NXEC plans to barrier stations

[P156KWJ]

Its difficult to see why there would be problems at a relatively minor London Terminal like Kings Cross when many of the major terminals already have barriers.

NXEC have the right to instal barriers at their stations regardless of GCs policies. WSMR already operate from barriered stations operated by other TOCs such as Marylebone (Chiltern) and Shrewsbury (ATW). In GC case as they are not looking to extract revenue from the York to London market it shouldnt be a problem.

King's Cross is not a minor terminal! 4 TOCs serve that station

 

[paul1609]

In 2007 this was the ranking order of stations in terms of passenger figures:
London Waterloo 88,219,856
London Victoria 70,043,019
London Liverpool Street 56,953,837
London Bridge 55,344,893
London Charing Cross 36,549,263
Clapham Junction 31,766,186
London Paddington 29,100,693
London Euston 27,541,747
East Croydon 24,640,026
London Kings Cross 24,604,634
Glasgow Central 22,430,768
London Cannon Street 21,212,540

I reckon in 2008 Kings Cross has been pushed further down the table by St Pancras International and will drop even further when Thameslink 2015 is complete.
By the way I reckon Kings Cross is served by 2 TOCs (one of which already has its platforms barriered) and 2 open access operators who between them provide only 8? trains a day.

 

[dan_atki]

At a check of the current timetable, 10 tpd are operated in total between Hull Trains and Grand Central out of KGX.

All bar platform 8 of FCC has barriers and that is the one which will be both the most difficult to barrier and most interesting to see how it's done.

 

[Tom B]

This will be a real pain at Donny - there's hardly any space as it is. If there were more ticket checks then they'd not be needed - look at how many stations have no proper ticketing facilities for a start!

 

[Galvanize]

At a check of the current timetable, 10 tpd are operated in total between Hull Trains and Grand Central out of KGX.

All bar platform 8 of FCC has barriers and that is the one which will be both the most difficult to barrier and most interesting to see how it's done.

Are you familliar with platform 2 at Victoria?

In which case, NR would probably erect a fence all the way down the middle of the platform, with barriers right beside the stops. It would also be a good idea to have a set of barriers beside the entrance to the FCC platforms, to allow an easier transfer over to St Pancras International!

 

[dan_atki]

Are you familliar with platform 2 at Victoria?

In which case, NR would probably erect a fence all the way down the middle of the platform, with barriers right beside the stops. It would also be a good idea to have a set of barriers beside the entrance to the FCC platforms, to allow an easier transfer over to St Pancras International!

Yeah, I believe that is the only real way they can do it - a whole plastic fence most of the way down the platform. I think they'd also need barriers at each the concourse end and the passageway to the FCC platforms to avoid flow problems as well as to stop people being angry with a system where they enter platform 8 half way up, walk all the way down to the concourse, to walk all the way up platform 8 again on the 'paid' side to get to the front of the train. Likewise for people coming from the concourse who want the rear of the train.

 

[Mintona]

Nowt wrong with barriers.

I know GC say you can buy tickets on board, but they are sold at ticket offices too, so is it really that difficult to buy them at the ticket office? Saves you having to try and get through barriers without a ticket, and saves station staff having to deal with fare-evading passengers.

I think ticket barriers are well worth it. I bet at York each day, there are at least 10x more people fare dodging than wanting to buy on board GC services. So barriers make it much easier to catch criminals, and you just have to buy at the ticket office instead of on-board...hardly a major thing to get worked up about...

 

[mrcheek]

Personally, I think all stations should have ticket barriers. Just as long as theres someone there who can actually sell you a ticket.

 

[Coradia]

Here's a thought.

You book a journey by mobile phone. You board a Grand Central service, show your mobile to the guard, the guard is satisfied. During the journey your battery dies. You then go through a NXEC barrier but your mobile is dead so you can't show them your "e ticket". What then?

Ask the guard at the barrier if you insert your sim card into their phone .
To be honest I am all for it, I think it would speed up passenger traffic and is a much better option than having staff doing it. Some of them take it too seriously and start asking for railcards, seat reservation tickets, and telling you where to stand.

Also, as long as they are machines which don't 'eat' your ticket like at Chester and Brighton on an outward journey to the location.

 

[Galvanize]

Nowt wrong with barriers.

Well no, as they do a good job of eliminating ticketless and fraudulent travel
BUT, they are unsuitable for large stations with busy intercity trains, and especially people with heavy luggage! When a train arrives at Kings Cross, or is announced as ready to board, there is a lot of congestion at the platform entrances anyway, as passengers try to head for a seat before anyone else does!

