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Olympic Road Race Spectating

by notfastenough
Tue, Jul 17, 2012 12:33
3

Right, so my missus and I are going to travel down from Manchester to watch the road race fly past in a blur of colour (why do we bother?!) on Saturday 28th. My wife's family are in Putney, so we are going to watch it on Putney high street just after the start (10:10am-ish) and go back at their place for some lunch and to see Cav cross the line with him arms in the air a few hours later (ahem - fingers crossed). So:

1. Catch 5:55am train from Manchester to Euston, then brave the tube - northern line southbound to Embankment, then District line westbound to East Putney.

2. Curve ball - go southbound on the west-coast mainline to Reading, then change and head East - to where? - in the hope of avoiding the busiest bits of London.

3. Some other way?

We're not intending to go down the night before for cost reasons. Plan to catch the homebound train by about 6pm-ish.

Need to aim to be in Putney by about 9am-ish I think.

Help from the seasoned city commuters would be appreciated!

Thanks.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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3 comments

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Simon_MacMichael | 12 years ago
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Reading - avoid at all costs, they're remodelling the whole route round there, doesn't look like there are planned engineering works that day but still liable to delays - also it's not WC Main Line, it's Cross Country, so slower and easy to get a delay on those (voice of experience - ex-Oxford to Birmingham commuter). Not sure you'd get to Reading by the time the race was leaving London anyway 3

Anywhere on the District Line is going to be rammed, and slow. You have alternatives. Instead of changing at Embankment for District, stay on to Waterloo and get train to Putney Station? Trains also likely to be busy but quicker than tube and start at Waterloo. They're frequent too, and SW Trains are used to dealing with the big traffic flows for eg Twickenham rugby.

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notfastenough | 12 years ago
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Right, just went onto the trainline and after some fumbling around, came up trumps with a saturday day travelcard - return journey plus tube zones 1-6 for £74 for the two of us. Assuming we actually manage to get there(!)*, I reckon that's a really good price.

* General games-related travel shenanegins notwithstanding

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homercles | 12 years ago
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I suspect there's no great answer to this as everywhere could well be carnage.

RE: 1, I think Northern Line going to Embankment is probably a decent call as Victoria (alternative option) could be mobbed with people heading out to the race area in Surrey.

RE: 2, you could go to Reading and then get a train to Twickenham/ Richmond, then change to Putney, but it's not that quick (c.1hr Reading to Rich) and Twick/ Richmond are also likely to be very busy as are on the ride route too.

I think 1 is probably safest - the biggest nightmare will probably be the final half mile walking from Putney Bridge/ East Putney station as crowds on the street will no doubt be huge.

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