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Victoria Coach Station to Close?

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pitdiver

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The problem with Victoria for those from/to the North is the length of time it takes to get from Golders Green to Victoria especially at peak time. OK you can use Golders Green as an alternate but its not great location to catch a Coach from in terms of facilities or exposure to the elements compared to Victoria.

Couldn't agree more re Golders Green. The facilities there are non existent. But don't forget it's a TfL facility and we know how TfL feel about coaches.
In a similar vein the facilities at the OLD Milton Keynes Coachway were just as dire but a lot better now with the new Coachway. That is if the glass roof isn't falling down!
 
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Busaholic

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Quite!

Remember that Golders Green is just a standard London bus station similar to a number across the capital and it's main purpose is for local bus services. That said, it's not on of the nicer ones of those either!

On the basis of Location, Location, Location it is superb! There aren't actually that many purpose-built bus stations fully accessible to the public within Greater London relative to the number of services, especially right next to a rail or tube station : for every one that has been built over the last couple of decades a similar number have disappeared or been downgraded to bus parking areas.
Although TfL may not consider coach services to be of the highest priority, Golders Green was always an important stop in the heyday of Green Line, which of course prior to 1970 was part of London Transport, and they got the stop nearest to the station entrance I seem to remember.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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On the basis of Location, Location, Location it is superb! There aren't actually that many purpose-built bus stations fully accessible to the public within Greater London relative to the number of services, especially right next to a rail or tube station : for every one that has been built over the last couple of decades a similar number have disappeared or been downgraded to bus parking areas.
Although TfL may not consider coach services to be of the highest priority, Golders Green was always an important stop in the heyday of Green Line, which of course prior to 1970 was part of London Transport, and they got the stop nearest to the station entrance I seem to remember.

I was thinking more of ambience than convenience!
 

Busaholic

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I was thinking more of ambience than convenience!

I do take your point! Bus stations like Golders Green were designed and built in an age when all bus services were operated with a conductor and, in London at least, the buses themselves had no doors, indeed were not allowed to by the Met Police. So any bus parked at Golders Green Station, whether between trips or left there for another reason, could be boarded by passengers, immaterial of whether it was even the next departure on that particular route.
You could get a situation where four different 13 buses were laying over, not in any particular order, and two of them were going nowhere fast, one having been a 'staff cut' at Hendon Garage, whose changeover point it was, and another Hendon bus enjoying a long layover before being curtailed at Baker Street on its next journey. Add in buses from the 2,2A and 2B also sharing the road down to Oxford Street, and a 'free-for-all' occurred when a crew appeared from the canteen, human nature meaning that three of them on a mixture of those routes would often leave almost simultaneously. On one occasion at GG in the 1970s, with the former trolleybus route 260 on a Saturday 24 minute frequency to Hammersmith, only requiring a four bus allocation, three arrived together and, five minutes later, all left together! Having observed their running numbers, I opted for the one which appeared to be running closest to time as being the one most likely to get me to HB, but that was specialist knowledge denied to the general public.
So, what I'm saying in a roundabout way is that, in the past, seats/shelters and precise demarcation lines as to where buses stopped were not as important as they are now. Have to confess I've not been near GG this century so far so couldn't possibly comment as to facilities now.:)
 

Mutant Lemming

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No they don't. Most NX coaches stop at at least one other place in London besides VCS. Heathrow to the West, Golders Green to the North (and Marble Arch for those without luggage in the hold). Many of the services to the South and East have several stops. Megabus seems less keen on having several London stops.

Only a fraction of NX services to/from Liverpool and Manchester call at Golders Green.
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I always got the impression when I worked for TfL that VCS didn't really fit in. ,

TfL have taken on more and more things that 'don't fit in' - like River, PCO, Streets... the underlying factor being that they are transport related.
 

Deerfold

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Only a fraction of NX services to/from Liverpool and Manchester call at Golders Green.

Not as many Leeds ones as there used to be either.

Still, they almost all stop at Marble Arch - and they seem to have removed the no-luggage stipulation (only stop Southbound though).
 

pitdiver

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In my day some services would stop at Marble Arch. We had a few customers who held season tickets who would get on at Marble Arch in the evenings.Always a bone of contention as it was not the most ideal location for coaches to stop.

Tfl don't like coaches as they can't really control them as much as they can some of the areas that they run eg, PCO, Streets, Piers etc. However it is quite correct coaches are another form of transport.
Perhaps one day we may end up with a privately owned Coach Station in London for NX. Like Digbeth. Sorry BCS.
 

Busaholic

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Kings Cross/St Pancras/Euston/Russell Square area would be best imo both for visitors to London and for Eurostar users in the absence of any through trains from beyond London into France for the next twenty years at least. Those desiring Victoria can easily access via the Victoria Line. British Coachways, the mob that attempted to start competition with National Express back in the 1970s had a 'coach station' in Euston Road where the British Library now sits, and the ex-Kings Cross coach station is the site of the Metroline bus garage, I believe.
 

anme

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Surely if you have 4 coach stations N,S,E and W of the city, replacing Victoria Coach Station, the only people with a major disbenefit are those who live in the city itself (which one might suggest would be less inclined to take the coach in the first place).

It would also be a major "disbenefit" (if that's actually a word) to visitors to London, who form a high proportion of coach passengers and who oddly enough don't often include Golders Green on their London itineraries.

I'm not against something that would improve things for coach passengers, but I am against doing this just to make a few very rich people even richer.
 
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pitdiver

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I can remember Two Coach Stations in the Kings Cross Area. One was where the Birch Brothers Coaches would stop for Journeys to Southend I believe and the other was in an old Coal Yard I think under cover. This is where I often caught a coach to Luton Airport.
 

Welshman

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Kings Cross/St Pancras/Euston/Russell Square area would be best imo both for visitors to London and for Eurostar users in the absence of any through trains from beyond London into France for the next twenty years at least. Those desiring Victoria can easily access via the Victoria Line. British Coachways, the mob that attempted to start competition with National Express back in the 1970s had a 'coach station' in Euston Road where the British Library now sits, and the ex-Kings Cross coach station is the site of the Metroline bus garage, I believe.

I'm glad you put "coach station" in quotation marks.

I still remember trying to board a Barton's Service back to Loughborough, whilst dodging the craters and puddles. :roll:
 

Busaholic

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I'm glad you put "coach station" in quotation marks.

I still remember trying to board a Barton's Service back to Loughborough, whilst dodging the craters and puddles. :roll:

I worked opposite it for two years, though it wasn't a 'coach station' for all that time. It was basically a bombsite, of which many still existed in the mid 1970s in central London. Mind you, St Pancras next door wasn't up to much at the time, particularly the parts of it not being being actively used by the railway (i.e. most of it)

Regarding TfL's attitude to coaches, a differentiation has to be made between the scheduled services, mainly National Express, currently using Victoria Coach Station and a few other locations within central London and tour coaches, depositing parties on the Embankment, St Pauls or Park Lane and then needing somewhere to park up for a couple of hours or more. It is these which TfL has great issues with, ones which will probably never be solved to everyone's satisfaction. Then there are the Round London Sightseeing Tours, but that would be another thread!
 
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