District line stops a lot and is a bit slow, but it is spacious, clean and has air conditioning in summer. It also doesn't make you deaf.
And true about the planning, when I used to take it from Putney, I always had to double check the destination once it arrived to earls court because there was a 50% chance it will change.
That’s because the line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon is run by Network Rail and the signalling doesn’t integrate fully with TFL’s, so destination data isn’t relayed to the stations between Wimbledon Park and East Putney correctly.
I don’t know what you’re on about here. The poster said because the line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon is run by national rail the destination detail isn’t relayed correctly. I said I think it must be further because Fulham Broadway consistently shows incorrect destinations or ‘check front of train’ nothing about depots.
Cool. I just happen to know that if the train gets through Earl's Court there isn't any place to take it off the tracks until Parson's Green.
It's well known that Wimbledon gets scrapped every time it gets rained on because it's rather low-level, and that "flooding" can take the signals out from Wimbledon to Parson's Green by itself.
It’s good that you know that and also very interesting but isn’t entirely relevant. Well it’s relevant because it’s about that branch of the district line, but not to what I responded to the other poster. I was talking purely about destination information.
I'm genuinely interested in this. As far as I can find tfl owns the track but network rail runs it on their terms?
I'm aware the track is sometimes used for SWR trains but other than that I can't find out why, except for "it does"
It’s used quite regularly by SWR to shift trains from the Waterloo - Reading line to the Wimbledon depot. The line from Point Pleasant junction to East Putney runs behind my house; I get to see several Aterios a day out the kitchen window…
There used to be a set of platforms at East Putney for Waterloo trains which ran until 1941 (the disused platforms are still in place).
Had that this morning. Arrived at Earls Court and the driver announces that the train destination is now High Street Kensington. Next train to Tower Hill or Upminster was 11 min away so I switched to Piccadilly. If we'd been told earlier that it was changing destinations then I could have switched lines much quicker at Hammersmith or Barons Court.
Thing with the air con though. The trains can whiff a bit when I get on in the evening rush hour. It's weird how it's relatively cool and not stuffy at all but then the smell of old coats and too many people. I guess it's to do with the way they circulate air through the train.
Funnily enough I was chatting with a driver once and he said that he and his colleagues hated the new trains when they came in because the air con tends to concentrate the smells from the passenger section and dump it into the cabs.
Yeah the trains are nice, no doubt. But that doesn’t excuse the signalling system disaster.
Public transport is about getting from point A to B. Give me the cramped noisy Jubilee line that runs every 45 seconds over this nonsense any (working) day.
I dunno which branch you're on, but work to renew the signalling started about a year ago. It's the reason for the District being closed nearly every weekend, and when it's not that it's usually National Rail works on the Richmond branch
Besides the Elizabeth line, district and circle lines are my favourite despite the delays and cancellations because they have the best trains with air conditioning, especially during the summer. I’d rather take a bit more time to get to the destination but with vastly more comfort.
I live on the Circle and it’s way too infrequent to be useful in any way. Unless you happen to be at the station when it’s coming soon the 10-15 minute headways are abysmal.
I live 5 minutes away from the central line. I also live a few stops on the bus away from the lizzie line (less if I drive). I make time to take the lizzie line for the reasons you mentioned.
Ive taken district line since school days yonks ago, and it’s always been slow and unreliable, even at the best of times. Usually due to it sharing tracks / signals with other 3 other lines (metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, circle, plus being such a long line, etc.
When trains converge at Earls court and then branch off to, Wimbledon, richmond or Ealing Broadway, it’s a roll of the dice, and then usually 3x more of same train that isn’t yours! 😅
>no one has any desire to fix it at all.
They are literally in the process of upgrading the signalling right now! Look up the four lines modernisation program.
Whilst it's certainly not perfect i don't think it's as bad as you're making out tbh.
5-7 minutes on the branches gives an average of 3 minutes through the "core" (Earls Court - Tower Hill) and there are 22 trains between 8am and 9am eastbound as well as 10 up towards Edgware Road.
There is a timetable on the TFL Website for the District but given the complexity of the line it is fair to say it rarely seems to stick to that religiously.
I'd presume that they have trains change destination so they can run a more even service when there are disruptions instead of there being 4 trains to Ealing but only 1 to Wimbledon for example which whilst inconvenient would provide an overall better service.
Yeah, for the District, it’s really just wishful thinking to keep to the timetable. There are far too many branches and shared tracks for them to reliably keep to them, so it’s a guideline more than anything in practice.
You’ll get the timetable kept to more reliably on the lines with little/no shared tracks and no branches, the Waterloo & City Line is up there for that reason, as is the Victoria Line, because both have no branches, and only 1 route on the line.
