Soon to be reopened waiting rooms at Clapham Junction

[infobleep]

The disused waiting rooms on platforms 13 and 14 at Clapham Junction must be nearing completion and reopening.

I wonder if the occasion will be marked at all. One of the windows has a nice general waiting room engraved into the glass.


Platform 9 and 10 has waiting rooms. Did platforms 7 and 8 ever have any? What about other platforms. Some are too thin to seem likely but what about platform 17?

Here's a couple of photos. I was using my mobile so couldn't get the sign so clear due to the reflections

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[RichmondCommu]

They certainly look very smart.

 

[yorksrob]

Very swish.

It's nice that they've utilised the existing building as well.

 

[infobleep]

No more than Clapham Junction deserves after years of neglect if you take into account the number of people that use it. Clearly it was probably in a better state than other stations, even before they started doing it up.

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[Kite159]

Looks like more chairs are due to go in, back to back down the middle (seems quite wide to me in that picture)

 

[infobleep]

You may be right. Not sure what they have done but it looks fairly similar to the week before when I passed by.

Always surprised that a lot of station work is done at night. You think it might be possible to do more during the day outside of peak rush hour. I don't know about Clapham Junction in particular just a more general point.

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[infobleep]

Some slightly older pictures. Taken within the last month or so. Same waiting rooms.

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[Timothy Turtle]

Excellent. Not before time!

 

[Lockwood]

That's a load of legroom they've given you.
Grumble grumble poor design grumble custcutting

Joke

 

[CapitalStar378]

Love the window detail, not sure why there's so much room in the middle though, ballroom dancing space maybe?

 

[Kite159]

Love the window detail, not sure why there's so much room in the middle though, ballroom dancing space maybe?

Strictly Clapham Dancing, the latest spin-off from hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, featuring such Z list celebrities as that bloke who used to play for England back in the late 90s

 

[theageofthetra]

Without toilets I suspect it won't be long before the inevitable problem occurs

 

[ffm]

Just how long does anyone ever need to wait at Clapham Junction?!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There are destinations outside London from Clapham Junction that are only served every hour or every half hour. Not everyone at Clapham Junction is heading for Victoria or Waterloo

And there are also local commuter trains that don't have toilets in, so you have to go at the station if you need to go.

Having said that, I'm not sure exactly what stops at platforms 13 or 14 so it's possible my remarks don't apply to those platforms.

 

[swt_passenger]

There are destinations outside London from Clapham Junction that are only served every hour or every half hour...

Having said that, I'm not sure exactly what stops at platforms 13 or 14 so it's possible my remarks don't apply to those platforms.

P13 is the 'Southern' down fast. As you say there are plenty of longer distance hourly destinations, such as Portsmouth or Southampton via the Arun Valley.

P14 however is up slow towards Victoria, so as suggested no-one will really need a waiting room.

So probably best to think of it as being provided mainly for P13 users.

 

[Kite159]

There are destinations outside London from Clapham Junction that are only served every hour or every half hour. Not everyone at Clapham Junction is heading for Victoria or Waterloo

And there are also local commuter trains that don't have toilets in, so you have to go at the station if you need to go.

Having said that, I'm not sure exactly what stops at platforms 13 or 14 so it's possible my remarks don't apply to those platforms.

Remember to take your 30p for the loos

 

[bronzeonion]

Liking the moquette seats and the window stuff, well done SWT

 

[infobleep]

Platform 9 and 10 cover stopping services to Waterloo and fasts down to Portsmouth and the west. With an hour 25 minute gap between any fast service heading south in the evening full stop, I think that waiting room is well used. Was the one day I got stuck there. Not sure what people did before it was opened. Platforms are not the warmest places.

The newer waiting room on platforms 13 and 14 doesn't need to cater for such things. However I'm sure it will have a coffee shop like the other one does, which customers will find useful.

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[Minstral25]

The newer waiting room on platforms 13 and 14 doesn't need to cater for such things. However I'm sure it will have a coffee shop like the other one does, which customers will find useful.

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Platform 13 serves Southern coastal services and outer suburban - so there are plenty of 30 minute and hour gaps to destinations. It is cold and often wet on the platforms so the waiting rooms will be nice in the winter although I'd like some seats on the end of the platform too for nice days.

 

[swt_passenger]

Platform 13 serves Southern coastal services and outer suburban - so there are plenty of 30 minute and hour gaps to destinations. It is cold and often wet on the platforms so the waiting rooms will be nice in the winter although I'd like some seats on the end of the platform too for nice days.

I assumed infobleep must have skimmed past the post on the previous page when I wrote much the same...

 

[infobleep]

I assumed infobleep must have skimmed past the post on the previous page when I wrote much the same...

I did actually read your post. I was thinking more along the lines of there isn't an almost 1 hour 30 period where no trains stop. I guess waiting almost an hour for your service is almost as bad so I'll take back what I said.

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[mirodo]

Not sure when it opened, but the waiting room was in service last night. No extra sets of seats down the middle, so still plenty of room for cat swinging/ballroom dancing.

 

[Chrisgr31]

Liking the moquette seats and the window stuff, well done SWT

Is it Southern or SWT who are doing these works?

Southern definitely doing lots of "improvement" works at East Croydon.

 

[infobleep]

Photos from inside the waiting room earlier this evening. Like I believe the waiting rooms of platform 9 and 10, the room opened before the coffee area opened. I assume they will be building a coffee bar. Would make sense, rather than just leaving it closed off.

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[HowardGWR]

The PIS boards seem a bit daft - a whole wide column for 'operator' which was all 'Southern'. Why not 'how late?' instead?

 

[infobleep]

To be fair, three stations had please enquire. I think the times actually include the delays so what you don't see if the time the train should have arrived, which is fine as long as it leaves at the time started or later and not earlier. By earlier I mean not made up the lost time and actually left on time. That is unlikely though.

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[swt_passenger]

I think they'll be displaying a subset (P13 only) of the main A-Z displays where having the TOC shown is of slightly more relevance. As infobleep suggests the A-Zs only show the expected time, not the 'timetabled time'.

There are still many other types of displays that will show delay info in the normal way at Clapham Jn, these above are not the sole source of info.

The 'please enquire' on the A-Zs usually means that there is no direct service for a while, for example (at the snapshot in time shown) there is no Warblington train between 1708 and 1841, so they are suggesting you find someone who can explain the connections.

 

[infobleep]

You get a lot more repeats of the please enquire late at night. Then I think the response might be not how to reach your destination but to advise you there are no services until later than morning or next day. Lol.

I think you may also get it on the South West Trains boards during the evening peak rush hour, for all the destinations not served by direct trains. I don't know how long the gap has to be between trains for a please enquire to be shown.

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[HowardGWR]

I would have thought it better to shew the timetabled time of departure and the expected departure time. When I change at Clapham Junction, I am going to Gatwick, and I want to know which is the correct train i am after and not the end destination of it. The timetabled time of departure gives me that reassurance and especially when you sometimes need to go to the back of the train or the front depending which bit is to be abandoned to another direction, along the way!

That's something else by the way. They say 'train divides at.....' as though the typical pax would know whether that was beyond his destination (thus doesn't matter which bit you climb into) or otherwise.

Not everyone is a railway anorak.