It's Blue Light For Go!

Much excitement exuded from London Underground last weekend. Being a good few miles from the Metropolis, your aged blogger visits less often that he would like. Last December, a state visit was planned to enjoy the brand new super-swish Elizabeth Line - but we all know what happened to that idea!

Enter an acronym! 4LM is translated at Four Lines Modernisation and those simple ciphers hide some massive investment in those four lines.

The four are ...

Circle

Hammersmith and City

District

Metropolitan

... i.e. what are known as the sub-surface lines. These have "normal" sized trains as opposed to squashed ones. Indeed, over that last few years, they have all been given posh new trains.

The grand plan is that all four lines will soon (?) have automatic trains.

This is London's version of "automatic" with a driver to close the doors and press the start button. The first line was the Victoria "tube" (first in the world, indeed), followed more recently by Jubilee and Central.

Of course, in Paris, Metro lines are being converted to fully automatic operation with no staff on the train. It started with new line 14 and was followed by the conversion of line 1.

So, how much of the vast four lines network went automatic last weekend.

Ahem! From Latimer Road to Hammersmith.

Well it's a start! Testing has been going on further eastwards with a view to extending ATO to Baker Street in May.

Those who enjoy peering out of the window on the above-ground bits of the sub-surface lines will notice old signals cosily wrapped in black plastic bags.

Along the track are "balises" - French for buoy - which send and receive WiFi signals to control the trains.

The blue signal (picture at the head of this post) tells the driver that he is entering the ATO (automatic train operation) area and that he/she will not see any signal aspects alongside the track. The signals are still there and ready to unwrap if it all goes balise-up.

The driver does, of course, receive "signals" in his cab, even though he should never need them.

The trains, of course, have loads of extra technological twiddly stuff, plus extra screens.

Lets hope Thales ...

Thales Group is a French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets. Its headquarters are in La Défense (the business district of Paris), and its stock is listed on the Euronext Paris. 

The company changed its name to Thales (from the Greek philosopher Thales, pronounced [talɛs] reflecting its pronunciation in French) from Thomson-CSF in December 2000 shortly after the acquisition of Racal Electronics plc, a UK defence electronics group. It is partially state-owned by the French government, 

... who have put the jigsaw together ...

... have got it right!

There is also an "X" sign when ATO ends ...

... this one at the Hammersmith sidings.

There have been some slightly tear-jerking tweets from "charley jessica" ...

... who was on duty as the last conventionally signalled train arrived late on Saturday night.

There is a new "signal box" at Hammersmith ...

... whoops-a-daisy, wrong Hammersmith**.

Ah, that's better!

At first glance, it seems rather large for six stations! ...

... even a tad over-the-top for the whole of the Hammersmith and City line (the PINK one). In fact it will, eventually, control the whole of the four sub-surface lines, from such celebrated places as Amersham, Upminster, Ealing, Wimbledon, Richmond and Kensington Olympia as well as the non circling circle line.

After a pause for commissioning the first automatic train from Hammersmith was the 1406 on Sunday 17th ...

... and charley jessica left a telling note in the station diary.

The big question! Will London's Underground ever become fully automatic?

Boris, in his short tenure as London Mayor, announced so - and fbb duly reported his prognostication in his 500th blog in April 2012 (oh so long ago).

It makes interesting reading (here)

That "other" Hammersmith is on the Midland Railway at Butterley in Derbyshire ...

... where a station and signal box were added by the heritage Midland Railway on a site that historically had neither!

 More assorted news (?) blog : Saturday 23rd March