What he said. Sometimes, they'll put two trains in a platform. It may be because there's no space, or because a train is dividing into two portions. So they use F to denote the front portion and R to do denote the rear portion. At the station, it will say something like "Front 2 carriages" or "Rear 3 carriages" on the boards to advise that this is the case.
It's actually very common in Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central; busy terminal stations where trains do join and divide quite a lot throughout the day. I'm sure it's commonplace elsewhere as well.
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Hi, I've never seen that when I've been in Waverley - the CIS tends to show 'FRONT TRAIN' or 'REAR TRAIN' to denote which train goes where
The only lettered platforms are 8E, 9E, 8W, 9W
They may show F and R on Live Departure Boards, but you're right. Edinburgh Waverley tends to say "Front/Rear x coaches". Furthermore, they tend to only announce one train on a platform at a time in Edinburgh. So a train leaving an hour away may have a platform assigned, but one leaving in 20 minutes may not yet because another train is currently using the platform. Of course, if there's two in quick succession they've got little choice but to announce them both simultaneously. On the other hand, Glasgow Central announces trains as they become available regardless of how many are in the platform, so you'll often get two trains boarding at the same time which can cause confusion. I've even seen them use "middle 3 coaches" once or twice on the Ayrshire/Inverclyde platforms.
Interestingly, at Sheffield, 3A effectively means "rear of Platform 3" and 3B effectively means "front of Platform 3". Same for P4. I've always thought that was a weird way of doing it.
