Nottingham Station now.

[edwin_m]

Trying to avoid this ridiculous brand discussion, it seems to me that station outlets need to do better on speedy service to beat nearby competition. Typical supermarket checkout queues are anathema to travellers, so perhaps the previous operator did not pay attention to this factor. When house wife/partner/husband rings and says 'pick up a pack of coffee on your way home darling' it will be how quickly this can be achieved that I suspect will get the vote from our commuter.

Even more so if you have a train to catch! In this context I would mention that the automated checkouts at Morrisons/MyLocal seemed to be even more unreliable than those at other shops.

 

[Philip Elliott]

Heart of England Co-op is nothing to do with The Co-operative Group. Completely separate organisation.

The co-operative group acts as an umbrella organisation incoporating a number of co-operative societies - the Central England co-op for example operates 255 co-op food stores. The Heart of England co-op is another of those corporate members.

 

[Mugby]

Perhaps it can become a WH Smiths and move to the location of the ticket office, with the ticket office being where MyLocal was

That would be perfect but I don't expect it will ever happen.

I believe the vast majority of Nottingham station users approach from the city side, not the south side and the ticket office should never have been pushed to that end.
But retailing takes precedence over everything on the railway now!

 

[LTJ87]

I have to admit to being disappointed at the redevelopment of the station to date.

It's an improvement, but there's so much unfulfilled potential.

As has been mentioned, only three retail units in the porte cochere are let. The opening hours for Upper Crust and Gourmet Kitchen seem limited and inconsistent. The Costa Coffee seating area can look a right mess at times. Signage on the window of the Morrisons/MyLocal facing the porte cochere was untidy.

And what East Midlands Trains have done to the ticket hall with the clumsy signage for tensa barriers and surrounds for the ticket machines that couldn't be more insensitive to its surroundings is frankly criminal.

For what is a Grade II listed property that has been refurbished at great expense, standards should be set so much higher.

For all the talk of a "world class" transport hub by Nottingham City Council the station and its surroundings will be stymied by it being cut off from the city centre by the Broadmarsh Centre and links to key cities like Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester being nowhere near as good as they should be.

 

[GatwickDepress]

I only visited Nottingham last year and already I can't remember anything about the station building itself. Has Nottingham suffered from the "St Pancras Delusion", where retail space is given an inordinate amount of focus?

Even more so if you have a train to catch! In this context I would mention that the automated checkouts at Morrisons/MyLocal seemed to be even more unreliable than those at other shops.

The Morrisons ones are awful; it's not just seeming! A poor maintenance regime combined with low grade parts is an excellent combination for reliability as we all know.

 

[johntea]

Sainsburys in Leeds Station to their credit have done a decent job to say they haven't got a great deal of space, pleasingly I also noticed they seem to have boosted their self service till numbers, although the whole bagging area message is very confusing these days without the carrier bags to indicate which side is actually the 'bagging area' and I do wish they didn't print receipts unless you either requested them or your total purchase was over £x amount as I sure don't need one for a single packet of sweets!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
In a perfect world ideally I would be able to use my iPhone (Other phones are available!) to scan barcodes as I shopped then do my own self service and pay for the lot through a linked card on my phone.

I know they've trialled this in limited numbers in the USA and it probably requires a lot of thought and technology but that is the way I would see 'physical' shopping trips going in the future.

 

[edwin_m]

For all the talk of a "world class" transport hub by Nottingham City Council the station and its surroundings will be stymied by it being cut off from the city centre by the Broadmarsh Centre and links to key cities like Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester being nowhere near as good as they should be.

Hopefully the latest of several proposals to re-develop the Broadmarsh area will actually happen. This involves restricting access to Canal Street and pedestrianising part of Collin Street so east-west through traffic has to use Queens Road just south of the station (which, being the inner ring road, does at least make it quite easy to access by car). So there should no longer be two multi-lane roads to cross between the station and the city centre.

The other problem, which it won't do much about, is that NCT equates "city centre" with the Victoria Centre and tries to get all its bus routes as near to there as possible. So accessing the train from many areas of Nottingham involves a walk or another bus/tram across the city centre. However even if the operators wanted all their buses to serve the station there is not physically enough standage for that to happen.

