Wartime London on Google Earth

I spend far too much time in Google Earth. I look at where I've been and where I'd like to go. I look at where I grew up and where I live now. I follow roads, rivers, canals and railway lines. I even collate libraries of placemarks of great places I visited abroad, and send them to friends who ask me for recommendations of where to stay/eat/drink/party/relax in those far flung places.

My name is Another London Blogger, and I'm a Googleearthaholic.

One thing Google introduced in one of the last updates was the ability to go back in time, imagery wise you'll understand. This was moderately cool, for example I could go back from 2008 to 2003 for the imagery of where I grew up, and see how much of the local wood has been chopped down, how many acres of hop gardens we've lost recently. Yes, it was quite depressing, but interesting nonetheless.

Now though, there is a far better option available to us for historical viewing. In London, you can rewind the clock to 1945. Not satellite imagery of course but pictures from an end-of-the-war aerial photographic survey. This is fascinating. It is brilliant, and it's already cost me several hours. For all those buildings you suspected were built in the place of bomb sites, you can now see the actual bomb crater.

Less morbidly, you can see the dying days of our city's industrial past - the docklands that were such a German bomb-magnet are, in these pictures, actual docklands, not a glass-and-steel agglomeration of shagpads and highrise office blocks called "Docklands". And what's that in White City, where the BBC is now? It's the Olympic Stadium! The actual Olympic Stadium, from the 1908 Summer Games. We see parks still "under the plough" as giant Dig For Victory allotments along with now-vanished infrastructure such as Holborn Viaduct station and myriad gasometers.

The pictures take a little getting used to, but perseverence here really pays off. Generally, white space is a bomb site, though there also clouds across some of the areas! Have a go!

Phony Figures?

An interesting piece from BBC London news has appeared in the Video and Audio section of the BBC News website today.

If you don't have time to watch the video, it basically makes the point that TfL's official performance figures do not include the time lost to upgrade work. This means that while in reality the Jubilee line has only run something like 78% of the trains it should have run were it not closed most weekends, the TfL performance figure says that he Jubilee line ran 95% of services.

There is a short piece in the film by Tony Travers of LSE who is an impressive academic on the subject of local government - I used his publications with frightening regularity for my own MA. He makes the point that London Underground sees things from its own point of view, which is that the railway is an engineering concern, and neglects to think of how the passengers are affected by all this work.

If Tony can find any organisation in the world that doesn't see things from its own particular point of view, I'll give him a hat. In some ways he is right of course, engineering concerns hold a great deal of sway in LU, but there are a couple reasons why I think this criticism of those performance figures is unfair.

The main reason is that TfL is not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes here. The performance figures are actually called the Scheduled Train Kilometers. Clearly, this only covers the scheduled services. So, if something unplanned happens to close down the railway and wrecks a normal day, like one of the failed trains we're hearing so much of on the Jubilee, this negatively affects that measure. But the engineering works, which are planned in advance, do not affect the figures because the number of km run is scheduled to be lower or sometimes of course, zero.

As a sub-element to this, TfL also publishes the figures covering the amount of disruption the upgrades closures cause and supply these raw data to organisations like London First, who then monetise it and tell everyone how much in pounds sterling the closures cost, so it's not as if TfL say "look everyone, the Jubilee line is so fantastic that 95% of all trains run, we're amazing and the line is never closed".

Finally though, this is an internal performance measure. One of many, believe you me. If you thought the NHS and education were excessively target driven, you should try working at London Underground. It makes sense to measure the number of scheduled kms you run because it shows how effective you are at running the day-to-day services. If the figure is low, it shows that at the first sign of trouble the trains management teams start to cancel and turn trains short rather than try to fix the problem, and that kind of inept incident management is something that needs to be flagged up and fixed. It also makes sense to measure how much disruption you cause due to engineering works, and we do that too. All of this data is then collated and our performance is measured on that as a whole. The statistics for how badly the upgrades have been managed are out there and certainly should be discussed, but the Scheduled Train km measure is for something entirely different.