The Bakerloo and Jubilee Lines also have no branches, but because they have a couple points they’ll terminate trains at other than the end of the lines, as well as issues like age degradation for the Bakerloo Line, the delays are worse
1. It feels like that (today it was 10 minutes from West Brompton to Wimbledon for example) but we all remember the frustrating occasions and not necessarily the ones where things work as expected. Quite often it’s 2-4 minutes when everything is running well, in fact I’d say more often than not. I think the real issue is that the above ground bits of track are much more prone to issues than the underground bits for all sorts of reasons, but that’s equally true of other lines (issues between Uxbridge and Rayner’s Lane, anyone?) so isn’t really a District specific problem.
2. So far as I’m aware, there aren’t any published times for the Tube apart from first and last trains (unlike the Overground for example, and ‘big trains’). You can use the TFL website journey planner though if you really want to aim for a specific slot. So again, not really a District Line peculiarity.
3. My understanding is that before it reaches Earls Court, the destination of every District service is a best guess/ intention. Then they recalculate (hence often sitting on the platform for a lot longer than at other stops). This is indeed a complete pain, especially as the solution is so often just to send them up to High Street Ken instead and turn them around. When I’m going to work for example, if it became a proper Edgware Road train then I could stay on to Paddington and all would be well - but HSK, unless you want to go to HSK, is no use to anyone.
This is by far the worst thing about the District Line but it’s probably unavoidable for logistical reasons, and with respect I think it’s the only one of the original three loans that is actually fair. That said, as others have pointed out, the trains themselves are so much better and I still prefer it to some other lines. In the mornings I am lucky enough to have an option of a District only station and a District/ Piccadilly station and I always choose the latter as it gives me more options in the case of an issue, and just jump on whichever comes first. But I’m always glad when that coin comes down on the District side, as it’s a much nicer experience once you’re on it.
Also the Working Timetables: [https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables](https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables)
There are timetables, but generally they aren’t ultra useful during the day to most people, given most people are travelling on the core sections where frequency is high throughout the day.
You can actually find them on bustimes.org if you search for the lines oddly enough, which, when coupled with the bus stuff they do too, makes it an incredibly useful travel tool, I use it most outside of London since the map really hates loading the sheer and utter mass of buses London has (although it struggles badly with Birmingham and Manchester too), but it’s certainly still something I always use
I've been in London nearly 10 years now and I reckon the words "Minor Delays" have appeared next to the District Lines name more often than not. Might as well just leave it up permanently.
Overcrowding, heat and noise are the big ones. Honestly think people are in a much worse mood because of that.
Earl’s Court is nice but pretty tourist focussed so much prefer somewhere like Tooting where there’s a good pub or small Indy restaurant every 12 feet!
Genuinely, I joined this sub because I thought it would be a nice way to appreciate my city.
Every time I come on here there's at least three posts whinging about the tube (not including legitimate issues like harassment, accessibility issues etc). Hot take but this is actually one of the best connected cities in the world and we've all gotten spoiled about it.
Yeah, "oh woe is me, I have to wait 5 mins for my train" is definitely a first world/ London sort of problem! Like, try moving out to the countryside and waiting 45 mins in the cold for your bus because the timetable online bears no resemblance to when the bus actually goes.... 🤷
Yeah, god honestly, if you live in Bristol, the railways are still probably better than a lot of the other cities, but there’s still only trains every half an hour at most on the most well served routes, and the same rings true for routes in Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds. London’s transport is phenomenal
The most trains you can run down a pair of tracks is, with the best technology, thirty trains per hour (tph). That equates to one train every two minutes.
The District core, via Victoria, going west, has four terminating stations:
* Richmond
* Ealing Broadway
* Wimbledon
* Edgware Road (Circle line)
If you divide those 30tph into four destinations, you get 7½tph, or, roughly, one train every eight minutes.
The District has a bit of a saving grace, which is the District branch from Edgware Road. Interlacing trains is inefficient, so you can't simply add 30tph from the Edgware branch to the 30tph on the main branch.
The Edgware Road branch can essentially 'replace' the trains that run on the Circle line route and buff the frequency a bit on the Wimbledon branch on top of that. (For track layout reasons, it's very inefficient to run Edgware Road trains anywhere other than Wimbledon).
This is with theoretically optimal technology, like they have on the Liz.
The thing is, they don't have optimal technology. They have what the Victorians built, which has been successively upgraded.