 

[Grumpy]

Reverting to delay problems referred to earlier I wonder if the problem is partly caused by the T&S being over-simplified. Particularly of the lack of mid platform crossovers which would permit more trains to access platforms. Thus where there are platforms divided into a/b/c sections (i.e. west, central and east) mid platform crossovers would allow a train arriving from the west to run past a train waiting departure in the "a" section and access the b/c sections rather than be held outside waiting for the other train to depart.

I was thinking specifically of platforms 3 and 4/5-having recently been held on an arriving Leeds train destined for platform 4 but delayed whilst a Mansfield bound train departed.

Nottingham also illustrates the inconsistent policy in Network Rail re Canopies. Thus the eastern platforms 2/4 don't have any canopy cover. Meanwhile it would seem the new platform at Doncaster is to be given a full length canopy. Why not at Nottingham?

 

[Tomnick]

I don't think there's really the room for mid-platform crossovers to be useful - just look at how little's left over between the buffer stops on 5 (6 car length) and the operational extent of 4 (4 car length) - neither can really be shortened sufficiently to get a crossover between the two.

The previously quoted example, a late arrival from Liverpool having to run into 1 instead of 3 because of the XC arrival which is booked to drop in straight behind it, highlights just how tight things can be - yes, a mid-platform crossover would allow the late arrival from Liverpool to sneak past the XC unit, but there just wouldn't be room for it all given that the XC unit has to draw down far enough to allow a Robin Hood line service to drop in on top of the whole lot.

I do, having thought about it more, think that the west end is actually pretty flexible now - yes, it's inevitable that one will have to cross the path of another at some point, but at least there's the opportunity to cross one or the other over at Mansfield Junction or further afield to avoid a direct conflict. The east end really can get tied up at times now though.

 

[kevjs]

This morning there was a notice on the door of the My Local saying it was closed and with an arrow pointing to Tesco. The shops at street level in what used to be the Gresham Hotel are now finished, with one being occupied by yet another coffee shop and the other unit (twice as big) still empty.

Thought it was supposed to be three units? Superdrug is due to open next to 200 degrees.

Trying to avoid this ridiculous brand discussion, it seems to me that station outlets need to do better on speedy service to beat nearby competition. Typical supermarket checkout queues are anathema to travellers, so perhaps the previous operator did not pay attention to this factor. When house wife/partner/husband rings and says 'pick up a pack of coffee on your way home darling' it will be how quickly this can be achieved that I suspect will get the vote from our commuter.

The whole MyLocal chain has just gone - so it's not a comment on the profitability, or otherwise, of the Nottingham train station store.

On a more positive note, the scaffold on the terracotta has finally gone.
The latest Building a Better Nottingham newletter also says

The improvement works on Station Street are on time and nearing completion and we have now got time to carry out some additional work to install landscaping between the station entrance and the Carrington Street junction and the shop frontages on Station Street. It will take approximately 6 weeks to complete, starting June 30.

- So mid August then.

 

[Mugby]

I don't think there's really the room for mid-platform crossovers to be useful - just look at how little's left over between the buffer stops on 5 (6 car length) and the operational extent of 4 (4 car length) - neither can really be shortened sufficiently to get a crossover between the two.

The previously quoted example, a late arrival from Liverpool having to run into 1 instead of 3 because of the XC arrival which is booked to drop in straight behind it, highlights just how tight things can be - yes, a mid-platform crossover would allow the late arrival from Liverpool to sneak past the XC unit, but there just wouldn't be room for it all given that the XC unit has to draw down far enough to allow a Robin Hood line service to drop in on top of the whole lot.

I do, having thought about it more, think that the west end is actually pretty flexible now - yes, it's inevitable that one will have to cross the path of another at some point, but at least there's the opportunity to cross one or the other over at Mansfield Junction or further afield to avoid a direct conflict. The east end really can get tied up at times now though.

