Euston departure board to be moved

[Bletchleyite]

This doesn’t help does it. Why is an entire board covering an entire side of the station showing absolutely useless information for 98% of the customers needing … information.

Who controls this stuff and what are they thinking????

Because that side has the highest passenger flow and when it showed departures it caused people to stand blocking it.

 

[modernrail]

Because that side has the highest passenger flow and when it showed departures it caused people to stand blocking it.

Genius! So now you have to fight your way through the crowd to find a spot to do a 180 with your luggage to read one of the inside faces.

It really is a stupid layout. The old board was far superior, even with its older tech.

The board and the decision to remove direct access to the underground are utterly baffling decisions.

Also good to see the supposed extra circulation space created when Boots was taken out has become a car park causing more not less blockage.

Who is doing the planning on all this?? Is it a management consultancy type team or an internal NR team? They appear to be making a right old mess of it all. Euston has never been great to use but at least it has a flow (usually finished with a run). Now it is just an unfriendly, badly staffed mess that requires multiple about turns to get anywhere/get any information.

 

[Trackman]

The board and the decision to remove direct access to the underground are utterly baffling decisions.

The entrance was moved because of the night tube services, before that it was a small door near Sainsbury's which wasn't ideal and not really clearly marked, also passenger control is easier now.

 

[modernrail]

The entrance was moved because of the night tube services, before that it was a small door near Sainsbury's which wasn't ideal and not really clearly marked, also passenger control is easier now.

The night tube operates for a few hours a night a few days a week. This is a main line station.

I really don’t understand why, with all the work they have done, they could not have reconfigured it to include a night tube door where the new exit it and still had main entrance/egress into the middle part of the station concourse. The down escalators are the furthest from the concourse and so they could have directed low number platform passengers into from the left,
From high number platforms, they could have been encouraged to use the new arrangement (out and then back in).

Incoming tube passengers would then be directed up the escalators to the middle of the concourse where the new departure boards are located and so that arrangement would have a chance of being useful.

Instead, incoming tube passengers are now forced out of the station then back in down the sides. 50% plus of those passengers are now deprived of any departure information because they had the audacity to stop to read a badly placed departure board.

I just dropped my sister off for the Glasgow train. I didn’t prompt her. We came out of the underground and she naturally went to the entrance on the low numbered platform side (the natural one to choose because that is a left turn rather than crossing the incoming tub passengers to go to the high numbered side entrance). She had my 5 year old niece and luggage in tow (which I was obviously helping her with). She looked up for the old screens and asked where they had gone. I pointed to the replacements. She saw the super relevant massive screen about engineering works in Anglesey. She said ‘so what am I meant to do if you are not here - fight through that lot with a toddler and a case just to find out where the train is leaving from. That’s ridiculous. Good job I am not in a wheelchair’.

When they turn that big advertising screen on it is going to blind people. It is a hideous size. If they have a load of moving stuff on there it will be even more overbearing and overloading in an already busy environment. It is basically been turned into a badly thought immersive advertising experience rather than the terminus for one of the most important railway lines on the country.

I see they have also allowed the WHOLE the underground entrance to be wrapped in advertising.

The ‘planners’ making Euston ridiculously hard to use excelling at being absolutely ridiculous again today. On the same day Avanti declare they are are receiving telepathic incoming of strange forces acting in a way where they ‘seeing short notice cancellations’, 50% of the now badly placed information output of the companies biggest station is completely dedicated, on a fixed, not rolling basis, to the dreadfully unimportant news to 98% of the station’s users that there is no service between two stations on its least used branch. Never mind letting people know half of all Anglo-Scottish services have been canned at short notice with no alternative provision.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Absolute chaos at Euston today with everyone displaced from yesterday. NR have now resorted to employing shouty men with megaphones to get people to move out of the corridor under the old board which they're standing blocking while looking at the newer ones.

Is this the worst station design failure in the memorable past? When will they realise and reverse it? I note the ad board has still not yet been turned on.

 

[modernrail]

Absolute chaos at Euston today with everyone displaced from yesterday. NR have now resorted to employing shouty men with megaphones to get people to move out of the corridor under the old board which they're standing blocking while looking at the newer ones.

Is this the worst station design failure in the memorable past? When will they realise and reverse it? I note the ad board has still not yet been turned on.

If it is ever turned on I wonder if it will be turned off almost immediately when they realise just how overbearing it is/the complaints start rolling in. I am beginning to wonder if they have already realised that now it is a real thing rather than a drawing on some paper. It is the very last thing that is needed in an already chaotic station.