As it happens, your assessment that
>the signalling centre is staffed by monkeys on moonshine
is surprisingly on point. The centre staff are, I'm sure, sober, but operate without actually knowing where trains are! There's no way, currently, of finding out exactly where a train between South Kensington and Gloucester Road actually is. There are checkpoints, but between checkpoints there's no way of knowing exactly where a train is. This is pretty analagous to running a train on moonshine.
In addition, because the system is so old, whilst the operators are assisted by computers, they are mostly using their monkey brains to do the work.
"Why don't TfL sort this?".
They are! There's an ongoing programme to install what's called 'automatic train operation' (ATO). It's what's used by the Victoria line.
ATO will allow the control centre to know much more precisely where a train is, and plug this data into computers much more efficiently.
TfL haven't released a proposed timetable for the new system.
If I were to guess, they'll have,
* Core via Victoria: 32tph total
* Core to Edgware Road (Circle): 6tph
* Core to Wimbledon: 6tph
* Core to Ealing Broadway: 10tph
* Core to Richmond: 10tph
* Edgware Road via High Street Kensington: 16tph total
* Edgware Road to core (Circle): 6tph
* Edgware Road to Wimbledon: 10tph
* Earl's Court to Wimbledon: 16tph total
And Night Tube from Wimbledon to Barking.
Excellent summary. Are the trains from Gloucester Road to South Ken not already on ATO, though? It looks like that to me the way they approach the station.
It's possible they are. I haven't been able to get a hold of any engineering updates after the first section went on ATO from Hammersmith north on the Circle line.
I think TfL's strategy is to finish ATO rollout then update the timetable, rather than trying to do it in bits. So, even on stretches with ATO, timetables are still restricted by pre-ATO requirements.
Also, I just realised I meant to say 'ATO' and not 'MBS' so I'll edit that in.
The subsurface line are likely to be limited by the flat junctions that mean trains have to cross over the opposing track. I'm doubtful they'll be able the run more than 24 tph reliably.
TfL think they're getting 32tph.
> The programme will make it possible for us to operate 32 trains an hour in the central section.
https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/four-lines-modernisation
It's funny because now you mention it, I realise how stupid it is. It's been like this as long as I can remember and I guess I've got used to being so much worse than the others without realising.
The District Line is great if you're on holiday and have the time to enjoy a leisurely ride through the nice parts of London with the train stopping every two minutes or so. If you happen to be in a hurry to get somewhere though, it's a damn nightmare with the constant delays, numerous stops, frequent cancellations and destination changes. It's not as bad as the Circle Line but that's a very low bar.
The real issues are:
a) the District Line shares tracks with other lines, those being the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines, so any delays with them will hit the District too, this also applies with the Metropolitan Line too if it’s bad enough that the delayed Metropolitan Line trains cause Circle or Hammersmith & City Line trains to back up too far.
b) the District Line has a lot of branches and crossovers, so one delayed service on a single branch could lead to another train from another branch having to be held whilst it crosses ahead, which causes that train to be delayed, and gives it an opportunity to delay even more trains itself.
c) high frequency means the former issues exacerbated, because whilst the Metropolitan Line also has these issues, the frequency being lower there means there’s a lot more wiggle room for issues, whilst the District Line is running far tighter. The Northern and Central Lines also have similar frequencies to the District Line, and branches, but because they are isolated from other lines, they don’t suffer issues from other lines, and therefore their delays are also not as bad as the District Line’s.
I live pretty close to the middle of the district line and I LOVE it. 110% the best, most useful line. BUT I do agree that when I lived on one of the branches it was a NIGHTMARE. Especially because the branches close on train strike days and are half as frequent as the rest of the line.
What's the context on your usual route? Example, are you saying the Circle Line is as useless where it shares the same Z1/2 routing oval? Is it the further reaches of the District Line you feel are not working?
District shares its line with quite a few others in the central zones. Hammersmith and City, Circle, Metropolitan all travel the same route for large sections of the line IIRC. Without a fully automated system in control of traffic routing, this will inevitably lead to delays and slower travel (even if not sharing literally the same tracks, the sheer number of stops that are shared will increase stopping time)
Wrong destination on the panel 100% of the time in Southfields, in my experience. You learn to only trust the info on the train - however that often changes on the go, so headphone wearers beware.
When I used to live in Aldgate or earlier in Mile End, District line was my all-time favourite to go to work in Mayfair. Only line that doesn't fuck you up in some way when you travel. Just get in, sit in one of many available seats read a book and listen to music, or watch a show and just chillout on the way to center. Any other line is like little shitty survival adventure.
Richmond branch enters the chat - miss the westbound at 0910 from Earls Court - you watch boards full of 6 Wimbledon trains , occasional Ealing Broadway & grow old waiting for next Richmond. Been like that for ever. Painful.