And if they do install barriers for large intercity stations, it'll be no good as a lot of passengers have those large advance purchase tickets that come in the post, so would not fit in the barrier slots :roll: So you'd have even more congestion, as people would head for the manual gate, (most people with luggage would have to use it anyway!) to get through to the platform!

Then there's the case of people saying their goodbyes, and not being allowed onto the platform for a "brief encounter" esque departure But they don't matter in this situation!

On train staff would be a bit annoyed by the presence of barriers, as people would take longer to get on the platform, which would potentially delay the departure of the train by a couple of minutes :roll:

As Yorkie stated, Barriers on inner suburban and commuter routes, and the London Underground do their job really well, so ideally KX remains fine the way it is, by having barriers for FCC platforms only, and having human barriers if the TOCs in question so desire!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I've found that copy of "Livewire" and it claims that barriers will be fitted to:
*London Kings Cross (boarding only)
*Peterborough
*Doncaster
*Darlington

And Random checks at the other stations.

 

[theblackwatch]

BUT, they are unsuitable for large stations with busy intercity trains, and especially people with heavy luggage! When a train arrives at Kings Cross, or is announced as ready to board, there is a lot of congestion at the platform entrances anyway, as passengers try to head for a seat before anyone else does!

It would also cause delays at King's Cross if a train's departure platform isn't announced until last minute. Yesterday I caught the 18.33 NXEC service from King's Cross. Despite being shown as 'On Time', the departure platform wasn't announced until 18.42. Everyone then scurried to the platform, and the train departed at 18.48, 15 minutes late. I doubt that, had there been barriers, everyone would have been on board in this short period of time, and I'm sure departure would have been delayed further.

 

[andylloyd]

It will be interesting to see how staff at Newcastle can handle us lovely folks with Network Travelcards

Will also be interesting to see how NEXUS will barrier the metro too for us season ticket holders.

Sorry for partially going off topic

Regards

Andy

 

[Edvid]

In 2007 this was the ranking order of stations in terms of passenger figures:
London Waterloo 88,219,856
London Victoria 70,043,019
London Liverpool Street 56,953,837
London Bridge 55,344,893
London Charing Cross 36,549,263
Clapham Junction 31,766,186
London Paddington 29,100,693
London Euston 27,541,747
East Croydon 24,640,026
London Kings Cross 24,604,634
Glasgow Central 22,430,768
London Cannon Street 21,212,540

Where can I find those particular stats? The most recent figures I've seen documentation for were published on the ORR site and applied to the period 1 April 2006 - 31 March 2007. In the past I remember Network Rail used to publish footfall stats and in 2004/05 the busiest station was London Liverpool Street with approximately 141 million visitors - unfortunately I can't find the corresponding document now.

 

[andylloyd]

Where can I find those particular stats? The most recent figures I've seen documentation for were published on the ORR site and applied to the period 1 April 2006 - 31 March 2007. In the past I remember Network Rail used to publish footfall stats and in 2004/05 the busiest station was London Liverpool Street with approximately 141 million visitors - unfortunately I can't find the corresponding document now.

Interesting to see what Waterloo is like when all the work is completed

Regards

Andy

 

[paul1609]

These figures are indeed from the ORRs website and are for the period ending 31.03.07 the latest figures released.

 

[Edvid]

I see - what I didn't realise until now is that interchanging passengers are included in the numbers you've quoted, although interchange and entry/exit figures are listed separately in the document itself. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[glynn80]

In 2007 this was the ranking order of stations in terms of passenger figures:
London Waterloo 88,219,856
London Victoria 70,043,019
London Liverpool Street 56,953,837
London Bridge 55,344,893
London Charing Cross 36,549,263
Clapham Junction 31,766,186
London Paddington 29,100,693
London Euston 27,541,747
East Croydon 24,640,026
London Kings Cross 24,604,634
Glasgow Central 22,430,768
London Cannon Street 21,212,540

I reckon in 2008 Kings Cross has been pushed further down the table by St Pancras International and will drop even further when Thameslink 2015 is complete.
By the way I reckon Kings Cross is served by 2 TOCs (one of which already has its platforms barriered) and 2 open access operators who between them provide only 8? trains a day.

