A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…
London Underground
Ofcom is investigating LBC presenter Steve Allen over a complaint that he told his listeners to “beat up” striking tube workers HuffPo
Tube workers slam RMT union for poor communication over the Night Tube strikes CityAM
Police probe footage of group of men chanting and ‘smoking’ on the Tube Evening Standard
London Underground completes Victoria line upgrade Global Rail News
Crossrail
Book tickets to visit Crossrail building sites IanVisits
A furious father of two disabled sons has hit out at Crossrail after discovering a new railway bridge built in Abbey Wood gives passers-by a direct view into his children’s bedrooms. News Shopper
The bit of Crossrail that is 3-times deeper than a tube train IanVisits
Video: Crossrail completed tunnels Rail Magazine
Mainline/Overground
A train company is advertising for a customer services apprentice to work for less than £3.80 per hour – about a third of the London living wage. Evening Standard
Network Rail have pocketed £4.4m over 12 months from passengers using toilets at Britain’s 13 biggest train stations Get Surrey
Camden theatre warns plays could be ruined by vacuuming should HS2 homes plan go ahead Ham & High
DLR
The Pensions Regulator has published details of the how trustees of the DLR scheme took their case to the courts to secure a £37m recovery plan. Professional Pensions
Miscellaneous
Defibrillator saved my life at London Bridge station South London Press
Weird workplaces: Working on a refurbished Tube train BBC News
Which Animals Can You Take On The Tube? Londonist
Escalators: do you stand still or walk? IOL
Catch a steam train from London to Paris IanVisits
Sadiq Khan: Slash £650,000 salary of next Transport for London chief Evening Standard
Hundreds help solve autistic son’s Tube question on Facebook TheWeek
And finally, probably the strangest railway junction you will ever see RailExpress
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The image above is from Sept 2014: Photos from the roof of Victoria Station
Hi Ian, Dud link on that railway junction one. It should be http://www.railexpress.com.au/is-this-australias-weirdest-railroad-crossing/
Wayne
Thanks – fixed.
South Eastern should be ashamed of their “Apprentice in Customer Services” idea. That doesn’t meet my definition of a job that needs a year long apprenticeship.
Apprenticeships are there to attain skills – carpentry, plumbing, other industrial work, and so on – that take a long time to learn. These skills are transferable and non-specific to the role.
Customer Services is something that is trainable in a short time, and often requires role-specific knowledge. Knowledge of South Eastern timetables is not a transferable skill. Some might argue it’s not even very useful when you work for South Eastern themselves…
36 trains per hour in the peaks on the Victoria Line. Why can we not have this on the Piccadilly Line?
It will happen — the intention to carry out an upgrade of the Picadilly line and order new trains has already been announced.
Yes. I know that there are plans for an overhaul of the Piccadilly Line with new rolling stock and signalling. However, I also know that this scheme has been delayed and that we won’t see the new trains until the mid 2020s.
It is very annoying to be stuck for what seems an eternity on a Piccadilly Line platform at Finsbury Park waiting for a train made up of clapped out 1973 stock to arrive, whilst on the opposite platform trains on the Victoria Line just come and go.
Still, can I ask that you keep up the excellent weekly transport summaries? They are very informative.
I travel the entire length of the Victoria Line most weeks, from Brixton to Walthamstow Central.
Between January and July this year, you had to queue for ten minutes or so to enter Brixton Station while the escalators were being refurbished. Then, when that was finished, there was all the disruption of last month. And now, just when I had hoped I could travel quickly and easily, they are refurbishing the escalators at Walthamstow Central, and passengers are expected to walk up the stairs in the morning peak, and down them in the evening, something I can’t do. So for the next six or seven months I have to go to Blackhorse Road or Tottenham Hale and get the very infrequent and unreliable 123 to complete my journey. Very unimpressed, especially as there was absolutely no warning about the escalator refurbishment at Walthamstow.
The solution to the privacy issue of those Abbey Wood parents is a set of net curtains. They may be old-fashioned, but are extremely effective in keeping onlookers from peeping into a room.
I am very surprised that Network Rail is garnering over £4m a year for the use of station lavatories, although I don’t know what the ‘toll’ is these days since the last time I used a station lavatory, it was 20p. Now I refuse to pay to ‘spend a penny’ and head for the department stores instead.