bramling
Veteran Member
In the case of the Seltrac system, it’s very automated, such that it can probably be reasonably said that the signallers don’t actually signal trains. When they do intervene all they can realistically do is influence the system into behaving in certain ways. So for example the signaller might hold one train which ensures another one will be routed first. Or they might adjust the timings of a train so that the system routes it in preference to another.
With the system having been designed by software engineers in Canada with fairly minimal understanding of London Underground, one can see how this means the finished product leaves a lot to be desired in terms of how it handles and regulates train movements. This really shows up during disruption.
A lot of weekend issues are down to crewing. Firstly the duties are tighter, as they are designed on the basis of requiring as few drivers as possible to cover all the work that needs doing. Secondly there is always a tendency towards poorer availability of drivers at weekends, especially Saturdays. Partly old habits die hard in that traditionally weekdays were seen as more important (and to be honest should still be - it’s all very well people going on about leisure demand, however productive work is what ultimately sustains a healthy economy and society), but also most people simply don’t really want to work weekends, not helped by the duties being generally rougher as described above.
On top of that, generally schedules tend to be a bit tighter, and at the same time weekend passengers are more of a ball-ache in general as they take longer to get on and off, more likely to get stuck in closing doors, all try and get on through one set of doors, do silly things, et cetera. Plus sometimes exacerbated loadings if there’s engineering work on one line causing people to switch to another, and of course lopsided traffic due to events.
So yes things are always rougher at weekends.
