Tonight I travelled on a lesser-frequented part of the Underground network, joining the Outer Rail (or Clockwise to the layman) Circle line at Notting Hill Gate. Despite the S7 Stock trains having been in front line service on the Circle for a good couple of years now, the platform length issues in this area have escaped my recent attention.
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| Notting Hill Gate Inner Road (anti-clockwise). The end of the platform is the white barriers on the centre left of the photo, whilst the stop marking for the train is the green and yellow marking to the centre right! Quite a considerable amount of Circle line and District line (Wimbledon-Edgware Rd service) berths outside the platform. |
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| Notting Hill Gate station. Beautiful, love these cut & roof (rather than cut & cover) stations on the west side of the Circle. Camera phone does not handle light very well. |
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| On the Outer Rail the tail end of the train, the final two sets of doors, berths outside of the platform. As can be seen the doors of course remain closed. I assume the same end of the train is used in both directions so the internal stickers, see below, are only at one end. And I'm writing that trying desperately to think if an S7 could be turned so that the stickers could ever be at the wrong end, and I think that would only be possible is one ended up going round Watford North Curve (post script: this is a ridiculous statement, two minutes more thought and I realise it can easily happen around Cromwell Rd Jn swapping between District and C&H services) - and I think something would have gone seriously wrong for an S7 to end up there! |
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| View from inside the train berthed outside the platform. Move along! |
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| The rear two sets of doors (Outer Rail) - and therefore front two sets on the Inner Rail - have this notice about doors not opening at some stations - the same doors do not open at Bayswater and Paddington (District/Praed St) whilst the sign illuminates in stations. Talk about bespoke rolling stock! |
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| Heading to King's Cross the cross-platform interchange off the terminating Circle on to the through Circle was almost seamless. Here's a Hammersmith to Edgware Road train passing through Edgware Road for the first time on its trip. |
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| The S7 in my opinion parallels if not betters the finest metro style rolling stock in the world. Spacious. clean lines, big doors, walk-through, great customer information. Work trips with shorter ladies has established a lack of grab rails in some places but far worse exists on the fabled Far Eastern metros! |
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| At Baker Street all three sets of doors in the rear vehicle do not open (this will be the leading three in the opposite direction). Here's an 'arm-selfie' of what the customer sees through the door! |
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| As an extra set of doors is problematic just at Baker Street, there is a Baker Street-only sign on this set! There are also visual and audible announcements in this car about doors not opening. Doesn't stop people trying to get out though! |
And I had a quick look at some recent developments on the King's Cross St Pancras London Underground station.....
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| Memories of 2012: mass swathes of 'Olympink' have found their way on to the network for the Rugby World Cup. The final is this weekend though so expect to see it come down pretty soon. The Olympink has become the standard for ad-hoc event signage - it was also used for the Tour de France in 2014. |
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| However, genuine Olympics signage remains at two lifts (at least, that I saw) at King's Cross St Pancras - they have survived well for 3+ years. Let's hope they never go! |
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| The new London Underground retail and staffing model has seen many ticket offices close. The requirement for ticketing capacity at KXSP has seen large new suites of passenger-operated ticket machines installed - the foreground of this picture used to be a conventional ticket office. I also once spent a spectacularly dull shift assisting at this bank of ticket machines! |
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| The new retail and staffing model has seen 'Visitor Centre' spring up to replace some of the softer functions of the ticket offices. In bloody pink. Eurostar trains are still arriving at St Pancras International all of 200 yards from the Visitor Centre: this is the main entrance to the Underground for Eurostar passengers. It is all brightly lit up and welcoming but is it open? You can guess the answer to that...... |
Transport for London
unwittingly found itself in the press earlier this week, when it installed an automated foreign exchange machine in immediate proximity to the 7/7 Memorial at King's Cross St Pancras. The photos in the link show it does change the focus from the memorial to the exchange rates. Well, three days later it has gone. No idea where to.
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| And here is evidence of it's removal. The bags by the way were attended just I chose to not include the attendee in shot (and it was a +4 on to my Thameslink train home so I didn't hand around waiting for the bags' owners to move on). |
