@DannyWith
You are correct, that changes to the daily timetables (“working timetables”) are done by the line controllers to reflect necessary changes to the timetable to deal with either equipment failure or problems with the permanent way.
This is also combined with a need for the legal interfaces between the various part of the system being able to require payments or refunds based on performance measures.
Also, there are many problems with declaring that a railway station “is closed” which date back to the Victorian Era.
It does seem that this current crisis has required the rules to be … reinterpreted. For example, there has been move to call the tube stations with only lifts that have been closed for a while to be called “closed” rather than “part closed”. The classic example of this is Newhaven Marine station.
So, under normal circumstances, if the W&C was closed due to having no staff to run it, or broken trains (which has happned), then the timetable is still in place, but the service suspended.
At the moment, the whole service has been withdrawn using the powers under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. This is not the normal situations.
Even Google have had to change this databases to deal with this problem…
Currently, the Places API and Places Library, Maps Javascript API in their PlaceResult object return permanently_closed=true in response to: Place Details, Find Place, Nearby Search and Text Search when a business place is temporary or permanently closed.
We have deprecated this property because it does not allow us to distinguish between a place that is closed on a temporary basis and one that is closed permanently.
The property has been replaced by the property business_status with values {OPERATIONAL, CLOSED_TEMPORARILY,CLOSED_PERMANENTLY} , which is returned in response to Place Details, Find Place, Nearby Search and Text Search requests.
So this issue isn’t just restricted to TfL