Picking one statistic out of the bunch and using it for something that it is explicitly not designed to be used for is one of the oldest tricks in the journalistic book. It's what I'd expect from local media, but it's a shame someone like Tony Travers was foolish enough or that eager for facetime on TV to appear on the piece.

Finally though, the upgrades need to happen. Sorry to harp on about it, but it's true. Even the slash and burn Coalition Government have looked at the business cases for the upgrades and at the audit reports of TfL and London Underground and guaranteed that every penny for the upgrades will be protected. How many public bodies can say that?

Guerrilla Marketing

There is barely a single surface on the Underground that is not smothered in advertising. From the giant posters looking at you from across the track in the deep Tube stations to the little cardboard rectangles above your seat via the ripped off promotional front cover of this evening's Standard, nowhere on the system is safe from people trying to sell us stuff. And why not? After all, over half the world's population travels on the Tube every year. (Of course, that's nonsense. First of all, it's not individuals, it's journeys. Secondly, it's not just the Tube, it's all TfL modes of transport. But hey, it made a good headline)

It's not just advertising for products that makes it to these hallowed advertising spots though you know. Sometimes people are trying to change our opinions rather than change our spending habits. Nor is it just paid for ads that end up in your eye line. Oh no.

It started with the odd sticker, aping London Underground's style of notice with messages such as "No talking during rush hour". Now though, someone has gone to a new level. Two drivers told me on Tuesday that they had seen some above-seat advertising that, at first, they had just walked past. Then they noticed swear words, and realised that something was not as it seemed!

It turns out that some trains on our line have had the above-seat advertising changed to a leftie rant about the Coalition government. This was no half-arsed effort either, entire cars have had all their advertising slots changed to this message! I love the fact that someone has gone to the effort of measuring the adverts and making their own version, then changing them when no-one's looking.

When do they do it? At the dead of night? Or, is it one of our drivers? They don't have much time in sidings all alone, but occasionally they have just enough to change a whole car. I haven't seen this yet, though I haven't been looking that hard yet. If anyone sees one of these ranty adverts, take a picture and let me know!

Damned If We Do...

Diamond Geezer has just completed a three-part adventure around London using all of the Rail Replacement Bus services which were forced upon (largely unsuspecting) Londoners over the weekend just gone. As usual for DG they were well written, interesting posts. As is occasionally the case with DG, it struck me as a masochistic thing to do, and definitely more in the interests of London in general than for him in particular I’m sure.

I don’t want to get in to the issue of RRBs because DG has just done it eloquently enough and I don’t disagree with anything that he’s written – they should be far better. What does interest me is the attitudes of people in general towards those dreaded words – the “TfL Investment Programme” or, as it is now referred to in the station PA scripts, “closures as part of our programme to upgrade the Tube”.

There are three scenarios for engineering works. No-one seems to like any of them.

Don’t Do It
In a return to the policies of the 1980s and 1990s, the Tube is not upgraded at all. Assets deteriorate and fail, because they were not designed to be patched up forever, they were designed to have a useful life of about forty years. Every day is like those awful four weeks in October/November 2010, when everything seemed to be buggered all the time. Unlike autumn 2010 though, it doesn’t make headline news, because it is the norm.

Londoners, the papers, business owners and politicians all bitch that the Tube is shit, and will never get better. They’re probably right.

2) Weekend Closures
Money is found from somewhere (PPP, sigh), and the upgrades begin. Three to four hours a night is not enough for major engineering works, so the line has to be shut for a proper period of time.

Every weekend for months, and in some cases years, part of the line is closed.

With the line closed for 50 hours, the engineers and labourers move in. Two hours are wasted setting everything up at the beginning. Two hours are wasted dismantling everything at the end. For working overnight, some of them are paid extra. For working at the weekend, some of them are paid extra. For working overnight at the weekend, some of them are paid extra. Although some ordering in bulk is possible, it’s not possible to buy everything the work will require over the whole year because warehouse space for that much stuff for that length of time is just too expensive. Economies of scale are lost.

With the line closed for 50 hours, people who have been working all week now can’t leave the house to go and play. Gigs are missed. Pub gatherings are postponed to a weekend when the Tube’s working. Those who do venture out end up spending ages trying to work out which bus to get, and even longer on the damned thing. Businesses along the line are hard hit on every weekend of the year.

