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

I remember posts here from 2005-2008 where a large number opined that
the task was impossible, the venues would never be completed on time
and various events would need to be outsourced to France. Indeed,
unless my memory is failing me a narrow majority predicted some kind
of disaster.

The budgets, inevitably, were and are full of smoke and mirrors, with
some pretty horrific gross sums being bandied around that conveniently
ignore present and future tangible benefits, let alone the intangible.
So very much like the question of our EU membership then, but with
added happiness and without a camp song contest to endure.

Given the hundreds of millions watching worldwide, there will surely
be a large number who add London/Britain to their 'bucket lists' off
the back of what they've seen. They may not visit this year or next,
but visit they will, and surely that's a big win - investing to
maintain London's aura and reputation as one of the top five world
cities. And of course, at a commercial level we have demonstrated we
can deliver, in all respects, and there must be great value in a
reputation as a reliable counter-party when contracts are let. But all
of this is impossible to quantify.

The venues and park looked wonderful without exception, and I was
reminded - during the road cycling - of the beauty of the Surrey
Hills.

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.

(Contrary to my preconceptions of what would happen, Southern actually
tightened up enforcement of First Class, with RPIs checking tickets
between London and East Croydon on three days of the eight I
travelled, and throwing out a group for having Standard tickets, or
for being visibly French, or both. Had they sold lots of FC Olypmic
tickets and wished to avoid complaints?)

On the roads, my bus trips (Ludgate Circus to London Bridge,
generally) were barely impacted, and expectation management allowed
the capital to work around the ORN.

Regarding the ORN, Stagecoach had pulled in vehicles from far afield
to service the media and other participants, with some Fife buses seen
plus a few from Eastbourne not on the usual run to 'Willingdon -
Trees' that I'm familiar with. I did note that many of these buses
seemed to have only two or three pax on board which seemed a bit of a
waste, although perhaps some were basically 'ECS' runs, and had been
busy in the other direction.

Would October be a good time to buy a lightly used BMW 320d?

Generally the ORN was getting more use than I expected, but no ZILs to
be spotted.

I gather from t'internet and Twitter that many TOCs went to some
lengths to ensure last trains/connections were delayed to accommodate
over-running events, and locally my branch connection at Lewes was
held on a couple of occasions where in other circumstances it would
have been waved away.

A third class 460 (007) was re-deployed on GatEx to enable doubling-up
of 442 worked services. Will there ever be enough serviceable 442s to
see-off the 460s permanently from the Brighton mainline?

I avoided the Tube as far as possible but didn't hear any horror
stories, even from the Jubilee line which I had thought would prove a
weak link, as it does for most of the year.

I read this morning (Sunday Times) that the Aussies actually had more
state funding in place for their Olympic team than we did, which casts
new glory on our spectacular medal achievements. And well done John
Major for the National Lottery and the support that has bought for our
teams - another proposition that was ridiculed by the sceptics at the
time, of course.

The newspaper also reminded me that the advice of civil servants to
Tessa Jowell back in 2002 was not to put in a bid. Can we imagine any
circumstances in which the civil service (upper echelons) would favour
doing anything that might involve a bit of risk or some extra work?
Well, he gets a very bad press although I've always admired him (much
better than both successors), so well done to Tony Blair (and Dame
Tessa) for over-ruling the do-nothing 'management of decline'
merchants and mounting a successful bid that started it all.

One of my biggest regrets is that I persuaded myself that short term
issues at work and home would make volunteering too much of a
challenge. Looking back at what others have done over the last few
weeks, from the strange magic of the Torch Relay to the army (and the
real army....) of smartly dressed helpers all over London, I realise
how pathetic that was and is, and that I too was amongst the
do-nothing brigade. And aside from the great joy at our national
success, I suppose that's the lesson I'll take away from London 2012.

I'm sure there are many on here who did volunteer, or who worked long
hours in planning the transport arrangements, so well done to you all
- it was brilliant.

Chris

"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.

The one blot was the awful "empty seats". The IOC need to sort this out
(IMHO National Associations should "use them or lose them", in following
games, as "on the day" is impractical), but with a (what I suspect is an
increasing) trend to award major events to developing countries that are
difficult for long distance tourists to attend we are going to see stadia
filled by giving tickets away (Beijing style) than from genuine local
demand.

tim

In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?
--
Roland Perry

In article , Roland Perry
scribeth thus
In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?

