Gate lines at Marylebone and Moor Street

[modernrail]

What on earth are Chiltern playing at with the state of the gate lines at Marylebone and Moor Street?

At Moor Street there are just not enough. No where near enough. It must be the worst station in the UK for the time it takes to get through. It is a terminus station and needs about double the gates it has now. Also, only about half of them have barcode readers and so the little capacity there is is then underused. The gate line staff are also overwhelmed. They need at least 1 on ticket duty and 1 on the gateline, but surely 2 on the gateline when the London trains come in.

At Marylebone it seems to be the lack of bar code readers plus not attentive gate staff that is the problem.

Chiltern really need to sort this out. It it a deeply annoying end to what is otherwise not too bad a service.

 

[Russel]

The Moor Street situation is something I noticed not too long ago, I recall being quite frustrated at having to queue to leave as I had a bus to catch from the other end of Moor St Queensway and didn't have a lot of time.

Snow Hill isn't much better, but it is usually a little quieter.

 

[The Planner]

What on earth are Chiltern playing at with the state of the gate lines at Marylebone and Moor Street?

At Moor Street there are just not enough. No where near enough. It must be the worst station in the UK for the time it takes to get through. It is a terminus station and needs about double the gates it has now. Also, only about half of them have barcode readers and so the little capacity there is is then underused. The gate line staff are also overwhelmed. They need at least 1 on ticket duty and 1 on the gateline, but surely 2 on the gateline when the London trains come in.

At Marylebone it seems to be the lack of bar code readers plus not attentive gate staff that is the problem.

Chiltern really need to sort this out. It it a deeply annoying end to what is otherwise not too bad a service.

Where do you put them at Moor St without reducing the circulation area on the concourse? Though they will likely have to move that way if the extra platforms are put in as part of Midlands Rail Hub.

 

[CharlieSpotted]

The last few times I've been through Moor Street or Snow Hill recently the gates have been open anyway! I guess I've been lucky!

 

[Russel]

Where do you put them at Moor St without reducing the circulation area on the concourse? Though they will likely have to move that way if the extra platforms are put in as part of Midlands Rail Hub.

One option is to get rid of the black metal fencing across the bay platforms and the mock GWR hut next to the ticket barriers, this would free up plenty of space for additional barriers, see the below link to a Wiki photo for to reference where I mean.

Looking at the photo, I can also see space to the left of the current ticket barriers where more could go!

Link to photo on Wikipedia

 

[BanburyBlue]

I agree 100% about Birmingham Moor Street. There are what 3 or 4 barriers, and as per the above, not all have eticket scanners. There is plenty of room between the last barrier and platform 2 - all they need to do is remove the railings.

They have plenty more barriers at Snow Hill.

Are Chiltern to blame? Were they in charge of the station when the barriers were put in?

 

[rjennings]

Seeing this thread reminds me there was a planning application submitted for the installation of some more barriers at Birmingham Moor Street;

Online Standard Details

 

[Russel]

Seeing this thread reminds me there was a planning application submitted for the installation of some more barriers at Birmingham Moor Street;

Online Standard Details

The plans look promising as it would more than double the amount of ticket barriers.

 

[RailWonderer]

One option is to get rid of the black metal fencing across the bay platforms and the mock GWR hut next to the ticket barriers, this would free up plenty of space for additional barriers, see the below link to a Wiki photo for to reference where I mean.

Looking at the photo, I can also see space to the left of the current ticket barriers where more could go!

Link to photo on Wikipedia

I used the station two months ago and can attest to the overcrowding. The fencing on the left side by the through platforms could easily be removed and the gateline brought forward and you would double the number of gates. What also doesn't help is the station being located on a street corner, bottlenecking the crowd. When the ticket office gets busy (there is only one) the queue is in the way of people entering and leaving the station. Not ideal for any kind of congestion.

 

[Taunton]

The situation at Marylebone has been longstanding, to the extent that understaffing (especially just after the evening peak) and miscommunication leads to trains not being put up on the board until the last minute, or even more so occasionally, not at all, with them departing from the new remote platforms completely empty - but of course "on time".