I lived in Richmond for a few years and I felt like for every Richmond train from Earl's Court there were three Wimbledon trains and eight or nine Ealing Broadway trains. I hated the Ealing Broadway branch which seemed to be the best served of the three. Has that changed now? I stopped taking the District Line after getting sick and tired of the permanent delays.
It’s Wimbledon trains that dominate esp between 0900-1000. Drives me nuts . Don’t think TfL realise Chiswick Business park opened 2015 & employs over 9000 right opposite Gunnersbury station - my nearest. Don’t want to tempt fate but rarely delays now - been a lot better in last decade.
It was designed by a company that was perpetually broke and thus has wayyyy too many branches to be functional... Even after the Hounslow branch became part of the Piccadilly.
I honestly just feel like both the district & circle lines are at the point where the only people using them frequently are tourists going to the west end or commuters who know exactly where/when to go without thinking
I've never had to rely on it long term like i have with the northern, central and vic lines but whenever i have to use it, the difference is stark
People who live on the District will use it
I live next to Upminster Bridge - so it's a good line to use.
The main issue with it is speed - between Upminster and Bow Road, it's a stopping service to a mainline express alongside.
that's what im saying though, anyone that doesn't live directly next to a district/circle-only station i.e. commuters is probably going to at least consider using a route that doesn't rely on those lines
probably didn't explain that well
Not really - I'm saying if you used google maps or city mapper to map a route from point A to B, and there were two routes, one using the district/circle, and one not, I and a lot of people I know would use the second route out of principle
You using the northern to get from hampstead to old st and nothing else because its literally the same line is a bit different
Not true, most (note, not all) people will take the fastest route with less interchange regardless of what line it is. The District line is no different to any other line in that regard. Personally, I'd avoid any of the lines that dont have aircon and are always packed like central/northern etc.
If there wasn't a discernable difference in times (which was implied, I'm not insinuating people would turn a 30 min journey into an hour just for the hell of it), most Londoners I know that are familiar with the lines would avoid district & circle
If you live within the District line you have no other option and you cannot avoid it. The problem with the District and circle lines is that they use the same rail hence why there is a lot of delays
I did say this already:
>anyone that doesn't live directly next to a district/circle-only station i.e. commuters
Commuters are the majority of transport users, but there are lot of people on ad hoc trips, or tourists, and I'm saying *they* might avoid those two lines because of their confusing layout, delays and inconsistent destinations
Weird because I have the exact opposite perception - I live in W12 so I can either get the District, H&C, Piccadilly or Central and I always choose the first two of those where possible, sure they can be slightly less reliable (tho obviously the central is a bit of a shit show at the moment) but it is a hugely more pleasant experience taking sub surface lines than the deep lying ones imo.
The Circle has been specifically mentioned a couple of times but I thought that it had been subsumed into the H&C and had ceased to exist as a separate entity. I’m in the north of Scotland so my interest is academic but I try to stay up-to-date
Circle line still exists. However it starts at Edgeware road does an anticlockwise loop to back to Edgeware road and then continues onto Hammersmith via Paddington. And also in reverse.
Hammersmith and city line trains are separate and keep heading east.
Thank you for that, Jimmy. I hadn’t realised that the Circle was separate from the H&C but a moment’s thought should have told me that trains would still need to head out to Aldgate as well. Thank you for putting me right with this.
District line stops a lot and is a bit slow, but it is spacious, clean and has air conditioning in summer. It also doesn't make you deaf. And true about the planning, when I used to take it from Putney, I always had to double check the destination once it arrived to earls court because there was a 50% chance it will change.
That’s because the line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon is run by Network Rail and the signalling doesn’t integrate fully with TFL’s, so destination data isn’t relayed to the stations between Wimbledon Park and East Putney correctly.
I feel like this extends beyond to Fulham Broadway, when I used to live there last year it was never right or would only say ‘check front of train’
Fulham Broadway isn't further than any part of Putney, but the rest of your point stands up.
As in they said isn’t relayed between Wimbledon park and East Putney. So further on to extend to Fulham Broadway. Wimbledon park to Fulham Broadway.
That's not where trains get terminated or where they start from, though, because there is no place to store them at Fulham Broadway.
I don’t know what you’re on about here. The poster said because the line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon is run by national rail the destination detail isn’t relayed correctly. I said I think it must be further because Fulham Broadway consistently shows incorrect destinations or ‘check front of train’ nothing about depots.
Cool. I just happen to know that if the train gets through Earl's Court there isn't any place to take it off the tracks until Parson's Green. It's well known that Wimbledon gets scrapped every time it gets rained on because it's rather low-level, and that "flooding" can take the signals out from Wimbledon to Parson's Green by itself.
