Re: (NSW) NEW Desto's

["Tezza" <tezza2000@dingoblue.net.au>]

<petercook2705@my-deja.com> wrote in message
8vcies$dbq$1@nnrp1.deja.com">news:8vcies$dbq$1@nnrp1.deja.com...
> If you can get them to work and display correct destinations, then
> wonderful.  If it's acting up, then try and clear the screen and switch
> it off.  At least it's one less train displaying an incorrect
> destination.  But that doesn't mean that Joe Public (Commuter/Tourist)
> should actually rely on the info they display.

Then there's no point using them at all. BTW, the Driver doesn't always know
that the display is incorrect.


> If we're lucky, one day (in a few decades perhaps) CityRail may even
> upgrade the system and install vandal-proof keypads and control systems
> that actually work!  Although I'm probably being a little optimistic
> here.

Maybe when they stop their passengers from being vandals.


> That reminds me, what has happened to the destos on Ts and Gs - from
> recent experience are usually either switched off, invisible or
> otherwise unreadable in both open areas and tunnels.  I can only
> remember being able to read one or maybe two from recent memory.

Most are useless and too dim to read even if they do work. I don't bother with
them anymore.


> And what happened to using running lights to indicate a train's route?
> Why were the top centre and bottom lights removed from the S-type
> sets?  Did it by any chance have something to do with the introduction
> of our beloved destos?

It went out the window in 1992 with the introduction of the new Safeworking.
Now all trains must have 2 white lights on the front.


> Granted several new lines have recently been opened (Cumberland,
> Airport & LOP Sprint, not to mention BOP & STOP, and the proposed Parra-
> Chatswood and Epping-Castle Hill lines) which would have probably
> necessitated either throwing in one or two red lights

Just what a Driver wants to see coming towards him, the *rear* of a train.


> or installing
> another array of lights on every set, but I do know of a few commuters
> (particularly around Glenfield-Campbelltown, Cabramatta and also to a
> lesser extent Hornsby) who relied on these lights to indicate which way
> an approaching train went.  It's probably a lot harder for a vandal to
> disable four large 3-way switches than it a cheap little keypad.

The destination boards would assist a lot more people than the few who knew
the marker light sequence, which, I believe was for the signallers
information.