 

[150219]

The situation at Marylebone has been longstanding, to the extent that understaffing (especially just after the evening peak) and miscommunication leads to trains not being put up on the board until the last minute, or even more so occasionally, not at all, with them departing from the new remote platforms completely empty - but of course "on time".

Not sure that is entirely accurate!

 

[Mojo]

Marylebone is infuriating because Chiltern seem to use platforms 1-3 as an all day long stabling sidings meanwhile making customers walk half way to/from St John’s Wood whilst they put all trains onto platforms 4-6, often stacking on top of another stabled unit at the buffers. I’ve even had it where one or two of 1-3 are empty and they still insist on using 4-6! This means that most customers are inclined to use the gateline adjacent to the ticket office, causing crowds and queues to enter or exit.

 

[12LDA28C]

The situation at Marylebone has been longstanding, to the extent that understaffing (especially just after the evening peak) and miscommunication leads to trains not being put up on the board until the last minute, or even more so occasionally, not at all, with them departing from the new remote platforms completely empty - but of course "on time".

How does 'understaffing' and 'miscommunication' lead to trains not being posted on the board until the last minute?

This usually happens when one train departs from ahead of another from the same platform, or the incoming train is late, or a train has to be split before it can be posted. All these issues stem from the limited capacity available at Marylebone with only 6 platforms available and a huge increase in passenger numbers over the years.

 

[Mojo]

I agree 100% about Birmingham Moor Street. There are what 3 or 4 barriers, and as per the above, not all have eticket scanners. There is plenty of room between the last barrier and platform 2 - all they need to do is remove the railings.

They have plenty more barriers at Snow Hill.

Are Chiltern to blame? Were they in charge of the station when the barriers were put in?

Yes, Chiltern have managed Moor Street for ages; certainly pre-dating the London Midland franchise as when I moved to Birmingham in the mid-2000s back in the latter days of Central Trains they were the operator.

 

[giblets]

I use Moor st/ snow hill daily, snow hill is not too bad at rush hour, but Moor st is terrible.
This is made much worse when the service is unexpectedly terminated at Moor st (instead of snow hill).

 

[barbette165]

An operational oddity is that on WMR trains arriving at Snow Hill the onboard announcement includes a reminder to have tickets ready to exit through the barriers. This isn’t said as the train arrives at Moor Street. From experience, the gates at Snow Hill are open more often than those at Moor Street

 

[childwallblues]

There is an exit from Platform 1 at Moor Street but if there are no staff there it is not open.

 

[satisnek]

There is an exit from Platform 1 at Moor Street but if there are no staff there it is not open.

I can recall several instances of it being wide open and unattended when I've alighted there in the past, although they may have tightened things up in recent times.

 

[Pdf]

I missed a train at Marylebone last weekend because it took over 5 minutes to get through the gate line.

 

[12LDA28C]

I missed a train at Marylebone last weekend because it took over 5 minutes to get through the gate line.

The gate line at Marylebone has already been extended once, there is literally no space to do that again, sometimes passenger numbers are just too great so I'm not sure what the solution is.

 

[geoffk]

The gate line at Marylebone has already been extended once, there is literally no space to do that again, sometimes passenger numbers are just too great so I'm not sure what the solution is.

Years ago I remember just making a 5 minute connection from Baker Street (Metropolitan Line) to Marylebone.Of course that was when we had open stations. The rest of Europe generally manages to work like this still.

 

[modernrail]

I am sure if the DfT are asked for their idea to solve the problem it will be to remove some of the existing gate line to deal with the parts of the day when there is insufficient demand for gates.

I hope they do take it seriously and find a solution quickly because this sort of thing is rightly a huge annoyance to customers. I had to travel into Leeds daily for years bracing for the ridiculous ticket line or more often than not the inability to buy a ticket at the station (Headingley) or on the train (too packed) and so queuing for much longer than the train journey for a ticket.