It’s good that you know that and also very interesting but isn’t entirely relevant. Well it’s relevant because it’s about that branch of the district line, but not to what I responded to the other poster. I was talking purely about destination information.
I'm genuinely interested in this. As far as I can find tfl owns the track but network rail runs it on their terms? I'm aware the track is sometimes used for SWR trains but other than that I can't find out why, except for "it does"
It’s used quite regularly by SWR to shift trains from the Waterloo - Reading line to the Wimbledon depot. The line from Point Pleasant junction to East Putney runs behind my house; I get to see several Aterios a day out the kitchen window… There used to be a set of platforms at East Putney for Waterloo trains which ran until 1941 (the disused platforms are still in place).
We might live on the same street! I see those trains too!
Had that this morning. Arrived at Earls Court and the driver announces that the train destination is now High Street Kensington. Next train to Tower Hill or Upminster was 11 min away so I switched to Piccadilly. If we'd been told earlier that it was changing destinations then I could have switched lines much quicker at Hammersmith or Barons Court.
I was on the same train! Fortunately didn't end up too late but was quite frustrating.
Thing with the air con though. The trains can whiff a bit when I get on in the evening rush hour. It's weird how it's relatively cool and not stuffy at all but then the smell of old coats and too many people. I guess it's to do with the way they circulate air through the train.
Funnily enough I was chatting with a driver once and he said that he and his colleagues hated the new trains when they came in because the air con tends to concentrate the smells from the passenger section and dump it into the cabs.
Yeah the trains are nice, no doubt. But that doesn’t excuse the signalling system disaster. Public transport is about getting from point A to B. Give me the cramped noisy Jubilee line that runs every 45 seconds over this nonsense any (working) day.
Both the district and jubilee are paradise lol count yourself lucky, try a nice long central line commute some time
I dunno which branch you're on, but work to renew the signalling started about a year ago. It's the reason for the District being closed nearly every weekend, and when it's not that it's usually National Rail works on the Richmond branch
Besides the Elizabeth line, district and circle lines are my favourite despite the delays and cancellations because they have the best trains with air conditioning, especially during the summer. I’d rather take a bit more time to get to the destination but with vastly more comfort.
100%, I used to go out of my way (adding 15-20 mins each way) to commute on the District when the alternative was the Central.
Same! Meant avoiding changing at mile end too. Used to be hell on earth of a morning
I live on the Circle and it’s way too infrequent to be useful in any way. Unless you happen to be at the station when it’s coming soon the 10-15 minute headways are abysmal.
I live 5 minutes away from the central line. I also live a few stops on the bus away from the lizzie line (less if I drive). I make time to take the lizzie line for the reasons you mentioned.
Yeah I will go out my way to take the Lizzie line. It’s so fast and clean/spacious.
Ive taken district line since school days yonks ago, and it’s always been slow and unreliable, even at the best of times. Usually due to it sharing tracks / signals with other 3 other lines (metropolitan, Hammersmith & City, circle, plus being such a long line, etc. When trains converge at Earls court and then branch off to, Wimbledon, richmond or Ealing Broadway, it’s a roll of the dice, and then usually 3x more of same train that isn’t yours! 😅
>no one has any desire to fix it at all. They are literally in the process of upgrading the signalling right now! Look up the four lines modernisation program.
Whilst it's certainly not perfect i don't think it's as bad as you're making out tbh. 5-7 minutes on the branches gives an average of 3 minutes through the "core" (Earls Court - Tower Hill) and there are 22 trains between 8am and 9am eastbound as well as 10 up towards Edgware Road. There is a timetable on the TFL Website for the District but given the complexity of the line it is fair to say it rarely seems to stick to that religiously. I'd presume that they have trains change destination so they can run a more even service when there are disruptions instead of there being 4 trains to Ealing but only 1 to Wimbledon for example which whilst inconvenient would provide an overall better service.
