Edgware Road to Wimbledon

.....and yes it is historical. In the days of separate railways the District would terminate a High Street Kensington. When Edgware Road was rebuilt to four platforms by the Met to try and resolve overcrowding on the extension line, the service from Putney/Wimbledon was extended, but only the District ran to Wimbledon as it owned the track on some of the route.

The Wimbleware service has only been run using C stock since 1977. Before that the Q stock and latterly the CO/CP stock operated the service.

That doesn't mean it has to be a District line service. LU could have it as a seperate line if they wanted to - the H&C used to be part of the Met.

Oh yes. Wow Baker St jn would have been even busier!

Well, yes it does really. Regardless of which depot supplies the stock (stock being an asset owned by the infrastructure company and supplied to us, the operating company**) the service is staffed and operated as a separate branch of the District Line. If there was room, then the District could choose to use either the C or D stocks to operate the service as it wished - provided that at the start of the day they were furnished with x number of C stocks and returned the same number at the end. Mind you, some of the C stocks supplied do not return to the H&C overnight - they are outstabled at District locations.

The section between High Street Ken and Edgware Road is a bolt on to the purely District section from High Street Ken to Wimbledon, and offers an additional - and valuable - service to the Circle Line on that section.

**This is still more or less the case, even though we are all meant to be one big company again.

There's no point separating it, there would be so much red tape involved. It works fine at the moment imo. It is widely known by most regular travellers that the Wimbleware service is self contained.

The same could be said of the Circle and Northern Lines, but spliting them removes flexibility. I am against a split in the Northern Line.

Isn't the Wimbleware service shown separately on the LU map including at Earls Court?

It may in a few years. With standardised trains there maybe more interworking. Trains will be more easily swapped around.

I think it would help if the C & D stock car diagrams showed the whole of the District Line, a fair bit of confusion seems to be generated by passengers consulting the line diagram and assuming it shows the whole of the line, leaving them to conclude that to get from Fulham Bdy to Victoria, they must change at High Street Kensington ! (R stock used to show all District and Circle til their end, whilst CO/CP used to show both plus the East London, can't remember if they also showed the Met (H&C) bit until their withdrawal.

It would also be useful for C stock District trains that get diverted along the "main" city route. This is another reason in support of not splitting it's identity, at present a C stock train can be diverted to cover a gap on any of the District branches. Even where coverage is theoretically possible, it rarely happens if cross line issues are involved as performance statistics would be affected. ie. I can't say I've heard of a H & C train being diverted at Aldgate East to run to Edgware Road via Victoria to "cover a gap" (as opposed to diverting because of signal problems). or a Whitechapel bound H&C extending to Barking to "cover a gap".

As an aside I don't think the current treatment of the Earl's Court area on the tube map is adequate, in attempting to show the main routings through the area, it gives the impression other routings, that do occur and are timetabled, are impossible. It should settle for all merging into a single green line before and diverging after, as it used to do.

My dad does not really like the Tube at all.
Whenever we are at Earls Court waiting at platform 4 for a train to Wimbledon, he always says "Make the Edgware Road to Wimbledon service a different line. Call it the, I dunno, Wimbledon Line or something"
He also says this whenever trains from platforms 3 and 4 are going to Wimbledon depart Earl's Court simultaneously and the one we are on has to wait for the other to get into West Brompton first.

This is an interesting one. Is there anywhere else on the system where trains can leave for a destination from either of two platforms and regularly the one that leaves first arrives at the next station second ?

I wonder what would have happened if the Piccadilly had been routed to Heathrow and Wimbledon instead of the current routes. I'd love to have seen the Wimbledon folk argue their service should take priority over Heathrow!

Wimbledon gets the best service of all the Western branches. What does Wimbledon get 12-13tph? Ealing/Richmond gets 6tph?

Whilst it does happen, I wouldn't say it happens regularly !
It can equally happen to city bound trains departing from platforms 1 & 2 at Earl's Court.

Other places that spring to mind where it is a possibility are Leytonstone w/b, Wembley Park s/b. Harrow on the Hill ? Ignoring things like two Piccadilly line trains one on the fast and one on the local at various locations !

That dose look like a contradiction doesn't it?! ;D ;D

My point was that Wimbledon passengers complain the loudest yet they do get the better service in comparison to the rest of the District's branches (both east and west ends) despite being only a small part of the line.

Hope that makes more sense?