For various reasons I wasn't able to see the end on TV but it would
indeed be very surprising if there were deliberate empty seats. If I'd
have been able to get a seat, thats assuming that they weren't out of
this world priced, I'd have gone and I'm not that interested in sport
but seeing it was for a lot a once in a lifetime event?..

Still London you did very well with it came to it in fact It seems that
we're having an end of party blues today and I'd never though I'd say
this but I reckon we'll miss it now its over!".

It's overall been very enjoyable....

--
Tony Sayer

"tony sayer" wrote in message ...

In article , Roland Perry
scribeth thus
In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?

For various reasons I wasn't able to see the end on TV but it would
indeed be very surprising if there were deliberate empty seats.

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

Apart from the tiny percentage of people who, for whatever reason [1], can't
make it on the day having bought a ticket.

The main reason for the empty seats is that a large percentage are given
away free to sponsors and national (as in "other nations") Olympic and
sports organisations. Of course, if you are offered a free seat you don't
think too hard about how you might use it, so you say yes even if you do
have no real use for it.

Like I said in my first post. These people should be told "once having
taken it, you use it or you done get offered it again" (for all future
games).

tim

[1] the like stupid pillock who drove 200 miles to opening ceremony to find
that they had left their tickets at home - ouch

On 2012\08\13 09:58, tim..... wrote:

The main reason for the empty seats is that a large percentage are given
away free to sponsors and national (as in "other nations") Olympic and
sports organisations. Of course, if you are offered a free seat you
don't think too hard about how you might use it, so you say yes even if
you do have no real use for it.

Like I said in my first post. These people should be told "once having
taken it, you use it or you done get offered it again" (for all future
games).

I met one of the "Olympic Family" who had use of the free BMW "taxis"...
his reason for being one of the lucky few was that he used to work for
the IOC until 12 years ago. Nice enough guy, but it's appalling that the
road network of an entire city was completely buggered up just to let
people who used to work for the IOC in the last millennium whizz about.

In particular, all four routes south from the Trafalgar Square area have
been shut to cars and taxis from 6am to midnight every day, meaning
anyone trying to get from the west end to most of south London faces an
impenetrable two-mile east-west scar in London's road network from Hyde
Park Corner to the eastern end of Aldwych. To help visualise this, you
can't cross the blue line in this map in a southward direction (apart
from a few unimportant culs-de-sac) that don't help you get to south
London).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=...via=1&t=m&z=14

I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks as he looks down from his column at
what is being wreaked upon the British by our own government just to
help foreigners whizz about our capital.

The main reason for the empty seats is that a large percentage are given
away free to sponsors and national (as in "other nations") Olympic and
sports organisations.

The various sporting associations are allocated seats so their
officials (mostly volunteers) and competitors can get to see some of
the Olympics as well.

Obviously, at the start of the games, many of those are still busy
with their own events but, as the games progress and many of the early
events are concluded, they can find time to take in the rest of the
games and the problem of empty seats is then lessened.

On Aug 13, 10:43*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:26:41 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?

Given the BBC were assuming it would be finished by 2315 and it
actually finished about midnight I am not entirely surprised some
people were nervous about last trains given ti was Sunday service.
There was a TfL Travel Alert to advise Tube, DLR and Overground
services would run later with times of last departures. I didn't see
an equivalent notice from National Rail.
--
Paul C

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.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:58:33 -0700 (PDT), Stephen Furley
wrote:

On Aug 13, 10:43*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:26:41 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?

Given the BBC were assuming it would be finished by 2315 and it
actually finished about midnight I am not entirely surprised some
people were nervous about last trains given ti was Sunday service.
There was a TfL Travel Alert to advise Tube, DLR and Overground
services would run later with times of last departures. I didn't see
an equivalent notice from National Rail.
--
Paul C

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.

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.

In message , at 14:20:46 on
Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Recliner remarked:

Apparently the main delay with the closing ceremony is that the
thousands of athletes took much longer to file into the stadium than
anticipated

No-one involved in the ceremony seemed to have any ID showing. Did they
have some sort of screening that assumed that once people were judged
safe to be inside the perimeter, you could trust them to behave
themselves where they went afterwards?
--
Roland Perry