HS1 Domestic today

[jon0844]

WH Smith is a strong brand, as is Boots. I doubt we'll see a Whistlestop or Upper Crust there anytime soon though.

Even the burger place sells overpriced (and IMO not very nice) burgers.

And the Boots is open to midnight I believe, which is useful to know, and the Starbucks is open 24 hours (even better to know when you're waiting for the first train at 4am!).

 

[91101]

I love St Pancras, but it does have some quite major flaws.

I have travelled on Eurostar twice in the last two months and the Eurostar passenger experience flows very well (ironic that I am posting this this evening as 373's are dropping like flies!).

Regarding EMT and SET being on the fringes, I think it depends on where you approach the station from. I normally approach from Kings Cross and so enter by Starbucks and for me this is the "main entrance" and so I regularly use shops in The Circle, and find it easy to access EMT, SET and FCC, with EMT and FCC the operators I use most often at StP.

The new Northern ticket hall will position more customers into that Starbucks entrance.

I think the positioning of Starbucks is appalling, that Starbucks, or St Pancras has not made some effort to protect customers from the elementss, even during the summer thats a cold place to sit and wait for a train.

The customer information systems are wanting and appear to have little co-ordination between the four operators, it would be intresting to see how quickly SET passengers facing disruption would be directed to FCC or vice versa.

The management at the station is poor, and again uncordinated, with Network Rail failing to take the lead that they take at other major stations, leading to a disjointed poor culture where staff are grouped into their operating groups and don't talk to each other.

 

[jon0844]

Besides going into one of the ticket halls, I can't imagine how anyone would find a member of staff to ask anything.

It would seem that LUL is trying to get more people to exit via the northern ticket hall, and have changed signs to say trains one way and other underground routes the other. I have to say, boy is it a long walk to the Victoria Line from that ticket hall - even if it is still quicker than doing the walk above ground with loads of people.

What is rather poor is the signs for the Northern Line exit, as there are two exits from the platform - but the signs showing way out (and other lines) is only visible from the furthest away from the stairs. I've seen many people come through the other corridor and look up the steps with NO signs and say 'that's not it' and walk back - presumably to end up out at the other exit. It does appear that it is only the way IN to the station, not a way out.

It also looks very odd to have no advertising, but that will obviously change in no time!

They'll also need to put up 'keep left' or 'keep right' signs as people end up colliding with each other because of the way the escalators are. As people come down to the Northern, they'll naturally cut the corner and end up on the right - so people coming up are on the right to avoid them - then have to cross each other by the escalator. It's quite funny, but shows the lack of user testing before they opened it. Just like St Pancras and Heathrow T5.

 

[devon_metro]

One flaw I found with St Pancras is the fact that when an EMT train arrives, the one escalator down to the undercroft is overwhelmed with people.

 

[EM2]

One flaw I found with St Pancras is the fact that when an EMT train arrives, the one escalator down to the undercroft is overwhelmed with people.

Er, there are two sets of escalators. And two lifts. And a staircase.

 

[91101]

Yes, but there is only one set of escalators positions to actually take the flow from the EMT platforms, as opposed to a couple from the SET side.

 

[jon0844]

The escalators from EMT are positioned such that I doubt many people walk along upstairs and go down further on.

The SET escalators are certainly better designed in this respect.