It’s annoying, definitely, but gradually things get better. Journeys take less time. Fewer failures occur. The line steadily becomes more reliable, and travelling on it is less hit-and-miss, less stressful.

Unfortunately, sometimes multiple lines in the same area have to be closed. This is done as a last resort, not as a decision taken at 4.55pm by that week’s work experience kid, but people in the afflicted area naturally decide it is malice, incompetence, or malicious incompetence.

Londoners, the papers, business owners and politicians all bitch that the Tube is shit, and will never get better. They’re wrong, though it requires about 20 years of weekend closures until this can be proved to them.

3) Blockades
Money is found from somewhere (PPP, sigh), and the upgrades begin. Three to four hours a night is not enough for major engineering works, so the line has to be shut for a proper period of time.

For four solid weeks, part of the line, or even the whole thing, is closed.

With the line closed for four weeks, the engineers and labourers move in. Two hours are wasted setting everything up at the beginning. Two hours are wasted dismantling everything at the end. For working overnight, some of them are paid extra. For working at the weekend, some of them are paid extra. For working overnight at the weekend, some of them are paid extra.

Actually though, most of them are paid the normal amount. Most of them work 8-6, Monday to Friday. Everything for the closure is bought at the same time, saving considerable outlay. Instead of being planned as 50 50-hour chunks, the work can be properly project managed as a four week intervention, saving considerable outlay.

With the line closed for four weeks, people who live along it need to make other arrangements, not only for play, but for work. The first few days are awful, but after that everyone has worked out the quickest ways of getting around and travelling to work by bus becomes routine. A few people take to their bikes for the first time. Businesses along the line are hard hit for four weeks.

It’s annoying, definitely, but things quickly get better. Journeys take less time. Fewer failures occur. The line quite rapidly becomes more reliable, and travelling on it is less hit-and-miss, less stressful.

Unfortunately, the line being closed for so long obviously has annoying effects. It is short term pain for long term gain, but people in the afflicted area are pretty sure that those morons at LU don’t understand how important the Tube is to everyone living there.

Londoners, the papers, business owners and politicians all bitch that the Tube is shit, and will never get better. They’re wrong, and actually it doesn’t take that long to prove it to them.

Since Scenario Four doesn’t exist (it’s the year 2000, and Mayor Livingston clicks his fingers. Magically, all the Tube lines are upgraded overnight. Hooray!), one of the three listed above will happen instead. Where I live, all three have happened actually. Ten years ago, the local paper and the local MP liked to get readers/votes by decrying the awful performance of LU. They were right, and they were adamant that Something Must Be Done. Two years ago, the local paper and the local MP liked to get readers/votes by decrying the awful weekend closures. The closures weren’t even that frequent, and they were only necessary because of the past awful performance of LU which the paper and MP rightly attacked. But they were something to bitch about, and were happily seized upon. Last year, the local paper and the local MP liked to get readers/votes by decrying the awful three-week blockade.

You get the picture by now, surely?

One Under

It was only a matter of time I suppose. Some people manage to go a career in London Underground without dealing with a person under a train, which we rather callously term a “one under”, but in my job it was a matter of when, not if, I would have to deal with my first one.

I was on the phone to the controller talking about run of the mill stuff when, in the background, I heard a train mayday call come in on the controller’s radio system. All LU trains have a unique radio in the cab, and one press on the radio’s mayday button will send a priority call to the controller which sets off a very distinctive alarm in the control room. As soon as we heard it, the controller hung up on me and went to answer the call. Of course every call is treated as though it will be real, which is why the controller hung up on me to take it, but I wasn’t too fussed as most maydays are in fact false alarms related to the “deadman” switch which is intended to detect if a driver keels over while at the controls but which normally ends up alerting us that they have left the cab without shutting the train down.