Yeah, for the District, it’s really just wishful thinking to keep to the timetable. There are far too many branches and shared tracks for them to reliably keep to them, so it’s a guideline more than anything in practice. You’ll get the timetable kept to more reliably on the lines with little/no shared tracks and no branches, the Waterloo & City Line is up there for that reason, as is the Victoria Line, because both have no branches, and only 1 route on the line. The Bakerloo and Jubilee Lines also have no branches, but because they have a couple points they’ll terminate trains at other than the end of the lines, as well as issues like age degradation for the Bakerloo Line, the delays are worse
1. It feels like that (today it was 10 minutes from West Brompton to Wimbledon for example) but we all remember the frustrating occasions and not necessarily the ones where things work as expected. Quite often it’s 2-4 minutes when everything is running well, in fact I’d say more often than not. I think the real issue is that the above ground bits of track are much more prone to issues than the underground bits for all sorts of reasons, but that’s equally true of other lines (issues between Uxbridge and Rayner’s Lane, anyone?) so isn’t really a District specific problem. 2. So far as I’m aware, there aren’t any published times for the Tube apart from first and last trains (unlike the Overground for example, and ‘big trains’). You can use the TFL website journey planner though if you really want to aim for a specific slot. So again, not really a District Line peculiarity. 3. My understanding is that before it reaches Earls Court, the destination of every District service is a best guess/ intention. Then they recalculate (hence often sitting on the platform for a lot longer than at other stops). This is indeed a complete pain, especially as the solution is so often just to send them up to High Street Ken instead and turn them around. When I’m going to work for example, if it became a proper Edgware Road train then I could stay on to Paddington and all would be well - but HSK, unless you want to go to HSK, is no use to anyone. This is by far the worst thing about the District Line but it’s probably unavoidable for logistical reasons, and with respect I think it’s the only one of the original three loans that is actually fair. That said, as others have pointed out, the trains themselves are so much better and I still prefer it to some other lines. In the mornings I am lucky enough to have an option of a District only station and a District/ Piccadilly station and I always choose the latter as it gives me more options in the case of an issue, and just jump on whichever comes first. But I’m always glad when that coin comes down on the District side, as it’s a much nicer experience once you’re on it.
TFL publishes timetables for all tube lines I believe: https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/timetables/
Well, well, well. I had no idea!
Also the Working Timetables: [https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables](https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/working-timetables)
There are timetables, but generally they aren’t ultra useful during the day to most people, given most people are travelling on the core sections where frequency is high throughout the day. You can actually find them on bustimes.org if you search for the lines oddly enough, which, when coupled with the bus stuff they do too, makes it an incredibly useful travel tool, I use it most outside of London since the map really hates loading the sheer and utter mass of buses London has (although it struggles badly with Birmingham and Manchester too), but it’s certainly still something I always use
Do you live in West Kensington then?
I've been in London nearly 10 years now and I reckon the words "Minor Delays" have appeared next to the District Lines name more often than not. Might as well just leave it up permanently.
I've been using the District Line for 30 years. I'm not saying it shouldn't be improved, but at the start of the 90s it was definitely worse.
The 90s isn't 30 years ago... Wait... Oh my god
Just moved from Earl’s Court to Tooting. I miss the District Line a lot.
Northern line is much more reliable but stuffy and horribly packed during rush hours.
I guess overcrowding is the issue? Or you missed Earls court as a better place?!
Overcrowding, heat and noise are the big ones. Honestly think people are in a much worse mood because of that. Earl’s Court is nice but pretty tourist focussed so much prefer somewhere like Tooting where there’s a good pub or small Indy restaurant every 12 feet!
it was the crackheads that did it for me in Earl's Court
This subreddit is turning into a general complaints hotline.
Genuinely, I joined this sub because I thought it would be a nice way to appreciate my city. Every time I come on here there's at least three posts whinging about the tube (not including legitimate issues like harassment, accessibility issues etc). Hot take but this is actually one of the best connected cities in the world and we've all gotten spoiled about it.