 

[py_megapixel]

If it is ever turned on I wonder if it will be turned off almost immediately when they realise just how overbearing it is/the complaints start rolling in. I am beginning to wonder if they have already realised that now it is a real thing rather than a drawing on some paper. It is the very last thing that is needed in an already chaotic station.

Much as I dislike them, giant ads are everywhere, including on the railway, so it must be extremely profitable. I can't imagine NR wanting to take it down.

To my mind the most sensible thing - short of ripping everything out and just putting up a set of standard LED matrix displays where the old ones used to be - would be to put the departures on what is to become the ad board and then put ads on what are currently the departure boards, which would at least solve the overcrowding caused by people standing looking at the train information.

Absolute chaos at Euston today with everyone displaced from yesterday. NR have now resorted to employing shouty men with megaphones to get people to move out of the corridor under the old board which they're standing blocking while looking at the newer ones.

Yes, I suppose one of the biggest advantages of the old board - which seems to have been entirely overlooked - was the inability to see it if you went too far forward. This meant that waiting passengers naturally left that corridor area nearest the platforms free for circulation.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Much as I dislike them, giant ads are everywhere, including on the railway, so it must be extremely profitable. I can't imagine NR wanting to take it down.

To my mind the most sensible thing - short of ripping everything out and just putting up a set of standard LED matrix displays where the old ones used to be - would be to put the departures on what is to become the ad board and then put ads on what are currently the departure boards, which would at least solve the overcrowding caused by people standing looking at the train information.


Yes, I suppose one of the biggest advantages of the old board - which seems to have been entirely overlooked - was the inability to see it if you went too far forward. This meant that waiting passengers naturally left that corridor area nearest the platforms free for circulation.

I think it's going to end up a bit like the Microsoft Windows XP, vista, 7 fiasco where the vista UI was atrocious and hated by literally everyone so can we come up with enough of a compromise as to not admit it was a mistake that should never have left the drawing board but also make everyone use it..
I think in the coming years it will slowly revert back but it won't be for a while as there will be some face saving going on

 

[Trackman]

Absolute chaos at Euston today with everyone displaced from yesterday. NR have now resorted to employing shouty men with megaphones to get people to move out of the corridor under the old board which they're standing blocking while looking at the newer ones.

Is this the worst station design failure in the memorable past? When will they realise and reverse it? I note the ad board has still not yet been turned on.

Made me chuckle this, 'Shouty men!'
It's a massive design failure.
OK, Joe Public (sans mobile) walks into Euston - what is the first thing they are going to look at?
Let's say they are awaiting a departure to Birmingham and waiting for a platform number (remember sans phone etc..) are they going to watch the fancy advertising screens or have their eyes glued upon the departure screen?

 

[ScottGallagher]

When travelling from Euston on Monday I saw the replacement board for the first time after bing under wraps and its going to be totally overwhelming for the space, note that there is a JC Decaux logo on it so they will be the owner , so the chances of it becoming a departure board are sadly very slim.

 

[Kenny G]

At Marylebone a couple of days back I used realtime trains to identify our train to the Midlands a good ten minutes before it came up on the screen. The platform info was also shown on Trainline. Paradoxically if people start keeping their eyes on their phones other advertising becomes redundant or needs to be more and more intrusive to compete for "eye time". Perhaps tannoy announcements and shouty men could start with brief advertisements as an additional revenue raiser?

 

[Western Sunset]

.Perhaps tannoy announcements and shouty men could start with brief advertisements as an additional revenue raiser?

Please no...
Though your point about Marylebone is interesting. If info can be provided online before being put up on screens, then maybe a rethink is needed about when info is displayed.

 

[Meerkat]

You know it’s a cunning plan to make us happy to go out to Old Oak Common to catch a train right?

 

[Bletchleyite]

You know it’s a cunning plan to make us happy to go out to Old Oak Common to catch a train right?

It (among other things) has certainly caused me to tend towards Marylebone!

 

[Benjwri]

At Marylebone a couple of days back I used realtime trains to identify our train to the Midlands a good ten minutes before it came up on the screen. The platform info was also shown on Trainline. Paradoxically if people start keeping their eyes on their phones other advertising becomes redundant or needs to be more and more intrusive to compete for "eye time". Perhaps tannoy announcements and shouty men could start with brief advertisements as an additional revenue raiser?

Worth remembering this is intentional, and happens at the majority of terminuses, to control crowds as trains are not ready to board until they appear on the screens, as are being cleaned, and therefore everyone arriving at the platform before the barriers are open would cause congestion and potentially a crush. The platforms on RealTimeTrains are generally accurate once it says 'At platform', as this is taken from TD data, so means the signaller has interposed the headcode into that platform, however trainline platforms are just the timetabled ones, I'm not sure about Euston but often these can be incorrect for various reasons, especially in disruption.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Plenty of stations where it doesn't happen, and in my observation it's far worse where it does than where it doesn't.

