Who Ya Gonna Call? The sign writers who do the work for the New York subway, that’s who … as part of the promotion for the new Ghostbusters movie that’s on at the moment, the concourse at Waterloo station has been given over to many promotional materials, one of which is a New York Subway ticket booth, complete with a sign giving the actual information for the tube at Waterloo, but just down in New York Subway style, and it’s wonderful…
For three months over summer, the footbridge at Epping station is closed whilst it’s being repaired. This means a change of what you’d normally have to do at Epping station to get to and from trains.
Platform 2 is the one on the west side of the station, and there’s a footbridge over to Platform 1. With that closed, they’ve now opened up the side entrance all the time to allow people to enter or exit that way, and use the second footbridge (handy that it’s there!) that is not part of the station.
This could mean you arrive at Epping, enter the station, and then have to leave again and walk round when you find the next train is from platform 1, and not 2. And if you’re arriving on Platform 1, you have to exit the station by the side entrance, and then walk over the public footbridge – not the one inside the station – to exit. Things should be back to normal by September,
Are the lifts at the new Tottenham Court Road almost ready? It would seem to be that way, as a brand new wide barrier gate has been installed and is on view in the ticketing area at the station, to allow access down to what we think is the Northern line platforms.
We haven’t worked out yet where the lift is down to the Central line. There’s also (obviously) another lift still currently behind blue hoardings next to escalators to take you from street level down to the ticketing area. Looks like it could open soon though, and the Tube will get another step-free station added to its list.
Wide gate by the new lift
The Gospel Oak to Barking (GOBLIN) Overground line is about to have some major work done to it so that instead of it being diesel, it will be an electric line, and then longer electric trains will run on the branch.
In order for this work to happen though, there is a staggered closure taking place, and we don’t think the way that the publicity has been done is here is very clear. It focuses on what is closed rather than what is open, meaning that your brain has to stop and think harder to work out the reverse of what they’ve told you (what’s not working) for you then to realise what is working.
Here’s what the TfL page shows you:
GOBLIN Closure
See how quickly you can work from that what is open, and not closed!
Similarly confusing signs appear at stations along the line itself, as well as on the new June 2016 Tube Map which is about to come out where the dreaded ‘daggers’ make an appearance and you have to refer to the key to try and figure out what it means.
Instead, we’ve come up with our own simple graphic showing what is open which we think is much easier to understand at a glance.
Any chance TfL, of doing something like this in future?
Easier to Understand
Just in time for the line to be … closed for several months whilst it’s electrified, step-free access has come to South Tottenham station on the Overground with the addition of two new lifts.
The ticketing area has been improved too with a new gate line, ticket machines, a bike rack and even a nice garden is being built. But as from June of this year, trains will only run to Gospel Oak, and then from September the whole line will be shut whilst it is converted so that longer electric trains can run upon it, and not the two-car diesel ones that are there at the moment.
Updated 3D map to follow!
Lifts at South Tottenham
Love this photo we were kindly given permission to use from a reader who recently, when on holiday to Mexico City, took several snaps of their metro system, including this one at Insurgentes station. Except you’d never know it because it’s been made to look like a Tube station! For some reason (the brickwork, we think) it really reminds us of Bayswater on the Underground.
Insurgents Station
Admittedly, we haven’t got out at East Putney for a while – after all, we pass through a lot of stations around the network, but it’s only when we get out of them that we always take the time to check and look if anything has changed to that station so we can update Station Master’s information. We like to think that it’s an-always-evolving App that keeps up to date with things as they subtlety change.
One such subtle change that we did notice here was this sticker – an arrow pointing to the left – covering up the fact that you could possibly get an eastbound train departing from platform 2 as well, that started here in the terminating platform.
We don’t know when it changed, but it seems that those days have gone and all trains are now through trains that started at Wimbledon, and you can no longer get a train that now starts from here.
Platform 2
Tram Master
After several months of visiting all the Tram stops in and around Croydon, and drawing 3D maps of them all … our new app, Tram Master is out!
We’ve drawn 3D maps of all the tram stops on the network, so you can see at a glance the layout of the station, which end of the tram stop the exit is, along with where the steps, ramps and lifts are, showing you how accessible all 39 tram stops are.
Download Tram Master on the App Store today! We’ve discounted it by 25% for a limited time only after the launch!
Have you seen these anywhere? They’re slowly making an appearance all over the network – static ‘Stand on the right‘ signs on escalators are now being replaced with lit up versions which can say different things such as ‘Step off the escalator‘ as here when you’re reaching the end.
We’re not sure if they’re going to appear at all Tube stations (this photo was taken at Piccadilly Circus), or just selected ones in the busy central areas, but yet again, it’s just adding to the information pollution that we are now hit with when entering the Underground…!
Lit up sign
We spotted this on the Pinner Twitter account that talks about all things Pinner! No Metropolitan line trains to run beyond Wembley Park to Aldgate after 10pm on Mondays to Wednesday only (that’s very specific!) whilst track work takes place. And this goes on for a year and a half…