On the day I visited (last Sunday) I was on an EMT service from Derby which was held outside the station for five minutes. It terminated on Pl.5 but had to wait for a Liverpool service to leave (on time) off Pl.4.
I would have thought that Pl.4 is not ideal for Liverpool trains, apart from the joining of units, they have to cross the west throat on departure but, of course, the only alternatives are 1 or 3 which usually have other stuff standing on them.

 

[Tomnick]

The straight route west from P4 leads to B line, which is the 'natural' line for trains towards Radford - in that respect, it's probably the best of the lot! A departure from 1 or 3 would still conflict with an arrival into 5 unless it stayed on A line as far as Mansfield Jn, but that might then affect an arrival from the Radford direction. A lot of it is dictated by platform availability though, as you suggest - the Liverpools during the week usually depart from 7, which does mean crossing the whole throat to the west!

 

[edwin_m]

Nottingham also illustrates the inconsistent policy in Network Rail re Canopies. Thus the eastern platforms 2/4 don't have any canopy cover. Meanwhile it would seem the new platform at Doncaster is to be given a full length canopy. Why not at Nottingham?

They did build a canopy for 7, though it is a pretty poor design that doesn't provide any shelter from the rain unless there is no wind blowing. I assume they expect people waiting for trains on 2 or 4 (or the "c" sections of 1, 3 or 6) to hang around under the end of the existing canopies or make use of the small bus shelters.

To be fair it would have looked very odd if they'd put modern canopies up at the end of the existing Edwardian versions - which looking at the steelwork have apparently been shortened at some time in the past.

 

[ccityplanner12]

I saw a panel of scaffolding at Whitton station (London, not Witton in Birmingham) which had a poster stuck to it detailing the modernisation works at Nottingham. It must've been moved, & also might've been sponsored by Bagel Factory, because the poster had a picture of a bagel factory in Nottingham station concourse.

A photo of the platform 7 canopy on nationalrail.co.uk.

This canopy is so narrow you could be forgiven for not noticing it's even there.

I remember arriving in Nottingham on a Class 170/5 from Peterborough late at night. It had come on a horrible route via Syston taking over half an hour, whereas it used to go via Old Dalby & the Lady Bay Bridge. It arrived in platform 4. There was a Class 158 in platform 3c, which arrived shortly after I did & departed the same way it came in 5 minutes later. It could've stopped at the other end, or used platform 2, but no, they had to block the other trains' paths & use platform 3c. This photo shows the same thing in the day.

 

[Tomnick]

I remember arriving in Nottingham on a Class 170/5 from Peterborough late at night. It had come on a horrible route via Syston taking over half an hour, whereas it used to go via Old Dalby & the Lady Bay Bridge. It arrived in platform 4. There was a Class 158 in platform 3c, which arrived shortly after I did & departed the same way it came in 5 minutes later. It could've stopped at the other end, or used platform 2, but no, they had to block the other trains' paths & use platform 3c.

Did it actually get in the way of anything though? No point really deviating from 'the plan' and causing confusion otherwise, and using 4 would've meant waiting for your train to be confirmed at a stand and sufficient room given for the 158, as well as then delaying it further by bringing it in on a position light.

 

[MichaelAMW]

I don't think there's really the room for mid-platform crossovers to be useful - just look at how little's left over between the buffer stops on 5 (6 car length) and the operational extent of 4 (4 car length) - neither can really be shortened sufficiently to get a crossover between the two.

The previously quoted example, a late arrival from Liverpool having to run into 1 instead of 3 because of the XC arrival which is booked to drop in straight behind it, highlights just how tight things can be - yes, a mid-platform crossover would allow the late arrival from Liverpool to sneak past the XC unit, but there just wouldn't be room for it all given that the XC unit has to draw down far enough to allow a Robin Hood line service to drop in on top of the whole lot.

I do, having thought about it more, think that the west end is actually pretty flexible now - yes, it's inevitable that one will have to cross the path of another at some point, but at least there's the opportunity to cross one or the other over at Mansfield Junction or further afield to avoid a direct conflict. The east end really can get tied up at times now though.

