Paging Paul Corfield (again)

Seven Sisters.

Fucking shambles.

Why's it take 10 months to overhaul an escalator? They managed to do
the (much longer) ones at St.Pauls in about 3-4 months.
Pah... mumble mumble... my taxes pay your wages...etc.etc.

 

darsy emerged from their own little world to say

I thought you wanted to lose a few kilos?

 

Paging Cane...

 

Yes and my taxes pay my wages - next question.

Well I think (it's not one of my stations) that they are actually fully
replacing both escalators and may even be replacing the central
staircase with an escalator. In such circumstances it will involve a lot
of major work to strip out the whole shaft and then reconstruct the
escalators. I agree it's a long time but if they did one at a time it
would take about 2 years.

The other big issue - and you won't like this I'm sure - is that all of
our escalators are made to unique standards and are all custom built for
the locations they are installed in. That is the legacy the Infracos
have inherited and they are trying to move to more standardised
products. Let's just say certain key individuals need a lot of
convincing about the robustness of standard shop style escalators when
installed in the LUL environment where the working hours and sheer scale
of use are much higher. The final issue is that there is a very limited
supplier market for lifts and escalators and those suppliers effectively
have LUL and the Infracos by the short and curlies over the scale and
cost of work. It's an appalling situation but there is very little that
can be done in the short term to improve matters.

 

Scrap them altogether and just have conventional stairs? Londoners need
the exercise.

'Hog

 

Is Southwark one of your stations? If so could you give platform
assistant Chrissie Beardsley a pat on the back? It's just she looked
after me awfully nicely after I made an impromptu decision to have a
bit of a lie down on the floor of a Jubilee line train when I was a bit
tom and dick last month.

The only disappointment was when I discovered that the reason my name
and address was taken wasn't to allow LU to send me a get well soon
card. What's that about then, tracking serial passers out (attention
seekers)?

 

Didn't they once try installing a spiral escalator at Holloway Road?

 

It is one of mine - along with the rest of the Jubilee, Northern and
Piccadilly Lines. I shall pass on your appreciation to the Line
General Manager when I see him next.

We have to record all incidents that occur on the railway so I am sure
your real name [1] is scribbled somewhere on a form and you are now a
statistic in our safety database.

[1] which I don't think I've ever been told.

 

Paul Corfield says...

Mr Abso Lutley
22 Definitive Road
Certainville

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Paul Corfield

You know those old vacuum tubes deparment stores used to have? Well, it
occurs to me, if you upscale them a bit...

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

Standard responses are:

"You don't earn enough"
"I was paid £40 short last week; care to make good?"

 

You could replace the trains? It was tried but failed because, amongst
other reasons, it smelt really awful.

 

I remember those in Simpsons in Piccadilly, in the 1970s. Of course,
supermarkets use them today.

Now, who else remembers those little overhead wire railways for carying
cash?

 

well, next August is when they reckon they'll finish this set, then
they reckon another 10 months for the escalators at the other end.
It's just a pisser that instead of being able to get a couple of
escalators from the tube to the overground, you know have to exit at
the Tottenham High Road exit, and walk down the A10 and up Seven
Sisters Road, and then back into the station. I don't have to do it
very often, but Angie has this twice a day.

well, that was forward thinking, wasn't it?

 

Only old people.

 

I don't think this is exactly what you're talking about, but the Co-op
in Beamish Museum has this amazing contraption going all round the shop,
involving 6" balls travelling on rails to transfer money to the cash
office and receipts back to the counter.

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

No, for carrying people from the platforms to the street. A one-way big
leather flap at the top to eject them at roof level while maintaining
vacuum. The passengers simply parachute to ground level using brollys.

Too many old gits in it.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

I agree it's a mess but when the Vic Line was built the specification
for the line included more capacity in stations and on the track than it
has now - the government cut it back believing that LT's forecasts would
never be met. The line now carries three times the highest estimate made
in the 1960s. More unbelievably it took almost 40 years to convince
government that the line was needed at all.

The simple fact is that the Tube network is going to be a building site
for the better part of the next ten years and that is before Ken comes
along to spend his extra £2bn from the prudential borrowing mechanism
authorised by the Chancellor. This isn't good news for Angie other than
she might have a better Tube system at the end of it.

No. However LT had a very long tradition of believing it knew best and
designing all its equipment itself. Up to a point that is all fine and
dandy provided that you then spend a fortune in maintaining it. However
in an era of cash cuts and little money for investment it becomes a
nightmare as standardised "off the shelf" products become much more
attractive. We are in the transition phase between old LT world and new
shining dynamic private sector world. There are plenty of our
engineers who would still like to be in "design mode" - including
designing lifts and escalators.

 

I have suggested she learned to ride a scooter, but since she doesn't
really know her left from her right, and has the balance of a 3-legged
giraffe, it's probably not the best idea.

Thanks for all the background info, BTW - it's appreciated.

 

What he said.