There is clearly plenty of space at Moor Street at the bay platform ends. Marleybone needs a bit of money spending on it to open up the gateline. In the meantime, get some bloody bar code scanners on all the machines. I reckon that alone is reducing capacity by about 30% of what is available because people with paper tickets just end up queuing behind people with e tickets.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is clearly plenty of space at Moor Street at the bay platform ends. Marleybone needs a bit of money spending on it to open up the gateline. In the meantime, get some bloody bar code scanners on all the machines. I reckon that alone is reducing capacity by about 30% of what is available because people with paper tickets just end up queuing behind people with e tickets.

A new design of barcode scanner would help, with a camera instead of a laser - they read much quicker. Ideally one that shines down on your phone rather than up so you can more easily align it.

 

[12LDA28C]

There is clearly plenty of space at Moor Street at the bay platform ends. Marleybone needs a bit of money spending on it to open up the gateline. In the meantime, get some bloody bar code scanners on all the machines. I reckon that alone is reducing capacity by about 30% of what is available because people with paper tickets just end up queuing behind people with e tickets.

I'm not sure there is a huge amount of space at Moor Street without taking up quite a bit of the concourse. What do you mean exactly by 'opening up the gateline' at Marylebone?

 

[zwk500]

I'm not sure there is a huge amount of space at Moor Street without taking up quite a bit of the concourse.

I think the plans linked upthread give a reasonable amount of gates for Moor Street (at least until it gets new platforms). The problem with Moor Street is the really awkward slopes that were built into it and making sure any changes don't hamper disabled access.

https://images.nationalrail.co.uk/e8xgegruud3g/710qDrCr1um8CerkxN5HBL/8ab1c44a82cf375d219dba957186b2ea/Birmingham_Moor_Street_station_map.jpg

What do you mean exactly by 'opening up the gateline' at Marylebone?

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stat...ions-made-easy/london-marylebone-station-plan. The plan is out of date, from what I can see on image searches the barriers are now in a V shape rather than straight across. It's difficult to see what more can be done, other than staggering the barrier line so there's a bit of an overlap.

 

[12LDA28C]

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stat...ions-made-easy/london-marylebone-station-plan. The plan is out of date, from what I can see on image searches the barriers are now in a V shape rather than straight across. It's difficult to see what more can be done, other than staggering the barrier line so there's a bit of an overlap.

Indeed, some years ago the barriers were changed from a single line to the current 'V' shape to try to split up passengers heading to platforms 1 & 2 and 3-6 to a certain extent, as well as to provide extra capacity. Marylebone must be the only major London terminus with a single point of entry to all platforms.

 

[Liam L]

I use Moor st/ snow hill daily, snow hill is not too bad at rush hour, but Moor st is terrible.

I use to commute daily, I don't anymore but I always use to sit in the front carriage coming back from Solihull so I could get out the gateline otherwise I would miss my cross city connection at New Street, The gate line is terrible at moor street however the staff who are usually on it are brilliant and get people through quickly.

 

[giblets]

Queue this morning after the train ‘unexpectedly’ terminated at Moor st, so unexpectedly that no announcement was made and most passengers only realised when they spotted they were in the bay platform, the other half unawares remained planted in their seats…
This is the 06:04 MYB-BSW

 

[Russel]

Queue this morning after the train ‘unexpectedly’ terminated at Moor st, so unexpectedly that no announcement was made and most passengers only realised when they spotted they were in the bay platform, the other half unawares remained planted in their seats…
This is the 06:04 MYB-BSW

That's terrible, at that point, the barriers should have been opened.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

A new design of barcode scanner would help, with a camera instead of a laser - they read much quicker. Ideally one that shines down on your phone rather than up so you can more easily align it.

Just having barcode scanners on all gates at Marylebone would be lovely. At the moment half of the gates do, the other half just have Oyster/Contactless pads and passengers will often find themselves surprised when they get to a gate that isn’t equipped for their ticket and be forced to recirculate into the melee again. It makes a bad bottleneck worse and given the lack of space to do much else at Marylebone unless you want to start knocking walls down it seems bizarre that the gates aren’t all top notch.

Moor Street is a much more solvable problem, there’s plenty of space.