Riddle me this, passenger
I took a train yesterday for a day trip out of London. As an irregular user of the national railway network, I’m pleasantly surprised by the experience these days. The trains are new, quiet, and reasonably punctual. All they need to do to perfect things is to get rid of the rowdy alcoholics who always seem to share my carriage.
The particular train I caught was one of those strange affairs that splits in two. I don’t quite know what the point of this is—it’s complicated and increases the probability of hiccups—so I can only assume that it’s something to do with signalling efficiencies or needing fewer drivers. But if you’re going to do this, it’s important that passengers know which part of the train is going where.
I boarded one of these magical splitting trains, and paid close attention to ensure that I was on the correct half. The automated announcement on board said something like this:
This train consists of eight carriages. At A—, the train will split into two parts. The first four carriages will go to B—, while the rear four carriages will go to C—. This is carriage three of eight.
All the information was there, but presented in logic puzzle format! They could so easily have added:
This carriage will go to B—.
But that would be too straightforward, wouldn’t it? I’ve written to Southeastern to recommend this improvement. I wonder what they’ll say. It won’t surprise me if there’s some technical constraint: I wonder how flexible the announcement software is.
2009-03-03 16:40 UTC. Comments: 4.
Rob
Wrote at 2009-03-03 23:44 UTC using Firefox 3.0.6 on Windows Vista:
It’s even harder if you don’t speak the language. I’m thinking about a Top Gear episode in Japan where a train split separated May and Hammond in their race against the car.Let us know when you get an answer.
Rob
Paul Battley
Wrote at 2009-03-03 23:58 UTC using Firefox 3.0.6 on Linux:
Speaking of Japan, I was very confused when I first lived there. My Japanese wasn’t good at the time, and the announcements would tell you the next stop, and the stop after that. So, for example, if your train stopped at Osaka, Ibaraki, and Takatsuki, after leaving Osaka the announcement would say something like, ‘The next stop is Ibaraki. The stop after that is Takatsuki.’ I spent half the time panicking that I’d missed my stop.There’s also at least one line in Belgium that I took that leaves Brussels (bilingual), travels through Flanders (Dutch/Flemish), where it splits, and terminates in Wallonia (French). Due to the bitter acrimonies of Belgian language politics, the announcements are given only in the languages obtaining at the train’s current location. So a French speaker travelling between two French-speaking areas could very well end up on the wrong half if he doesn’t understand Dutch as well. (I managed OK, though, and I don’t have a lot of sympathy for any Belgian who doesn’t understand at least that much of his countrymen’s language!)
Ed
Wrote at 2009-03-04 00:47 UTC using Firefox 3.0.6 on Mac OS X:
The other information they’re telling you is useful though: – Knowing the carriage you’re in is useful, if you want to be in a particular one (e.g. you’re meeting someone on the train, or you want to be near the exit) – Knowing all the destinations for the train is useful too. If you get on in carriage 8 and want to go where carriages 1 – 4 are going, you’ll be worried if nobody tells you they’re going there, or which carriages are doing so. – Knowing where they’re going to split is obviously useful, as that always causes a fairly significant delay (10 minutes or so) while they let people off, warn everyone twice, lock the connecting doors, lock the train doors, separate the trains, unlock the doors, warn everyone again and then go…I travel from London to Brighton every day, and although the announcements can get annoying, lack of information is even more annoying!
I’ve seen it suggested that information is only shown on the displays, but apparently this can’t be done for people with disabilities.
South West Trains have ‘quite carriages’ where I believe they don’t make announcements (and encourage everyone else to shut up as well!)...
Colin
Wrote at 2009-03-04 15:46 UTC using Firefox 3.0.6 on Windows XP:
I believe “Carriage x of y” is generated locally, on the train. Most of the other data is generated centrally and broadcast to the trains (and stations). You sometimes end up with only “Carriage x of y” scrolling on the displays (and only guard/driver announcements) due to some failure of the data link.