Presumably the driving systems are.



Mod edit [Antharro]: Quote partially removed. Please be selective about the part of a post you wish to quote rather than the whole post verbatim, particularly if you are replying to the previous post in the thread. It's not always necessary to quote a post AND a post previously quoted within that post.

[Chris M]

This problem isn't unique to the 09 stock - quite a few years ago now I travelled from Birmingham to Liverpool on a Class 350 that announced (for the whole journey) that it was a Liverpool to Birmingham train. It always announced the current station correctly but the list of calling points was actually the list of stations we had already called at. At least one person missed the train (and thus presumably had an at least 30 minute wait for the next one) because of this.
From relating this anecdote I've learned that other people have experienced the same issue on other National Rail services too.

[taylor]

Aug 2, 2022 20:22:27 GMT d7666 said:

21st century IT

Is your internet connection 100.00% perfect?

Does every web site you go to respond 100.00% exactly per spec?

Is your windows pc perfect ?

Is your smartphone perfect?

How many trips on Vic line have you done ? daily commuter? If yes then you will know such hiccups are rare. if not,you won't know anyway.

It happens .
IT systems are garbage in = garbage out, once the train has lost where it is expect rubbish

While trying to keep it light with my ‘hokey-kokey’ comment, I didn’t mention that among the confused passengers my fellow traveller and I assisted, was a mother with push-chair, toddler and eight or nine-year-old attached, whom the mother, because of the Walthamstow announcement inside the train, insisted alight. “But it’s going to Brixton mum,” the older child shouted half-way out.



"windows PC perfect?" Come on! This is a safety matter. Wrong announcements of this type could contribute to an accident, and that’s why I alerted staff at Vic.



I too thought the 2009 Tube Stock and S-Stock families were technically closer. Thanks MoreToJack for the clarification

[davidnq2]

Aug 2, 2022 23:19:44 GMT MoreToJack said:

My understanding is the 09TS is still a relatively ‘old school’ train - the CIS isn’t directly linked with the train’s signalling destinations like, for instance, the (C|T)BTC lines, so if a driver doesn’t update the code - or puts the wrong one in - then this will occur. 

This situation - onboard displays and announcements indicating a 'wrong direction' destination, and 'next station' showing what would be the next station in that direction from the one the train is currently at or has just left (which is actually the previous station the train has already stopped at) - has certainly occurred from time to time on the Northern Line, and I am pretty sure this has still happened since the introduction of CBTC. 

[t697]

In this item the difference between 09TS and S stock is that the 09TS behaved as described but the S stock system realises the station IDs coming to it are not in the correct sequence for the trip that the T/Op has selected. It then decides it is 'off route' and gives up making announcements. So at least it can't continue making wrong announcements.
As I recall it for S stock there is a TCMS message to the T/Op that it's 'off route' and the T/Op could then reselect the trip and if the selected one is correct, all will become well again at the next stop.

[t697]

Aug 3, 2022 7:50:17 GMT class411 said:

Presumably the announcement system was not designed to be fail-safe.

Presumably the driving systems are.

Yes to both, which still seems sensible I think.

[brigham]

Aug 3, 2022 12:49:06 GMT t697 said:

Yes to both, which still seems sensible I think.

Nothing can possibly go wrong. ...go wrong. ...go wrong.

Mod edit [Antharro]: Quote partially removed. Please be selective about the part of a post you wish to quote rather than the whole post verbatim, particularly if you are replying to the previous post in the thread. It's not always necessary to quote a post AND a post previously quoted within that post.

[class411]

Aug 3, 2022 12:49:06 GMT t697 said:

Yes to both, which still seems sensible I think.

Quite.

Mod edit [Antharro]: Quote partially removed. Please be selective about the part of a post you wish to quote rather than the whole post verbatim, particularly if you are replying to the previous post in the thread. It's not always necessary to quote a post AND a post previously quoted within that post.

[cudsn15]

As a regular user of the line this has happened several times over the years when I have travelled on it. It always seems to happen on Southbound journeys.

The incredibly verbose system employed on the line thankfully has been getting short shrift from drivers recently...many of the longer announcements - particularly at the weekend detailing all the line closures - get cut off regardless at which point they get to when departing the platforms. We still get it drilled in several times over during the journey of course - including the ubiquitous "The London Overground is partially suspended" which is of no use to anyone seeing that the Victoria Line intersects with 6 branches of the Overground network!

At least it's working - the Piccadilly Line is clearly in advanced managed decline mode in anticipation of the new trains no doubt. Many of the trains in carriage announcements are un-intelligible if they are working at all and many of the dot matrix displays have given up as well. Along with many lights out in each carriage and externally filthy and decrepit they have become a very sorry sight on the network.