
London Underground to retire ageing 92-year-old signal box - twic
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2019-05-21/london-underground-to-retire-ageing-92-year-old-signal-box/
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underyx
I recently moved to London and I noticed that every other day there's an
incident with 'signalling system failure' cited as a reason. What could be the
reason for that? Are these systems inherently prone to fail frequently?

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Theodores
There is a commonly heard 'waiting for the signal' if the train is held up,
e.g. before a station. You can conflate that into thinking the signalling is
the problem when it can be just doing its job. For example if the police have
been called to a train and it is held in the station then the signal on the
line will stay red and trains will be held up by the signal. 'Just waiting for
the signal' is easy on the ears compared to 'the police have been called along
with a team of paramedics to deal with a group of drunken crack-heads on the
train currently at the station'.

It is the same with 'signalling system failure', there can be good reasons why
it has 'failed'. If someone has stolen the wiring or some rodents chewed
through the insulation then has it 'failed'? If a train is in the wrong place
for some reason then that still means a 'signalling system failure'. Even if
this cause has been determined then passengers don't need to know the full
details.

There are other euphemisms used for when someone ends their life on the rails,
normally you get told that the transport police are attending the scene.

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MagnumOpus
> There are other euphemisms used for when someone ends their life on the
> rails

TfL is rather blunt about this - these get reported as delays "due to a person
under a train", or "person on the track" if the train didn't hit them.

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bmsleight_
Story is a few months old. The new signals are running :)

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whenchamenia
So moving from human plus mechanical safety to digital. What could go wrong?
Note to self: revisit this.

