Tuesday, October 12, 2004

We luuurve the Tube


Isn't this fun
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A friend just sent me a link to an excellent article from the Times On Line
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It's all about the latest advances on the London Underground network. Here's a taster:
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LONDON UNDERGROUND trains will travel at 60mph and less than 300 yards apart under a revolutionary control system designed to squeeze many more trains on to the network ...
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The £600 million system will calculate the train’s position to the nearest millimetre and relay it electronically to processors at stations once every 0.7 seconds. The processors will calculate how fast the train can go without crashing into the train in front.
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Mmmmm, a quick fiddle with my calculator and ... 1760 yards in a mile / 300 yards between trains = 5.8 trains per mile @ 60mph = 352 trains per hour = 5.8 trains per per minute. So ...
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In the future, we can look forward to waiting no longer than 11 seconds for a train on the London Underground, all for less than £600m; assuming that the job wasn't costed by the people who worked on the Scottish Parliament Building, the Diana Memorial or The Dome, in which case the final cost will be something like £5.8bn. The speciality prostitutes of London must have been working double shifts, like Trojan steam trains, to land their employers that particular contract.
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Times Online Article:
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1305764,00.html
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Real-Time tube congestion map
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http://map.tfl.gov.uk/realtime.asp

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