On 13/08/2012 14:20, Recliner wrote:

Yes, it over-ran quite a bit, just like the opening. Apparently the
main delay with the closing ceremony is that the thousands of athletes
took much longer to file into the stadium than anticipated -- they
were gazing around the stadium and taking pictures while dawdling
along, instead of the brisk jog that the organisers had perhaps
expected of athletes.

Foreigners in London who move slowly in large groups and pause to take
photos of everything. Who would ever predict that such a thing might
happen?

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In message
, at
05:58:33 on Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Stephen Furley
remarked:

I caught the last 45 minutes or so on the BBC website; it was just
about 00:20 when coverage closed but I think events in the stadium may
have finished a minute or two earlier.

The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats
empty. Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving early
to catch a train, rather than never having turned up at all.
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:25:26 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
, at
05:58:33 on Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Stephen Furley
remarked:

I caught the last 45 minutes or so on the BBC website; it was just
about 00:20 when coverage closed but I think events in the stadium may
have finished a minute or two earlier.

The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats
empty. Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving early
to catch a train, rather than never having turned up at all.

Very likely. They probably thought they could beat the crowds by
leaving early, and could still see the fireworks from the station.
Maybe they wanted to miss the speeches, too?

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message
,
at 05:58:33 on Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Stephen Furley
remarked:

I caught the last 45 minutes or so on the BBC website; it was just
about 00:20 when coverage closed but I think events in the stadium may
have finished a minute or two earlier.

The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats
empty. Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving
early to catch a train, rather than never having turned up at all.

One of the aerial shots before the end showed crowds moving outside the
stadium, tending to confirm that.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Roland Perry wrote

The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats empty.
Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving early to catch
a train, rather than never having turned up at all.

We watched more or less the whole thing, and the empty seats weren't
noticeable until the Olympic flame went out. Couldn't quite see people
checking their watches, but I bet some were. Either that or they didn't
like The Who.

On Aug 12, 6:32*pm, "tim....." wrote:
"Chris Read" *wrote in message

...

The transport arrangements specifically (more below) but generally it
was superb, wasn't it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree.

We did get exceptionally lucky with the weather though.

Or... the weather went back to normal for the two weeks of the
Olympics (and better than normal the week before) rather than the
exceptionally poor conditions that dominated the first half of the
summer.

Nick

Turning to transport, this appears to have been impeccably executed.
Rather ignoring general guidance I continued with my daily commute up
from East Coastway to zone 1, and loadings were fairly typical for the
school holidays but with Olympic-going family groups replacing civil
servants and others working from home. The volunteers (and transport
employees) manning every station and almost every significant road
junction did a great job, and the atmosphere was like nothing we have
seen before or are likely to see again, regrettably.


I saw a picture taken by an old mate at Kings Cross tube station (not
sure which line), he said at 0800 on the first Monday morning, and the
platform was empty.

I had 12 days in Weymouth, and so far as I could tell the transport down
there was fine (others have commented on the rail service). Fleets of
buses were available for moving people around, if anything it was
overkill, but imagine the screams had it been the other way around.


Adrian
--
To Reply :
replace "bulleid" with "adrian" - all mail to bulleid is rejected
Sorry for the rigmarole, If I want spam, I'll go to the shops
Every time someone says "I don't believe in trolls", another one dies.

Turning to transport,

I have zero interest in any egg and spoon racing no matter what type
of milk bottle tops are won by each land; I would have preferred to
have fled the country for the entire period, but was not allowed to do
so as I was required to maintain running certain transport assets
through the Stratford area. Because of that, I had to commute into
London every day to normal sites [i.e. not Stratford]. since I can
work flexi time I used peak shoulder and off peak trains whereever,
and avoid normal commuter peaks and egg and spoon created peaks.


On Thameslink, apart from the first Monday morning, every FCC train
was much fuller than usual. For some reason the first Monday was near
deserted - this was the day the media made much of this and they
painted a false picture for the rest of the period. On all other days
morning and evening, off peak trains where I could reasonably have
expected a 319 bay to myself almost all seats were occupied, on peak
shoulder trains where the norm is people sat 2+1 in the 3+2 layout
trains were full and standing. All of Farringdon, SPILL *and* West
Hampstead were very busy, queues to enter and queues to exit; those at
WHP to exit Thameslink caused me to twice miss "connections" on
Overground that in the past 2 years have always made (except when FCC
is late). Off peak 378s on Overground were also standing room where
normally you'd fin a seat if you walked through.

Hammersmith & City Hammersmith branch, north side of Circle, and
Met.City south of Finchley Road full and standing most days, found
crush loads every day. Bakler Street was a nightmare crush and queues
just getting off EB Circle to NB Met or SB Jubilee to WB Bakerloo
every day I had to use that route, and I made sure I avoided the peak
Wembley Park events. Did not myself have to use Paddington only pass
through it but platforms crush and train loading east of there
horrendous all trips.

So my experiences then, apart from just one morning, were not of empty
trains but full trains where part empty ones are the norm, crowded
trains where part full trains were the norm, and all 4 interchanges
used normally crowded slow and extending overall journey time.


--
Nick

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:25:52 -0700 (PDT)
D7666 wrote:
So my experiences then, apart from just one morning, were not of empty
trains but full trains where part empty ones are the norm, crowded
trains where part full trains were the norm, and all 4 interchanges
used normally crowded slow and extending overall journey time.

And thats ignoring 2 major failures of the central line during the fortnight
and that constant huge tailbacks on the A12 and A13 during the morning rush
thanks to the utterly pointless rephasing of the lights on those routes.
Which no doubt won't be changed back until after the paralympics me-too farce
is over.

B2003

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:53:17 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:25:52 -0700 (PDT)
D7666 wrote:
So my experiences then, apart from just one morning, were not of empty
trains but full trains where part empty ones are the norm, crowded
trains where part full trains were the norm, and all 4 interchanges
used normally crowded slow and extending overall journey time.

And thats ignoring 2 major failures of the central line during the fortnight
and that constant huge tailbacks on the A12 and A13 during the morning rush
thanks to the utterly pointless rephasing of the lights on those routes.
Which no doubt won't be changed back until after the paralympics me-too farce
is over.

Ah, Boltar, here's a sign just for you: http://yfrog.com/mg9ybnj