How should the planned £50m be spent to improve Euston?

[Bletchleyite]

You don't get much on the railway for £50m. But how could it be spent?

As this is principally making available trains that have been sat there all along "Preparing", but in fact have blow all going on, one wonders just what the money for this will be spent on.

For Avanti one challenge for this is having enough gateline staff to deal with boarding, given that they still use humans to do this rather than a gateline (aside from P1-3)*. One way money could be spent to enable this would be rejigging the station to have a central gateline, or at least one per platform group, thus only requiring one or two people to supervise each rather than a whole revenue squad per boarding train. It would also reduce fare dodging on WMT trains - again this must be the only London terminus where open boarding is routinely available to commuter services (aside from 8-11 and the odd revenue block).

Having the toilets inside would also no doubt improve their condition by reducing misuse and vandalism.

I don't think it would be difficult or problematic just to put a gateline straight across under the departure board to be honest, and that would cover all platforms.

* Is this unique in the UK now? I think it might be. There are open stations e.g. Preston, but none of them have routine boarding checks done by humans for every train near enough.

 

[Sorcerer]

If dealing with the present station as it is now with no prospect of a rebuild, I would definitely say that the separation of inflowing and outflowing passengers through new entry and exits is a must. As it stands now the concourse is already rammed with people looking up at the boards waiting for their departure announcement, so having incoming passengers pour through here and creating even more overcrowding and flooding the bottlenecks of the platform ramps is an immediate matter that needs addressing. King's Cross got this principle right with it's separate departure concourse, and if I'm not mistaken, St Pancras too with it's Eurostar arrivals and departures.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If dealing with the present station as it is now with no prospect of a rebuild, I would definitely say that the separation of inflowing and outflowing passengers through new entry and exits is a must. As it stands now the concourse is already rammed with people looking up at the boards waiting for their departure announcement, so having incoming passengers pour through here and creating even more overcrowding and flooding the bottlenecks of the platform ramps is an immediate matter that needs addressing. King's Cross got this principle right with it's separate departure concourse, and if I'm not mistaken, St Pancras too with it's Eurostar arrivals and departures.

You could certainly do that at Euston by having a single gateline with entry gates on the left (facing the board) and exit gates on the right. Most outflow is to that corner where the Tube and buses are and it would aid it in keeping that area clear as people would prefer to wait nearer the gates.

As part of that I'd get rid of the mezzanine stairs that block that flow slightly and move them elsewhere - the middle of the concourse running sideways may be sensible. Maybe even consider an up-only escalator to encourage people to go up there out of the way (they can come down the stairs by the booking office).

Without a rebuild it would be very hard to do any more than that - you'd certainly be needing more like £500m, not £50m. The exit to the street out of the side gate from P16 was an annoying loss (commuters liked that one and were cross when it was closed during the Olympics due to tighter security, but was reopened afterwards) but that was only useful for one platform.

 

[pr1]

@Bletchleyite , I'd echo your post and rethink the ticket hall. It's size and shape doesn't fit modern expectations. If they are to find space for seating, put it there (with  actual plugs, and decent departure screens in  clear view).

 

[Bletchleyite]

@Bletchleyite , I'd echo your post and rethink the ticket hall. It's size and shape doesn't fit modern expectations. If they are to find space for seating, put it there (with  actual plugs, and decent departure screens in  clear view).

Indeed. A much smaller ticket office and bank of TVMs would be fine now. That could be in a corner of the existing area with the rest as seating, or it could be elsewhere. If you weren't going to do a single gateline one of the tunnel side retail units could probably be converted to something similar to that at New St, though if you were going to do a single gateline it would probably need to be where it is now, just reduced in size.

As a further alternative you could distribute TVMs around the station rather than a bank in one location, I suppose.

 

[alf]

Make Euston an easier station to get to & from by reinstating the pedestrian tunnel that was apparently one third built to connect Euston Square & Euston Underground stations.
They cancelled the one benefit for all Londoners from the HS2 project when it’s expenditure hugely ballooned & scared the Government.
It would have provided an easterly exit from the circle line, spreading the load on the trains, & allowed fast non ticket gate acccess between the northern & circle line stations.

 

[Sorcerer]

You could certainly do that at Euston by having a single gateline with entry gates on the left (facing the board) and exit gates on the right. Most outflow is to that corner where the Tube and buses are and it would aid it in keeping that area clear as people would prefer to wait nearer the gates.

As part of that I'd get rid of the mezzanine stairs that block that flow slightly and move them elsewhere - the middle of the concourse running sideways may be sensible. Maybe even consider an up-only escalator to encourage people to go up there out of the way (they can come down the stairs by the booking office).

Without a rebuild it would be very hard to do any more than that - you'd certainly be needing more like £500m, not £50m. The exit to the street out of the side gate from P16 was an annoying loss (commuters liked that one and were cross when it was closed during the Olympics due to tighter security, but was reopened afterwards) but that was only useful for one platform.

To be honest, part of me doesn't want to implement gatelines because in a station like Euston they seem like the sort of thing that would disrupt the flow of passengers. I actually like the idea of demolishing the ticket hall and expanding the concourse floor with just a simple ticket office and a few machines. I wondered if maybe any previous space beneath the concourse that could be converted into a dedicated exit pathway existed.

 

[Krokodil]

* Is this unique in the UK now? I think it might be. There are open stations e.g. Preston, but none of them have routine boarding checks done by humans for every train near enough.

Does Man Picc still have a mixture of automatic and manual checks for different platforms (albeit you can go between them once through)?

 

[Harpo]

the separation of inflowing and outflowing passengers through new entry and exits is a must.

Exactly what I was thinking. However, it would halve the footfall of the retail outlets so we know it can’t happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does Man Picc still have a mixture of automatic and manual checks for different platforms (albeit you can go between them once through)?

Ah yes, I forgot that nonsense. I reckon GBR will fix it fairly sharpish, just requires a run of about 5 more gates.

 

[Kite159]

Ah yes, I forgot that nonsense. I reckon GBR will fix it fairly sharpish, just requires a run of about 5 more gates.

Isn't the nonsense at Manchester getting fixed at some point (I seem to recall reading about it a few months ago when it was announced that more stations were getting ticket barriers like Manningtree). Hopefully GBR will resolve the issue with one set of gates being managed by TPE, another set being managed by Avanti with Northern having staff doing manual checks, to get rid of the stupid situation where the "Avanti" gates are in use but the "TPE" gates are wide open.

 

[ScottGallagher]

Indeed. A much smaller ticket office and bank of TVMs would be fine now. That could be in a corner of the existing area with the rest as seating, or it could be elsewhere. If you weren't going to do a single gateline one of the tunnel side retail units could probably be converted to something similar to that at New St, though if you were going to do a single gateline it would probably need to be where it is now, just reduced in size.

As a further alternative you could distribute TVMs around the station rather than a bank in one location, I suppose.

The gateline idea is really interesting but would ideally need all the kiosks currently there like Burger King to close and relocate to stop congestion and still have room for assisted travel buggys, perhaps to part of the ticket hall area like a mini food court , which used to exist!!

 

[mmh]

Is this unique in the UK now? I think it might be. There are open stations e.g. Preston, but none of them have routine boarding checks done by humans for every train near enough.

Avanti usually do at Glasgow Central. It would be horrendous if they didn't.

 

[MontyP]

Avanti usually do at Glasgow Central. It would be horrendous if they didn't.

Not sure what you mean - in my experience, Avanti never check tickets before boarding at Glasgow Central. It would be horrendous if they did, there is so often a minimal turnaround due to late arrival of the inbound. Boarding often isn't opened until 5 mins before departure