Two minutes later the telephone started to ring and, on seeing that it was the controller, I knew what was going to be said when I picked up. I felt the bitter taste of adrenaline in my mouth as soon as I heard those words – “mate, we have a one under down at xx”. Once the phone was back on the hook and I had the details noted down, I had to take 30 seconds to think through my next actions. I tried to think of this as just another incident, but it was difficult to get over the fact that this was going to be my first one under. What was I about to see? What would be going on when I got there?

I gathered my stuff together and asked the manager in charge of train crew to get me a spare driver. The spare and I jumped in the car and raced down to the scene of the incident, about a 15 minute drive away. Everything was much calmer than I had expected. The station and train had already been evacuated by the staff there and all three emergency services were already on site. Traction current was off and the poor driver already had a drink in his hand and was being looked after and questioned by a very understanding police officer.

Checking on the driver was my first priority. Seeing that he was in good hands, I moved down to where the train had come to a halt, just one car in to the station. Paramedics were with the girl, while the police and fire brigade stood around chatting in low tones, waiting for their bit to begin. I updated my service manager and called the Network Operations Centre to find out where the Emergency Response Unit were. The ERU are our emergency service and they are the experts in dealing with many things, including people under trains. They can get people out from underneath trains, they can split trains down and even jack them up as if they were simply changing the tire on a family car. It turned out that my job was simply to co-ordinate the efforts of everyone on site, along with the usual pressure of trying to get things up and running again as soon as possible.

The paramedics pronounced the girl dead and left very quickly once that was done. Now things swung in to action. We couldn’t yet move the train as ERU were still about five minutes away, but the police began to check the CCTV and make enquiries in the area to try to rule out the involvement of anyone else. This became my focus too – I needed to do anything I could to convince the police asap that this was suicide and not a crime. If the police declare a crime scene then we can kiss goodbye to the service for the rest of the day, the station and the train will be locked down, preventing us from running anything in that area. I got the police access to the CCTV playback suite as quickly as I could, and took them through the footage over and over again. It was not nice to watch once, let alone that number of times.

ERU turned up and, with the fire brigade, managed to get the body out and the train moved. Meanwhile the police gave the all clear and we started to get things back up and running. The spare driver took the train to the depot to get it cleaned up. Meanwhile, the police had found the girl’s handbag and were going through her things. She had a decent amount of money – not a suspiciously high amount, just enough to know that she wasn’t in any need of cash. She had two books, bought just an hour before at WH Smith. This is what troubled me. Why did she do it? She clearly intended to read those books. What clicked in her mind that made her want to end it all, forever?

On leaving the scene my shift was over. In fact, it had ended about an hour before, but I can’t just walk out once an incident has started. I was left to think about what had happened. I got to bed eventually and after a while was able to sleep. I very much doubt that the same could be said of the poor driver that night.

All Night Long

Happy New Year! Once again it’s been a while since I last posted, this time because we’re having some internet problems at home. This has been rumbling on since October and we’re still not connected to the outside world, it’s awful!

Obviously since I last posted a great deal has been going on. We have had yet more RMT strikes; the new management structure has “gone live” which has changed my job substantially (and for the better); Christmas has been and gone along with a now relatively rare ASLEF strike and, finally, New Year’s Eve is out of the way.

I drew the short straw this year and was the incident officer all night for my line. To be perfectly honest, I was dreading it. I love getting stuck in to things when they go wrong, but the prospect of a night dealing with drunken morons vomiting, fighting one another and smashing up my trains was not enticing.

The night started with a bad omen. My role is that of a roaming manager (or “floater” as one of my more potty-mouthed drivers likes to call me) and so I spend a lot of time going up and down the line looking for trouble. Having booked on, the very first train I jumped on got “pulled down” after just two stations – pulled down meaning that a Passenger Emergency Alarm was pulled. When this happens the emergency brake is automatically applied, but the driver can override it if no part of the train is in a station. We were just coming in to the next stop, so the driver overrode the brake and brought the train to a controlled stop in the station. I was in the cab with the driver and told him to get on the radio to the controller while I went back to deal with the incident and reset the alarm. The adrenaline starts pumping as soon as the cab alarm goes off, and as I walked back to the third car I wondered what the problem would be. It was only 11 o’clock but already there had been people slumped comatose in the seats of the station we had just passed through. When I got to the third car fortunately I found that it had been accidental. The girl closest to the alarm was of the type you occasionally see, she was terrified that she was going to be hit with a big fine for activating it without good reason. Her group of half-cut friends were only too pleased to tell me it was her! I reset the alarm, reassured her that she’d be free to continue her night out and walked back to the front.

