Potential Automation

[Deleted]

It just struck me. The W&C line, being a little self contained shuttle, would be an excellent testbed for Underground automation. The line can run as normal and testing can be done on Sundays.

So, using CBTC based automation, the trains can run back and forth without fuss.

Any comments/rants/abuse?

[Deleted]

The Thales Seltrac systems going into the Jubilee, Northern & Piccadilly already have their own test track at Highgate. However, I could see the potential for it being used to test the Westinghouse TBS system going onto the other lines, particularly as it has long engineering hours. Given that the W&C Line has just had it's signalling updated, and the W&C Line gives manual driving experience to Central Line drivers, I think it will be highly unlikely to be automated for some time.

[Deleted]

stephenk said:

The Thales Seltrac systems going into the Jubilee, Northern & Piccadilly already have their own test track at Highgate. However, I could see the potential for it being used to test the Westinghouse TBS system going onto the other lines, particularly as it has long engineering hours. Given that the W&C Line has just had it's signalling updated, and the W&C Line gives manual driving experience to Central Line drivers, I think it will be highly unlikely to be automated for some time.

Its more likely they'd use Old Dalby to test an ATO system but it all comes down to money. Highgate would mean paying Tubeline's for its use. And Metronet's situation means its unlikely to want to spend extra on something thats not really needed. The W&C bit too simple to need ATO really and as you said its a good way to get drivers to have regular practice on manual. Does seem like W&C was a quick fix to say look we've done one line and this is what you can expect!

[cetacean]

Is the W&C excluded from the plan* to make all lines ATO by some year or other?

(* rumoured on the internet, so it must be true)

[Deleted]

waste of money?

[suncloud]

It would be interesting to see if they ever put ATO on the W&C whether or not they'd put it into the depot or not for reversing...

[Deleted]

I do not mean ATO, I mean driverless automated.

[Deleted]

axewielder said:

I do not mean ATO, I mean driverless automated.

Due to the lack of emergency walkways beside the tracks on old tube lines, then the prospect of going driverless is highly unlikely.

[railtechnician]

stephenk said:

axewielder said:

I do not mean ATO, I mean driverless automated.

Due to the lack of emergency walkways beside the tracks on old tube lines, then the prospect of going driverless is highly unlikely.

I don't see why emergency walkways make any difference whatsoever really. The bottom line will always be that any evacuation of trains will be at the direction and under the control of staff so the current method of walking passengers down the tunnel should be good good enough.

As for driverless trains the Vic line could have gone that way when it was built but the public at large was not ready for that and indeed for PR purposes I'm sure that LU still believes that drivers are necessary even if they are more trainminder than traindriver!

In hindsight I think we can all see that a driverless Vic train back in the 1960s would have been perhaps a step too far and so the powers that be at the time were probably forward thinking in more ways than one!

At the end of the day someone needs to be the 'can carrying' target!

Brian

[JR 15secs]

There was a plan some years ago to use the W&C as a test bed for driverless trains they was going to install a X over just before Waterloo which would have got round the need to reverse via the sidings. I dont think it would happen now days though.

[Deleted]

relaydel said:

There was a plan some years ago to use the W&C as a test bed for driverless trains they was going to install a X over just before Waterloo which would have got round the need to reverse via the sidings. I dont think it would happen now days though.

I'm interested to know how "official" this information was.

It would be almost impossible to install a crossover at the entrance to Waterloo due to the sharp curves and steep grades. To install a crossover would involve having to move the platforms further towards the depot, effectively making the depot too small. It would also require the building of a new supporting structure above the crossover. The side platforms would cause an operational issue, and building a central platform with associated infrastructure would add to the expense considerably.

The Bank terminus is more of a limit on capacity than the Waterloo terminus anyway.

[Deleted]

How about loops?

[Deleted]

axewielder said:

How about loops?

It would be very difficult and very expensive to build loops at either end of the line. For a line which is only highly patronised during the peaks, it is not cost effective carrying out much more than the present capacity enhancement project (17tph increased to 23tph).

[ongarparknride]

Some naive thoughts re: increasing peak time line capacity.

Treat the two running lines as single lines lines with one engine in steam. Lock the points with a master key. The two trains operate as shuttles with driver "step-back" at each terminus reducing station occupancy times.

Run this during peak demand, then revert back to present operation once the peak ends.

Cost: A bit of signaling and new interlocking for the separation of the running lines; Rearrangement of passenger traffic and signs at Waterloo where they are used to just going to one platform; and marginal extra staffing for the "step-back".

Guess I'm not the first bloke to have suggested this solution though.....

Cheers.

[ongarparknride]

Watson374, Hiya re: your OP.

With respect I think the Woodford-Hainault branch of the Central Line beat your suggestion by about 30 years....


Cheers.

[Deleted]

ongarparknride said:

Some naive thoughts re: increasing peak time line capacity.

Treat the two running lines as single lines lines with one engine in steam. Lock the points with a master key. The two trains operate as shuttles with driver "step-back" at each terminus reducing station occupancy times.

Run this during peak demand, then revert back to present operation once the peak ends.

That would actually operate at a far lower capacity than at present. So, yes, a very naive thought!

[smith]

Haven't been around lately, so I missed this.

The 42nd st. shuttle (S) in the NYC Subway works like this, albeit triple-tracked. It's about a two-minute run end-to-end, and they have two drivers per train (one each way). In the peaks, they run flat out and are packed: not sure how many tph they can pull off.

However, the W&C is much too long to pull this off, I think, though you could likely gain some performance enhancement by using a driver at each end with suitable control protocols.

I didn't think I'd ever say that the W&C was too long, by the way.

[Deleted]

Interesting about the triple-tracked shuttle. I imagine that with dwell of 30 seconds at each end they could do a round trip in about 5 minutes, so potentially 36tph using the three trains?

