No more Olympia service

I believe that's what used to happen in the 1950s. Trains were diverted from the Putney line to cover the exhibitions. The problem was that the trains used were H stock of 1910-4 and they were the oldest trains on the network! Sounds like a good idea however.

Generally the position is as suggested by TomCakes, that if the service is to run from time to time, the the staff do indeed have to be rostered to perform it and act as additional spare drivers if required. This is the case daily for football special trains and even things like the timetabled C stock move from Hammersmith to Upminster and back. I can't see an ad-hoc diversion of trains working in a million years. However I guess the other way to do this would be to formally divert trains by way of a special working timetable as happens for engineering works most weekends. Overall I think this removal of the Olympia service is a poor plan and will play havoc with driver route knowledge retention which is already an issue for the Olympia branch.



To put this into context there are very, very few days where a spare driver remains that all day. For a start the number of spare drivers across the day has reduced sharply and the loss of one running turn may well require at least two spare drivers, as the start and finish times of the spare drivers will rarely match the start and finish times of the uncovered duties. There is also a matter of spare drivers at one depot having to cover work at another depot. For instance today Earls Court was short of drivers all day and thus borrowed two spares from Barking and, I believe one or two from Upminster. Acton Town were also short and borrowed the remaining one from Barking. Barking were short later and borrowed one from Upminster and one from Hammersmith. These spare duties having to be constructed so after doing some work at, say Earls Court, the driver still has to have a meal relief and get back to Barking to cover more uncovered work there. Also some reformation and diversion of the train service by the Service Controllers is still necessary to get this to work and even despite this Barking, Earls Court and Acton Town still had trains cancelled for short sections of the day (but much shorter than would have been the case without the inter depot co-operation). Or in other words there was very little time available for making any tea (or coffee for Colin ), let alone drinking it!

Now I have been told that Upminster will loose two more spare turns and gain two extra running turns from (I presume) the December timetable, whether this is linked to a provision for sometimes running Olympias I know not, but it would explain a few things, also, there will be another net reduction of drivers across the District Line as a whole. I have no idea where this info derives from however, it is clear some people have seen timetable and roster plans, but I have not, so this is presented as no more than hearsay!!

How was it done in the 50s/60s/70s? I read that H stock was used in the 50s. Was this used on other services when there was no exhibition, or used exclusively for (additionalo) Olympia trains

The R59 stock was built to allow the H stock to be replaced, but was used to enlarge the R stock pool rather than dedicated to any particular service.

You may well be right Colin, I was merely thinking in writing! (though it seems an unprofessional way to go about it and likely to fall foul of assorted agreements).

I have since been told, though still rumour, that the revisions to line staff allocations and spares at Upm is from the May WTT change, so presumably unrelated to Olympias!

As for the traveling pool of S Stock cover operators, they do exist (I'm not sure of exact numbers). The intention is they do not actually operate the S stock, but operate the outgoing stock releasing the establishment operators for training on and operation of S stock. The majority, as you would expect, are on the Metropolitan Line, mostly I think, at Neasden. Their placement into the role being upon terms they can be moved where required for upgrade cover work until they succeed to the top of a waiting list for a permanent depot location (I assume they will then be replaced with a new operator in waiting).

There are (or were) 4 of these upgrade pool operators on the District Line (they are funded from the Operational Upgrades budget rather than the line) and they nominally allow for the permanent release of the lead S stock Instructor from each depot for project and implementation work. HOWEVER the District Line in it's wisdom has elected to allocate all four of them to Acton Town for coverage reasons and issues have occurred when local managers then forget that they, none the less, have to release the lead I/Ops under this arrangement, conveniently forgetting that the line has a funded replacement for them!! I gather one of the pool of 4 has been recalled to the Metropolitan Line, though again I know not if this was due to getting a permanent depot position, if they were replaced or simply a matter of greater need.

The Circle and Hammersmith & City also have (3 ?) of the upgrade pool operators and again I think they were not distributed upon the same basis as the Instructors they release.

Apologies for drifting into some line politics, but it was sort of necessary to explain why the existence of these operators isn't always apparent!

I received an e-mail today from TfL about a consultation. Link: www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/20357.aspx

It involves running extra trains to Wimbledon and Ealing Broadway and cutting weekday services to Olympia, except for special events.

The West London Line is a strategic route that should be much more intensively used, and potential/existing alignments should be safeguarded. That includes the District Earls Court link, even if its value is currently unclear.

Crossrail 1 and 2 and HS2 provide an opportunity for some major changes to routes in west London. Crossrail 2 is likely to take over the District Wimbledon branch. The Bakerloo could also be extended from Queens Park to Kensal and the proposed HS2 station at Old Oak Common, and on to take over the Central branch to Ealing Broadway. This provides an opportunity for a new Central Line extension west from Shepherds Bush, and taking over the District Richmond branch. This provides the capacity to revisit District services to Olympia, and beyond.

I favour extending District beyond Olympia, beneath the WLL through Shepherds Bush, continuing north alongside the WLL to the proposed Old Oak Common HS2/Crossrail 1 station.

Another option is leaving the WLL after Shepherds Bush and taking over the old alignment through East Acton and North Acton alongside the Central, and perhaps sharing the branch to Ealing Broadway.

I am not sure why they are consulting on this now, when they already announced the change several months ago?

There are too many Wimbo train imo, when going to Olympia to see the Nucluer flask train, waiting for a Olympia train to arrive theres a Wimbo train every minute, both westbound platforms often being occupied with a C and a D stock both with Wimbledon as the destination

Olympia service is already a shuttle, OLY-ECT-HSK!

The Olympia shuttle goes to HSK as that's the most convenient reversing facility for it.

Don't think its that much of a must have service at all then, with a Wimbledon bound train every 2 minutes to west brompton, and 5tph from West brompton - olympia

I've never understood this obsession with Wimbledon services at the expense of the Ealing and Richmond branches. Perhaps a number of past and present LT/LU bosses living on the line might explain it?

That will never work. Trains from platform 2 will be forced to go on to the EB track leaving platform 1 causing a massive bottleneck.

This was precisely the strategy employed by BR when they wanted to close a line. The most extreme example I can think of in the London area was the Croxley Green branch - one train per day at around 06.00...