Steve Fitzgerald wrote:
In message op.timxylk9m4iaeb@dell, Fig writes
On Tue, 07 Nov 2006 04:19:27 -0000, John Rowland
wrote:

Dave Arquati wrote:

I dug around on the LU intranet today to answer my own question, and
uncovered the exciting life of Olympia trains... it turns out that the
first pair head out from Ealing Common depot each morning to High St
Ken and do some shuttling (with gaps in the morning peak when they
dive off to run a couple of extra Wimbledon HSK services), then
one of them disappears off to Ealing again whilst another one comes
from Ealing to replace it. They carry on all day, until one runs the
only through Olympia service of the day to Upminster, and the other
goes to HSK and then sneaks off to Ealing depot. The careful balance
of life on the District line is restored when the Upminster one heads
over to Ealing in the morning and then forms that replacement service
after the AM peak.
I suppose if the same trains were constantly shuttling back and forth,
they'd suffer from the uneven wheel wear problem that Circle line
trains would get if they didn't get reversed at Aldgate East every so
often.

Nothing you have described above reverses the trains.

I don't believe Dave said they were reversed. He stated that the
timetable prevents a problem similar to that effecting Circle line
trains if they [the Circle line trains] are not reversed.

Which never happens to Circle line trains in reality anyway.

The trains are part of a combined Hammersmith & City, Circle and
District (WimbledonEdgware Road) fleet and are used interchangeably.
The diagrams that these trains follow ensure that each train does a good
mix of work and ends up where it is required - for example (and this one
may or may not happen in real life, but shows how these things work) a
typical train may well leave Barking sidings, go to Hammersmith, back to
Edgware Road, do clockwise Circles during the day, then reverse at
Edgware Road about 1800 to Hammersmith, Whitechapel and then back to
Hammersmith to depot. The next day it would do something totally
different and may not even see a Circle trip.

The reason that the District train heads off to Upminster is again so
that stock is balanced as required and also because Upminster do certain
types of maintenance that Ealing Common doesn't. It also may well be
that the driver's duty is the second half of an Upminster duty and thus
gets the driver back 'home' too.

Is the uneven wheel wear problem a bit of a myth then?

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London