Special arrangements for tennis @ Wimbledon

Did Southfields receive any tennis-themed decoration this year or has this relatively-recent tradition fallen foul of the economy?

At the end of last week some of the olympia shuttles were being diverted to supplement the service

Pity I missed the decorated plaform (my only interest in the Tournament!). How did the DR cope with the late night unforseen Murray-Roddick match?

if there were information at least they would know they should take the next sb to West Brompton and change there.

I am also of the view that this continued poaching of the Olympia train for other purposes is a wholesale disgrace.

Olympia gets a train every 15 mins cut one and you induce a 30 min gap which is frankly unacceptable. It is far easier to even out the gap on the branches with a 10 min service especially where they are largely paralleled by other lines. The Overground / Southern service from Olympia isn't that frequent as to justify such poor treatment of the District's passengers. Poor show I'm afraid !

Equally poor show was the farce that was so called managing Southfields station. Totally unnecessary holding of trains "to clear the crowds" generating a queue of trains back to Wimbledon all of which could readilly have cleared the so called crowds that need not have crowded had these trains been able to get to the platform. This joke resulted in my running 15mins late upon departure from Southfields. I called up the controller to advise/complain about this destruction of the timetable ... to be met with a total lack of interest.

Who suffers ... well yes, the long suffering Olympia passengers of course (no need for the extra trains at all) and the real penalty felt over an hour later as loads of trains are then reformed and/or curtailed into Barking and Dagenham East to put them back to time, to the detriment of the (highest fare paying) passengers at Elm Park, Hornchurch, Upminster Bridge and Upminster.

No doubt management will be slapping themsleves on the back ...anything that slows the District Line service down further seems to get their approval of late

Give this a) Why hasn't LU put staff at Olympia and b) why isn't the Olympia branch shown as "hatched" on the Underground map? (Sorry, "Journey Planner")

I do not believe it is appropriate for the Service Controller to decide to sacrifice the service on two branches in order to provided ADDITIONAL trains on another branch for a KNOWN requirement. Tennis at Wimbledon in these two weeks is not a service disruption that occurs without notice. IF trains beyond the available football/spare trains are needed then they should be provided by operation of a special Timetable whereby scheduling services ensure a balanced service is provided to all branches. The timetabled intervals are provided elsewhere for a reason. Diversion of trains should be restricted to unforseen events, cancellations and late running. The appropriate service requirememnt conjunction with special events is decided at a much higher level than Service Controller.

Incidentally I think we, on behalf of the public and all the staff disrupted are entitled to question the operational practices that seem to be perverse. If, Colin, your new controller perspective gives you a greater understanding of what is or is not appropriate in terms of railway management please do share the justifications rather than just infering the controller did it so it should not be questioned. I think by reason of our membership here many of us are able to formulate a view on the suitability of a plan and the very fact several staff appear to think it wasn't suitable in it's self means things are not so clear cut !

If a red handlamp is displayed to the driver it may not be passed or this would be a SPAD. I suppose were such a dispute to occur the controller could technically go through the process for proceeding past a signal at danger ! I would expect the controller to be able to instruct the Station Supervisor that he/she can not hold a train and have the higher authority. It has occured at Upton Park that the controller has sent a duty manager to sort out the delays being caused to the service. If no red handlamp is displayed then a proceeding driver has not commited any offence.

At Southfields the position is somewhat different, this is Network Rail track and all such activities must be approved by the Network Rail signaller ... a fairly major requirement that is often not followed !

I think that there might be some form of historical antipathy towards providing extra trains for the tennis - I've not seen any notices under the ægis of the LPTB or later; although I guess there was some sort of service recast on the Wimbledon branch for the Olympics in '48, albeit this would obviously have been system-wide rather than just for the tennis.

I have long suspected that there could have been some form of 'push-in' service or service alteration along the lines of the Olympia 'A' or Olympia 'B' services during the Wimbledon fortnight; but I've never found any evidence for such a service. Mind you, I've not been specifically looking.

Perhaps the ownership issues in times past have precluded the running of an organised 'push-in', leaving it to ad-hoc running?

You'd hope so, wouldn't you?

The '48 Olympic notices are one of the ones on the list that I keep meaning to have a real search for; I know their numbers and I know that they were printed on pink paper - maybe one day.......

Does it happen that a late-running wimbleware heading south is taken to Olympia, to recover time (i.e. if theres too much reversing at pb/pgn too cope with another one)?

I always thought they could run a few 455 's from say Waterloo to Woking calling at Vauxhall Clapham Southfields Wimbledon Surbiton or something like that, in the morning for start and evening for end of tennis traffic. Don't really see what the problem would be myself, but the red tape brigade would probably never allow it ! Even though it makes sense.

Yes, the service requirement for events affecting LUL are decided in advance - but where no extra resources are provided and the service controller is left with a normal WTT and stations asking for more, what is the service controller to do?

He/she is the operational member of staff on duty and responsible for providing a safe train service on a given line. That is the number one priority and if that means that they feel using an Olympia train in this instance is justified, it is perfectly reasonable. Given the hot weather and the number of people using the Wimbledon branch versus those using the Olympia service, I would suggest that having an extra train on the Wimbledon branch taken from the Olympia branch was justified in terms making passenger journeys more comfortable and leaving the service less prone to a PEA and the resultant delays that would bring.

Also, because of the delay that resulted to the Olympia service, the service manager would have been consulted and would have sanctioned the action.

That seems a bit strong given that the Olympia branch is very lightly used, events at Olympia excepted (and getting rarer these days).

I could have sworn I did just that in reply #9 (and above in this post) - if you feel either post needs expansion, perhaps you could give me a pointer on where you feel I didn't offer enough justification. I'm more than happy to share my new found knowledge......

Being a member of this forum doesn't automatically mean a given member's opinion counts as superior to anyone else's!!

Interesting though that the only members questioning the validity of nicking an Olympia train are LU staff and the majority are drivers.

Until 1994, Network Rail's predecessors (Network Southeast?? ) owned & operated the stations & track East Putney through to Wimbledon. LUL took over from 1994 and so things are rather more complicated these days.

I would have thought 8 cars would have fitted back then, but they wouldn't these days due the location of the platform end barriers and other infrastructure. There would also be issues surrounding OPO or guard operation as the appropriate equipment, or operating procedures, for either isn't really in place.

Whilst the principle has merit, and aside from the issues I mention relating to the the previous quote, I think it would prove to be rather difficult in practice.

Not only do you have the Point Pleasant issues to overcome but also the likely conflicts at Wimbledon too.

Another issue - and this applies to LU running a planned revised too really - what time does the Tennis finish? As the new roof and the Murray/Wawrinka match proved, it could be anytime within a wide parameter!

Isn't that the critical point here? Even the BBC got their coverage totally messed up by both Murray/Warwinka and the men's final on Sunday. In their case it didn't matter if they guessed wrong (in terms of actual inconvenience). The early peak is well documented, and can be pre-planned for, but the end of play (and there are 3 show courts...) is anyone's guess. To provide extra trains when there is no extra demand would be criticised by all and sundry. This seems so completely different from the footie specials when the needed times are known months in advance.

As said above, it is interesting that most of the negative comments come from t/ops and I/Os, yet none of these so far have actually suggested a better solution which takes account of where spare trains are, how many spare t/ops are available, how the service is running etc. etc.. Personally I would have thought these things would be the ones to occupy the minds of the controllers first, yet theirs are the decisions being criticised. So can any of the critics come up with a solution that would make it run better next year bearing in mind all the uncertainties (and without nicking the OLYs)?