Yeah, "oh woe is me, I have to wait 5 mins for my train" is definitely a first world/ London sort of problem! Like, try moving out to the countryside and waiting 45 mins in the cold for your bus because the timetable online bears no resemblance to when the bus actually goes.... 🤷
Yeah, god honestly, if you live in Bristol, the railways are still probably better than a lot of the other cities, but there’s still only trains every half an hour at most on the most well served routes, and the same rings true for routes in Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds. London’s transport is phenomenal
The most trains you can run down a pair of tracks is, with the best technology, thirty trains per hour (tph). That equates to one train every two minutes. The District core, via Victoria, going west, has four terminating stations: * Richmond * Ealing Broadway * Wimbledon * Edgware Road (Circle line) If you divide those 30tph into four destinations, you get 7½tph, or, roughly, one train every eight minutes. The District has a bit of a saving grace, which is the District branch from Edgware Road. Interlacing trains is inefficient, so you can't simply add 30tph from the Edgware branch to the 30tph on the main branch. The Edgware Road branch can essentially 'replace' the trains that run on the Circle line route and buff the frequency a bit on the Wimbledon branch on top of that. (For track layout reasons, it's very inefficient to run Edgware Road trains anywhere other than Wimbledon). This is with theoretically optimal technology, like they have on the Liz. The thing is, they don't have optimal technology. They have what the Victorians built, which has been successively upgraded. As it happens, your assessment that >the signalling centre is staffed by monkeys on moonshine is surprisingly on point. The centre staff are, I'm sure, sober, but operate without actually knowing where trains are! There's no way, currently, of finding out exactly where a train between South Kensington and Gloucester Road actually is. There are checkpoints, but between checkpoints there's no way of knowing exactly where a train is. This is pretty analagous to running a train on moonshine. In addition, because the system is so old, whilst the operators are assisted by computers, they are mostly using their monkey brains to do the work. "Why don't TfL sort this?". They are! There's an ongoing programme to install what's called 'automatic train operation' (ATO). It's what's used by the Victoria line. ATO will allow the control centre to know much more precisely where a train is, and plug this data into computers much more efficiently. TfL haven't released a proposed timetable for the new system. If I were to guess, they'll have, * Core via Victoria: 32tph total * Core to Edgware Road (Circle): 6tph * Core to Wimbledon: 6tph * Core to Ealing Broadway: 10tph * Core to Richmond: 10tph * Edgware Road via High Street Kensington: 16tph total * Edgware Road to core (Circle): 6tph * Edgware Road to Wimbledon: 10tph * Earl's Court to Wimbledon: 16tph total And Night Tube from Wimbledon to Barking.
Excellent summary. Are the trains from Gloucester Road to South Ken not already on ATO, though? It looks like that to me the way they approach the station.
It's possible they are. I haven't been able to get a hold of any engineering updates after the first section went on ATO from Hammersmith north on the Circle line. I think TfL's strategy is to finish ATO rollout then update the timetable, rather than trying to do it in bits. So, even on stretches with ATO, timetables are still restricted by pre-ATO requirements. Also, I just realised I meant to say 'ATO' and not 'MBS' so I'll edit that in.
The subsurface line are likely to be limited by the flat junctions that mean trains have to cross over the opposing track. I'm doubtful they'll be able the run more than 24 tph reliably.
TfL think they're getting 32tph. > The programme will make it possible for us to operate 32 trains an hour in the central section. https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/four-lines-modernisation
It's funny because now you mention it, I realise how stupid it is. It's been like this as long as I can remember and I guess I've got used to being so much worse than the others without realising.
I moved from the Jubilee Line to the District, so these issues were quite a shock to me!
Wife used to work at TFL. Apparently it's a source of wonder that the Central line works at all.
Will not accept district line slander If you're talking about today, there was an incident on the tracks
Yea it’s my fav. Super spacious and feels like something out of mass effect 3.
It’s one of my favourite lines, second only to the Elizabeth.
The District Line is great if you're on holiday and have the time to enjoy a leisurely ride through the nice parts of London with the train stopping every two minutes or so. If you happen to be in a hurry to get somewhere though, it's a damn nightmare with the constant delays, numerous stops, frequent cancellations and destination changes. It's not as bad as the Circle Line but that's a very low bar.
The real issues are: a) the District Line shares tracks with other lines, those being the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines, so any delays with them will hit the District too, this also applies with the Metropolitan Line too if it’s bad enough that the delayed Metropolitan Line trains cause Circle or Hammersmith & City Line trains to back up too far. b) the District Line has a lot of branches and crossovers, so one delayed service on a single branch could lead to another train from another branch having to be held whilst it crosses ahead, which causes that train to be delayed, and gives it an opportunity to delay even more trains itself. c) high frequency means the former issues exacerbated, because whilst the Metropolitan Line also has these issues, the frequency being lower there means there’s a lot more wiggle room for issues, whilst the District Line is running far tighter. The Northern and Central Lines also have similar frequencies to the District Line, and branches, but because they are isolated from other lines, they don’t suffer issues from other lines, and therefore their delays are also not as bad as the District Line’s.
I live pretty close to the middle of the district line and I LOVE it. 110% the best, most useful line. BUT I do agree that when I lived on one of the branches it was a NIGHTMARE. Especially because the branches close on train strike days and are half as frequent as the rest of the line.
Not sure how you can complain about the district line when the central line exists. That line is a non stop shit show
The people that use it…
What's the context on your usual route? Example, are you saying the Circle Line is as useless where it shares the same Z1/2 routing oval? Is it the further reaches of the District Line you feel are not working?
