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Bonus Olympia Trains

S7 at Olympia

So with TfL/LU trying to run down Olympia by stealth, by hardly running any regular trains to it, and making it very confusing to passengers and even train operators when the service is running, it’s intriguing to see some bonus services running there.

Normally there are just 9 trains to/from Olympia, a few services before 7am in the morning, and then two trains in the evening that arrive and then depart.

Until that is, the new S7 stock turned up, and now it seems that Olympia is being used as the turning point for two trains (making regular trips throughout the day) for driver training purposes.

So if you want to get a rare service into Olympia, and on the new S Stock trains as a bonus, the times are (Monday to Fridays only) as follows:

Westbound from Earl’s Court to Olympia at:
11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00, 16:00, 19:37, 21:00, 21:33, 22:59

All trains leave from Platform 3, having come from either Plaistow or Barking, and are scheduled to arrive at Olympia three minutes later. They then wait a few minutes and leave as follows:

Eastbound from Olympia to either Plaistow or Barking at:
10:21, 11:12, 12:21, 13:12, 14:21, 15:21, 19:12, 19:49, 21:21, 21:52

S7 at Olympia

Olympia Map

As Olympia has had quite a re-vamp with the gateline and the new segregated footbridge, we’ve updated the 3D Station Map for the station which now reflects all of this. It will be included in the next version (1.7.1) of Station Master which we submitted to Apple today.

Here’s a sneak preview of what the new Olympia map looks like – Click on the image below for a larger/full size version.

3D Kensington (Olympia) Map

Whilst we were there, we spotted some irregular train service patterns too, but more on that in tomorrow’s post…

3D Maps / Overground / Tube — — 30 Dec 13

Olympia access

New steps at Olympia

Station Master paid a visit to Kensington (Olympia) the other day which we’ve been meaning to for ages since it’s had a facelift, so we’ll have a few posts over the next few days about the station.

The big news from Olympia is that it’s now got a gateline on both exit/entrances! No more ‘we trust you’ touch in oyster pads, but proper gates to control access to the station.

But because people used to use the station as a means of just crossing the line (and not getting on a train), TfL have built a new staircase, and segregated the footbridge over, meaning that if you’re not wanting to jump on a train, you can still ‘access’ the station just to get from one side to the other.

Olympia Footbridge

Accessibility — — 29 Dec 13

New Edgware Road Lifts

Inside Edgware Road Lift

Edgware Road on the Bakerloo Line has been closed for the majority of the year having its lifts refurbished, and with little fanfare the station re-opened on Saturday 21st December.

There are two new modern lifts installed which are clean, fast, and almost noise-less! They’re set to last for at least forty years.

Edgware Road Lifts

Accessibility / Lifts — — 28 Dec 13

Next train indicators on the Piccadilly

This appears to be new … for many months (going into years now), there have been ‘Next train’ Dot Matrix Indicators on the Piccadilly Line up to Rayners Lane, but since the day they were installed they have either never been activated, or just never worked.

(The situation at Ealing Common remains the same – on the eastbound platform, you can hear and then see the train pulling into the station before it even flashes up on the board, and on the westbound platform it often gets out of sync so a District train pulls in and says it’s going to Rayners Lane…)

Until recently, we spotted that the ones at North Ealing are now working! And travelling up the line a little it appears the ones at Park Royal and Alperton are now also in use, but at Sudbury Town and and Hill they are not – still, having them now working at three stations is better than having them not work at all, and maybe it’s a sign that the others will be activated shortly …

North Ealing Dot Matrix Indicator

Good Service / Tube — — 27 Dec 13

New step free access at Paddington

Hammersmith Lift

TfLAccess tweeted yesterday that the new lift at Paddington station (H&C branch) had opened early, so we popped down to go and see where it was.

The lift that takes you down from the canal entrance to ticket hall level has been open for a while, but this is the lift that takes you down to platfom level, and is at the western end of the platform.

Whilst there, we also noticed that all the temporary ‘quick ticket’ ticket machines have now been replaced with more regular/permanent ticketing machines.

Hammersmith Lift SIgn

This lift adds an important step-free station in the north west area of Zone 1 which is otherwise devoid, and with Paddington H&C now being almost totally serviced by S-Stock trains, means that level boarding is now possible too. It therefore should be a blue blob on the tube map, but the latest edition (showing no interchange at Embankment with the Northern and Bakerloo there) does not show it yet.

Accessibility / Lifts / Map — — 24 Dec 13

Secrets of the H&C Line …

Station Master Geoff has been out making videos for Londonist again, and brings us his seventh (out of the eleven lines) instalment of the ‘Secrets of … ‘ tube videos.

Tube / Video — — 23 Dec 13

Firetrap

Idling through the TV channels today, I caught a glimpse of a tube train and what was very clearly an abandoned tube station – but which one? The one that everyone likes to film at nowadays. I’m not rushing out to buy any Firetrap clothes, but I like the video…

Tube — — 22 Dec 13

iOS 7 Version Released

iOS 7 icon

A little early Christmas present for everyone today, as we’re happy to have unleashed the iOS 7 version of Station Master out into the wild.

We think it looks really good, with a lot of visual updates (including a refined, brighter icon) that we’ve done ourselves – not just the ones that you get by making an App iOS 7 compatible in the first place. Have a dig around the menus and get a new look at it all!

There’s a whole new set of added of 3D maps as well; we’ve now got maps for 225 of the 270 tube stations (that’s 83%!), and we really will keep going until every tube station has been mapped out in 3D.

We made our usual data corrections, refinements and additions – new little things and changes keep popping up all the time, and we’ve been been keeping up with them all.

“The Station Master got a make-over recently, and came back with a new iOS 7 style hat and overcoat, and whilst he was at it gave all the stations in London a jolly good polish and dust-down so they look great”.

So download/update, and enjoy the new iOS 7 version!

3D Maps / App update — — 21 Dec 13

St. John’s Mackerel

St John’s Wood

Is Mackerel a Christmas food? It was according to the Christmas party that this Station Master attended last night where this well-known obscurity got trotted out as a Christmas ‘factoid’. And whilst you probably already knew this, it prompted us to do a post on some others like this that are less well known. For example, did you know that …

The only station not containing any letter from BLUEBIRD is ACTON TOWN
The only station not containing any letter from LOBSTER is WAPPING
The only station not containing any letter from A SPIDER is LOUGHTON
The only station not containing any letter from HUMMINGBIRDS is OVAL
The only station not containing any letter from HARE is PIMLICO
The only station not containing any letter from GRIZZLY BEAR is also ST. JOHN’S WOOD !
The only station not containing any letter from A PENGUIN is WOODFORD and the only station containing all letters from A PENGUIN is RUISLIP GARDENS
The only station not containing any letter from A DONKEY is RUISLIP and the only station containing all letters from A DONKEY is HYDE PARK CORNER

Finally, the only station not containing any letter from ELEPHANTS is WOODFORD and the only station containing all letters from ELEPHANTS is of course ELEPHANT & CASTLE

There – try impressing some people with some of those at Christmas parties over the next few days …

Wordplay — — 20 Dec 13

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