Incidentally, how is the platform layout at each end - in other words, how do they route the passengers to the appropriate train?

[smith]

They mostly don't, near as I can tell: the 'track 1 shuttle' is noticeably more crowded than the other two going from Times sq. to Grand Central because it's the first one you come to, while coming the other way they're about even.

The platform layout at Times Sq. is something like

| tunnel    |  
|           ---------------- 
|                          |
|    -----------------------
|   |  track 1 
|   ------------------------
|                           |
|   ------------------------
|   |  track 3
|   |  track 4
|   -------------------------
|                           |
----------------------------- 

Where "tunnel" is the passageway to the rest of the station. The island platform is built over where the former track two was, and has a wrought iron fence separating it from track one. This was originally a local stop on what is now the 7 train, and this was rapidly realized to be a dumb idea. The 7 now runs about 20 or 30 feet lower and has a proper four-track station with two islands (the standard NYC layout).

In order to get the extra platform in for the shuttle, they just put it in over top track 2.

References indicate that it's officially 0.8 mi end-to-end, with a running time of 1 minute. Dwell is longer than you probably think: remember, this train is full both ways and everybody has to get off at the other stop. They claim 'service every 2-3 minutes' on their website, but no exact figure seems to be available.

[amershamsi]

smith said:

Where "tunnel" is the passageway to the rest of the station. The island platform is built over where the former track two was, and has a wrought iron fence separating it from track one. This was originally a local stop on what is now the 7 train, and this was rapidly realized to be a dumb idea. The 7 now runs about 20 or 30 feet lower and has a proper four-track station with two islands (the standard NYC layout).

there's lots wrong with that.
1)the 42nd Shuttle was never part of the 7
2)the 7 doesn't have an express in Manhattan (and only a one way express in Queens) - at most it's 3 tracks
3)even though it's the terminus Times Square on the 7 is an island with two tracks - link
4)the 'new' 7 has an intermediate station at 5th Av - one more stop than the shuttle.

As you can see from the link, the Shuttle links with both the 7th Avenue line (in red and running under Broadway) to the north at Times Square, and to the Lex Av line (in Green) to the south in Grand Central - this is due to the IRT originally running up Lex Av from Downtown, doglegging via what is now the shuttle, and then going up Broadway to Uptown. This then got converted into an H shape, with the Shuttle linking the two IRT N-S lines, which was then joined by the 7.

[smith]

Oh, whoops.

The sometimes confusing terminology of the NYC subway system tripped me up. What is now the shuttle was part of the IRT Main Line, some of the oldest subway in Manhattan, until 1918: the shuttle has operated on the track since then. At the time, it linked the East Side and West Side tracks, though I'm not sure of the service pattern. All the tracks still laid down for the shuttle connect to the rest of the system, but not to each other.

For the record, I'm not a New Yorker: I'm currently at uni, but "home" is Toronto.

[Alight]

Ive always fancied it to run as the transits do at Stansted personally. Now wouldn't that be fun.

[engineersareus]

It is now over 40 years since the testing started on the Hainault Woodford loop - not sure of the exact date but it was about 1964.

This was after the tests on the District Line between Northfields & Acton Town on the test road and also some trials at I believe Stanford Brook where an R Stock was fitted with ATO but not ATP. The equipment was fitted in the part of the saloon between the first pair of doors and the cab allowing engineers to watch what was happening and the train to carry passengers !

[Deleted]

When the line was resignalled just before lul took over track circuits where installed to provide ato working (the same as the central line ) but these where never used and the track circuits where linked up to fit into conventional signalling and the track circuits are still there on the diagram it could (if they where used) double the amount of traffic.

Personally i beleave ATO should be introduced it could the peak to 2 tpm than the 2.5 tpm now.

Just before labour came into power in the 90s there was a NOPO project on the waterloo and city but it was scraped the trains would be driverless and the tunnel and track would have been upgraded a pathway would have been built inside the track and emergency automatic doors on each end off the trains .

[Tom]

Nov 11, 2007 4:23:45 GMT ongarparknride said:

Some naive thoughts re: increasing peak time line capacity.

Treat the two running lines as single lines lines with one engine in steam. Lock the points with a master key. The two trains operate as shuttles with driver "step-back" at each terminus reducing station occupancy times.

Wouldn't work - you need a four train service (minimum) in the peak to cope with the demand.

[Deleted]

There is a 5 train peak now

[singaporesam]

Oct 20, 2007 10:54:13 GMT railtechnician said:

stephenk said:

Due to the lack of emergency walkways beside the tracks on old tube lines, then the prospect of going driverless is highly unlikely.

I don't see why emergency walkways make any difference whatsoever really. The bottom line will always be that any evacuation of trains will be at the direction and under the control of staff so the current method of walking passengers down the tunnel should be good good enough.

As for driverless trains the Vic line could have gone that way when it was built but the public at large was not ready for that and indeed for PR purposes I'm sure that LU still believes that drivers are necessary even if they are more trainminder than traindriver!

In hindsight I think we can all see that a driverless Vic train back in the 1960s would have been perhaps a step too far and so the powers that be at the time were probably forward thinking in more ways than one!

At the end of the day someone needs to be the 'can carrying' target!

Brian

In Singapore we have driverless heavy rail operation on NEL , with further lines to follow.

The emergency walkway is not the primary route for evacuation, the end detrainment door and the track are. The Emergency walkway is to allow staff to access a stalled train without the need to remove the power, its use in a UTO system is debatable, I don´t think that it´s mandated by the IEC standard as a necessity for UTO.

On NEL there are staff on all trains in the peak , but this goes down to one in three trains off peak

UTO is definately possible for W&C .