The rest of the night was not so bad as I was expecting. The police were out in force and were brilliant, they were on every station in the central area and very reassuring, even if most of them were very definitely in the bah, humbug mindset and sick of people wishing them a Happy New Year! I had to deal with a couple of fights, and we had a few minor stoppages of up to five minutes due to problems further down the line with vomiting or fighting. Obviously vomit is a disgusting problem to deal with, but it is a headache from a customer service point of view. Most of the things we do on the Underground are utilitarian – we always go for the greatest good for the greatest number, for example regulating a train delays the people on that particular train, but lowers waiting times for people across the length of the line. Vomit on a train only affects one car, or even just one part of one car, but normally we have to take the train out of service, in complete contrast to our usual approach. Sometimes a blind eye will be turned, someone just needs to make that call.

Unfortunately in the early hours of the new year, events took a nasty turn. At one end of the line, a father was savagely beaten in front of his family by a group of disgusting thugs on a train. He had asked them to stop smoking dope, they responded by bottling him in the face and raining down fists and feet on him as he lay on the floor. The train was taken out of service due to the sheer amount of blood in the affected car. The police had DNA and CCTV evidence, and I hope to God that they catch the thugs responsible. At the other end of the line, a crazy man first got naked and then tried to chuck himself underneath a train. After causing 40 minutes of mayhem, he was apprehended by the police and taken away, fortunately in one piece. Chalk up another driver traumatised by a selfish individual.

So a depressing end to a night which in the main was nothing like as bad as I was expecting. I never know what I will be faced with when I go to work and I love the variety. It’s just a shame that sometimes real people get hurt in this city which can turn so violent so quickly.

On The Obvious Lure of Unions

I don't belong to a union, I never have and probably never will. I think this strike is pointless because the unions will not win. LU, rightly, will not back down, meaning that RMT/TSSA members will lose a day's pay for no reason and most Londoners and commuters will be severely inconvenienced.

A couple of things, however, have always annoyed me about comments to Annie Mole's blog. First of all, you get someone like centralboy on there who, while his opinions are a pole apart from mine, is clearly reasonable and not one of the RMT's unthinking, moronic stooges. Rather than debate with him in an adult way, people resort almost immediately to ad hominem arguments or simply a condescending tone. Staff like centralboy are clearly the type of people that managers in my grade and above should be trying to win around; treating him like a moron is ridiculous and doesn't make our jobs any easier.

Secondly, though I dislike the unions, you'd be a fool not to realise that the very reason LU staff enjoy a secure job with good pay and benefits is because of union action. People in other industries used to have unions, but gave them up. Now they wonder why they have lower pay than they deserve and have jobs which are at the whim of their senior managers.

Before I joined LU I was a manager in the construction industry. It frequently irritates me that I cannot simply fire some of the wasters that I meet in LU like I was able to in my old job - the exact kind of people who, as Stevem so rightly points out make all other LU staff look bad. That is a definite downside of the unions. Calling a strike over a plan which doesn't involve compulsory redundancies and which would simply be implemented with mere office griping in any other industry is another. I could name at least 20 more without thinking about it.

Remember these things though: not all union or even RMT members are like Bob Crowe; lots of staff are actually worried about safety, no matter how much of a smokescreen it may appear; many more staff think that this is probably the tip of the iceberg, and you don't get to keep your job and lifestyle the way it is by rolling over. Everyone else saying "that's not fair, we can't protect ourselves so why should you?" will not make these union members suddenly think "oh yes, how right you are". Having witnessed what has happened in other industries which no longer have union representation, it will probably just make them redouble their efforts.

One final thing: the staff working on the stations and trains tomorrow are clearly not strikers, yet from personal experience we always get some form of abuse from at least one cretinous individual. Please don't let it be you.