 

[Benjwri]

Plenty of stations where it doesn't happen, and in my observation it's far worse where it does than where it doesn't.

They should be announced earlier than they are in my opinion, but not as soon as they're on the board.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They should be announced earlier than they are in my opinion, but not as soon as they're on the board.

At Euston it'd be possible to have the central area of the ramp as an exit and the platform ones as entrances, allowing it to be shown immediately and people queue on the ramp if they wish.

 

[Western Sunset]

Why can't folks be allowed to wait along the length of the platform whilst the train is being prepped? Should be easier nowadays since all trains have central door locking.

Seems to be all that platform space is just wasted...

 

[jon0844]

Why can't folks be allowed to wait along the length of the platform whilst the train is being prepped? Should be easier nowadays since all trains have central door locking.

Seems to be all that platform space is just wasted...

You could ask people nicely to wait until the train has been cleaned, but they likely wouldn't.

 

[Benjwri]

Why can't folks be allowed to wait along the length of the platform whilst the train is being prepped? Should be easier nowadays since all trains have central door locking.

Seems to be all that platform space is just wasted...

As jon says, people sometimes can't even wait for others to get off the train before they try and push their way on, there's no way they're waiting for cleaning.

 

[Topological]

What cleaning is actually done between trains at Euston?

At the other end of their respective journeys the trains will likely find people on the platform waiting.

I could see why you would not announce the platform for an Avanti train until the arriving passengers have got off. However, it should be possible to announce platforms a lot earlier than they are in normal times.

In disruption there will be fast turnarounds on Avanti that mean there isn't enough time to do anything other than have a scrum, but that case is not going to be the normal.

It would be even better if there was a second route off the platforms for arriving passengers, but I do not think Euston has another bridge/subway that could be used.

 

[Western Sunset]

As jon says, people sometimes can't even wait for others to get off the train before they try and push their way on, there's no way they're waiting for cleaning.

But surely the doors could be kept closed until an appropriate time to let passengers get on. I wasn't envisaging passengers let onto the platform until those arriving got off.

 

[185]

What cleaning is actually done between trains at Euston?

Quite a bit. Seen some trains rock up in a truly shocking state. Railway gets it's moneys worth out of both lots of turnaround cleaners at Euston.

 

[jon0844]

But surely the doors could be kept closed until an appropriate time to let passengers get on. I wasn't envisaging passengers let onto the platform until those arriving got off.

You can't just close the doors - staff would need to walk through to ensure everyone is off. That takes time, and if you lock the whole unit then you now have the issue of how staff can get on and off individual coaches to clean, load trolleys, etc. I doubt it's one cleaner going through 11 coaches.

Not insurmountable but it will add time, which increases turnaround times.

 

[edwin_m]

You can't just close the doors - staff would need to walk through to ensure everyone is off.

You have to do that after an arrival anyway, unless you just let arriving and departing passenger mingle and little to no cleaning is done.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could ask people nicely to wait until the train has been cleaned, but they likely wouldn't.

Train in, lock doors, show platform. It's not hard.

You have to do that after an arrival anyway, unless you just let arriving and departing passenger mingle and little to no cleaning is done.

They manage it fine at Manchester Picc.

 

[Andrew1395]

Slightly off point, but why is there no longer a Euston Summary board for LNR services as you exit the underground barriers? Useful if you normally expect to get your train from the Wood (8-11) so you take the passageway, only to find you now have to go back up to the concourse to platform 7 or 12.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

They should be announced earlier than they are in my opinion, but not as soon as they're on the board.

When I was at Euston most recently, a couple of weeks ago on a normal operating day with no disruption, I noticed the trains were coming up on the small screens at the tops of the platforms some five minutes before they were appearing on the main screens.

 

[Skie]

Train doors usually get locked at Euston whilst cleaners are onboard anyway, so there isn’t anything extra required other than just shifting the ticket checking posse to the platforms a bit earlier and keep them there longer, which I suspect is the real issue.

Calling the train 5 minutes after arrival (and once its driver/crew are accounted for and everything is confirmed as running) would make a massive difference. Might need NR to invest in some more benches though, not at lot of them on the platforms.

Im usually on RTT/Tracksy as soon as I get to Euston and if the train I’m after is in and the barriers are still open, I’ll just make my way onto the platform and wait out of the way (and sight of aforementioned mob) until the hazards go on or if they’re already on I’ll just ask the TM if it’s okay to hop on. Most are fine with it, some ask to wait until it’s called which is fine by me too. Never once been asked to go back and join the scrum.