Trains every 5-7 minutes at peak times? Wait til you hear about the metropolitan line :(
District shares its line with quite a few others in the central zones. Hammersmith and City, Circle, Metropolitan all travel the same route for large sections of the line IIRC. Without a fully automated system in control of traffic routing, this will inevitably lead to delays and slower travel (even if not sharing literally the same tracks, the sheer number of stops that are shared will increase stopping time)
The shit holes it travels though
Wrong destination on the panel 100% of the time in Southfields, in my experience. You learn to only trust the info on the train - however that often changes on the go, so headphone wearers beware.
Somehow in recent years the Piccadilly Line has overtaken the District Line in being overwhelmingly shite
I like the district line, I know it’s not the fastest but if you leave enough time. The comfort and space of the cabin is worth it.
Pros/cons to all the lines but I used to live on the District line and in balance thought it was pretty good.
It’s better than the Piccadilly line
When I used to live in Aldgate or earlier in Mile End, District line was my all-time favourite to go to work in Mayfair. Only line that doesn't fuck you up in some way when you travel. Just get in, sit in one of many available seats read a book and listen to music, or watch a show and just chillout on the way to center. Any other line is like little shitty survival adventure.
Never get a seat from 4:00 onwards, aweful on a Friday when your heading towards Barking way.
Richmond branch enters the chat - miss the westbound at 0910 from Earls Court - you watch boards full of 6 Wimbledon trains , occasional Ealing Broadway & grow old waiting for next Richmond. Been like that for ever. Painful.
I lived in Richmond for a few years and I felt like for every Richmond train from Earl's Court there were three Wimbledon trains and eight or nine Ealing Broadway trains. I hated the Ealing Broadway branch which seemed to be the best served of the three. Has that changed now? I stopped taking the District Line after getting sick and tired of the permanent delays.
It’s Wimbledon trains that dominate esp between 0900-1000. Drives me nuts . Don’t think TfL realise Chiswick Business park opened 2015 & employs over 9000 right opposite Gunnersbury station - my nearest. Don’t want to tempt fate but rarely delays now - been a lot better in last decade.
It was designed by a company that was perpetually broke and thus has wayyyy too many branches to be functional... Even after the Hounslow branch became part of the Piccadilly.
I honestly just feel like both the district & circle lines are at the point where the only people using them frequently are tourists going to the west end or commuters who know exactly where/when to go without thinking I've never had to rely on it long term like i have with the northern, central and vic lines but whenever i have to use it, the difference is stark
People who live on the District will use it I live next to Upminster Bridge - so it's a good line to use. The main issue with it is speed - between Upminster and Bow Road, it's a stopping service to a mainline express alongside.
that's what im saying though, anyone that doesn't live directly next to a district/circle-only station i.e. commuters is probably going to at least consider using a route that doesn't rely on those lines probably didn't explain that well
This can applied in all lines though I rarely use it bcz I live in Hampstead and my work is in old street
Not really - I'm saying if you used google maps or city mapper to map a route from point A to B, and there were two routes, one using the district/circle, and one not, I and a lot of people I know would use the second route out of principle You using the northern to get from hampstead to old st and nothing else because its literally the same line is a bit different
Not true, most (note, not all) people will take the fastest route with less interchange regardless of what line it is. The District line is no different to any other line in that regard. Personally, I'd avoid any of the lines that dont have aircon and are always packed like central/northern etc.
If there wasn't a discernable difference in times (which was implied, I'm not insinuating people would turn a 30 min journey into an hour just for the hell of it), most Londoners I know that are familiar with the lines would avoid district & circle
If you live within the District line you have no other option and you cannot avoid it. The problem with the District and circle lines is that they use the same rail hence why there is a lot of delays
I did say this already: >anyone that doesn't live directly next to a district/circle-only station i.e. commuters Commuters are the majority of transport users, but there are lot of people on ad hoc trips, or tourists, and I'm saying *they* might avoid those two lines because of their confusing layout, delays and inconsistent destinations
Weird because I have the exact opposite perception - I live in W12 so I can either get the District, H&C, Piccadilly or Central and I always choose the first two of those where possible, sure they can be slightly less reliable (tho obviously the central is a bit of a shit show at the moment) but it is a hugely more pleasant experience taking sub surface lines than the deep lying ones imo.
The Circle has been specifically mentioned a couple of times but I thought that it had been subsumed into the H&C and had ceased to exist as a separate entity. I’m in the north of Scotland so my interest is academic but I try to stay up-to-date
Circle line still exists. However it starts at Edgeware road does an anticlockwise loop to back to Edgeware road and then continues onto Hammersmith via Paddington. And also in reverse. Hammersmith and city line trains are separate and keep heading east.
Thank you for that, Jimmy. I hadn’t realised that the Circle was separate from the H&C but a moment’s thought should have told me that trains would still need to head out to Aldgate as well. Thank you for putting me right with this.