My two "improvements " would have been:

-- Don't build the new P4 but leave the track there as a centre road, leave what is now P5 as a long through platform with a crossover from the centre road to the middle of the long through platform, which would have retained its old number of 4. That gives you either two short platforms, as now, but also the alternative of one long one and a through road for freights.
-- An additional connection to get you from P4/5 to C line, allowing a parallel movement with line B. Currently, this gets fouled by movements to/from P4/5 that don't actually have anything to do with the Mansfield side but still use one of the tracks, e.g. the semi-fast London or the Lincoln-Leicester.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I remember arriving in Nottingham on a Class 170/5 from Peterborough late at night. It had come on a horrible route via Syston taking over half an hour, whereas it used to go via Old Dalby & the Lady Bay Bridge.

Mmmmm... It was 30 years from the closure of that route to the arrival of those units, so that's a bit hyperbolic!

 

[HowardGWR]

When I look at Nottingham and note this funny alteration they did, with that half platform in the middle, I find it very difficult to understand why a station which has no junctions should have all this conflict.

As an amateur, I am clearly missing something. Can this be simply explained to we who are less informed?

I used to live there and it didn't seem much of a Clapham Junction when I used the station.

 

[Tomnick]

My two "improvements " would have been:

-- Don't build the new P4 but leave the track there as a centre road, leave what is now P5 as a long through platform with a crossover from the centre road to the middle of the long through platform, which would have retained its old number of 4. That gives you either two short platforms, as now, but also the alternative of one long one and a through road for freights.
-- An additional connection to get you from P4/5 to C line, allowing a parallel movement with line B. Currently, this gets fouled by movements to/from P4/5 that don't actually have anything to do with the Mansfield side but still use one of the tracks, e.g. the semi-fast London or the Lincoln-Leicester.

The only problem with the first would be fitting it all into the space available! Only a very quick calculation, maybe a bit pessimistic, but I think a 4-car length platform at the east end plus a crossover (allowing enough room to not have to draw tight up to the protecting signal) would leave it, at best, very very tight for even a 5-car to the west (the 6 cars that stable in there overnight could foul the crossover, presumably, if the freights that are currently booked relief .on P4 overnight could be accommodated on P6 around the various London moves).

The extra crossover to allow parallel moves P4/5 to C line and P1/3 to B line would really take conflicts out, I agree.

When I look at Nottingham and note this funny alteration they did, with that half platform in the middle, I find it very difficult to understand why a station which has no junctions should have all this conflict.

As an amateur, I am clearly missing something. Can this be simply explained to we who are less informed?

I used to live there and it didn't seem much of a Clapham Junction when I used the station.

Platform availability, mostly! There's a lot of terminating trains from the west - the new west-facing bay at least keeps the London slow train out of the way each hour, but the rest have to share the other platforms with through traffic. The new layout means that the plan just about works without having to shunt terminating trains clear of platforms for most of the day, just the Liverpool portions which shunt across via the east.

Mansfield Junction isn't far away to the west, and the platforming constraints means that trains can't always approach on the most sensible line for their destination!

 

[edwin_m]

The only problem with the first would be fitting it all into the space available! Only a very quick calculation, maybe a bit pessimistic, but I think a 4-car length platform at the east end plus a crossover (allowing enough room to not have to draw tight up to the protecting signal) would leave it, at best, very very tight for even a 5-car to the west (the 6 cars that stable in there overnight could foul the crossover, presumably, if the freights that are currently booked relief .on P4 overnight could be accommodated on P6 around the various London moves).

There is probably also an issue with signalling overlaps, which might create an unusable area in the middle of the platform that is much longer than the crossover itself.

 

[Class 170101]

The previously quoted example, a late arrival from Liverpool having to run into 1 instead of 3 because of the XC arrival which is booked to drop in straight behind it, highlights just how tight things can be - yes, a mid-platform crossover would allow the late arrival from Liverpool to sneak past the XC unit, but there just wouldn't be room for it all given that the XC unit has to draw down far enough to allow a Robin Hood line service to drop in on top of the whole lot.

There is probably also an issue with signalling overlaps, which might create an unusable area in the middle of the platform that is much longer than the crossover itself.

I have to agree with this. You only have to look at both Cambridge Station Platforms 1 and 4 and Edinburgh Station where there are platforms with a similar layout as suggested for Nottingham to see how restrictive it would be there.