Contrasting Wembley Park and Cardiff Central stations

I went to watch the New Zealand vs Argentina Rugby World Cup game at Wembley Stadium on September 20th. The crowd was nearly 90,000 and I was seated at the end of the stadium furthest away from Wembley Park tube station. I watched the whole game leaving at the final whistle. I walked out of the stadium and saw Wembley Way was full of people, but we kept moving all the time. I couldn’t believe how many people were going into this station. I passed two lines of stewards with Stop/Go signs, but they were showing the ‘Go’ sign so I carried on, heading up the steps and into the station along with a vast amount of people. I was catching a Jubilee line train into London and the platform was relatively clear. A train pulled in I got in and sat down as did most people. A few people were standing but there was no crush. I was in central London 40 minutes after the game finished. At no time had I waited other than for the train to arrive.

I contrasted this experience with the previous day, travelling from Bristol to Cardiff to watch Ireland vs Canada, again a Rugby World Cup game, attended by 68,500. There was horrendous congestion on Bristol Temple Meads station; it seemed like the train company hadn’t realised there was a game on in Cardiff and that the hundreds of people in green rugby jerseys were all going to the same place. The train was packed, hot, and arrived around 40 minutes late into Cardiff. Coming back after the match , the organisation at Cardiff was awful. Different destinations had different queues. Thankfully the weather was fine and there was no rain. I thought I would wait for the crowds to subside, so I sat in a cafe for an hour and then had a walk around Bute Park. Four hours after the match finished, I arrived at the station to find a massive queue for Bristol Temple Meads. Water and thermal blankets were being handed out. The authorities were only allowing one set of passengers, for a particular destination, in to the station at a time, so it took a further two hours of waiting before we were allowed to enter Cardiff Central and board the train to Temple Meads. Passengers for Birmingham, South Wales, and London had long since departed. The Bristol train arrived at 23:06 although the scheduled time was 20:48. I had arrived back in Bristol 7 hours after the final whistle.