I'm not sure just passenger numbers is effective in telling you whether barriers would be effective, stations with high passenger numbers like Victoria and Waterloo have high numbers of commuters spread accross many services, they are unlikely to have large pieces of luggage. Kings Cross on the otherhand while having commuter services with FCC it also has large numbers of long-distance services often with large numbers of passengers on each service usually with lots of luggage, this would not allow for fast boarding especially as now obviously some barriers will be Exit only whereas others will be Entrance only so two trains side by side one arriving one departing at busy times could cause problems especially at the luggage gate.

 

[furryfeet]

barriers are going to be a problem for railtour passengers, since it is perfectly possible to book over the phone the night before the trip and actually pick up the tickets on the train itself. I have done this on at least two occaissions. No problem for the railtour organisers since they have a manifest !

So how are these barriers going to cope with this situation ?

Where would one legally stand if one missed a railtour, due to a barrier ( manned by a different company ) refusing to let one pass and join the train ?

 

[yorkie]

I am pretty sure they have no legal right to prevent you going past. I am pretty sure they can't lay a finger on you either, but perhaps a legal expert can confirm this?

There's no way I am missing a railtour because of some jobsworth anyway so the issue of compensation for missing it would not rise as far as I'm concerned.

 

[djw1981]

There was some discussion at some point with regard to a railtour I think to Aberdeen........and it was suggested by FSR that the Railtour confirmation / ticket would be used at the manned gate, and would be sufficient to allow entry to the Railtour departure platform.

This seemed a sensible compromise.

If barriers 'don't work' at busy stations, then how do LU manage? Maybe NR will just have to improve their notice given to passengers and TOCs of which platform a service will use.

The GC issue is overcome I think by the wording. GC say that you may buy tickets onboard. As such is it but one of several methods (phone, online, ticket office) and thus NXEC / NR etc can require that you use one of the above methods. If York did not sell GC tickets from the ticket office, or if GC that you could only buy tickets on board, then things would be different.

 

[yorkie]

But you can pay on board railtours.

And back to the GC thing, I don't see how NXEC have any right to interfear in any way with any of their customers unless GC gives them permission to do so.

At Manchester Piccadilly, Securicor are hired in on behalf of Northern to do human barriers on Platforms 1-12, and a while back they were also barriering TPE trains that were also on these platforms. TPE objected so the practice was stopped. However the situation is different at Platform 13/14, I guess NT/TPE must have an agreement in place for that.

 

[dan_atki]

If barriers 'don't work' at busy stations, then how do LU manage? Maybe NR will just have to improve their notice given to passengers and TOCs of which platform a service will use.

Many tickets bought on the internet though are of the 'Airline Style' and as such do not work the barriers. There's also problems involved with other ticket types that don't work or are valid for more than one person - Southern Daysaves for instance. Then there are the problems encountered with breaking a journey on a valid (but not often used) route for some journies where the barriers would need to know all the valid journies. AFAIK anyway barriers are not programmed to deal with BoJ.

LU doesn't have these problems - all LU tickets work their gates which have proven themselves over the last 20 odd years since their introduction. There are also not as many ticket types sold by LU, and the encoding on such tickets is not as complex as on NR counterparts. The + London routeing on a ticket means that the ticket has a segment of code on it that allows it to use LU barriers and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think these tickets work the gates of all London Terminal Tube stations as defined in NFM section A.

After that is the use of Oyster which speeds up barrier 'transactions' significantly - when this is applied to NR I'm sure that there will be less problems at gatelines than there are currently.

 

[Mintona]

It is actually G4S, not Securicor.

But I don't see what the hassle is in buying a ticket before you board. Just because GC offer the option of buying on board, doesn't mean you have to take it does it? NatEx want to stop fare evaders on their trains, which they are quite within their right to do, and barriers are a good way of ensuring this. But because maybe 10 people a day want to buy on board a GC train, they shouldn't be allowed? Coz queueing at the ticket office like everyone else is such a hardship?

 

[Tom B]

Personally, I think all stations should have ticket barriers. Just as long as theres someone there who can actually sell you a ticket.

Exactly, look at how many stations are unstaffed, and just contain a vending machine - often broken or doesn't sell the ticket you want. Plus many I've seen will only accept debit cards.

 

[paul1609]

Do any ticket operations still use the "airline" (tribune ?) type tickets?
I've used loads of difference agencies this leave period but they've all been standard aptis type tickets.

 

[Broken Viking]

Hail again!

Interesting to see what Waterloo is like when all the work is completed

I said pretty much the same thing last night, though no-one commented on it. Are my posts invisible or something? :roll:

Anyway...I'd much rather we went back to the old BR practice of the "open" station if we could. For people wishing to meet or see off friends, people in a constant rush, and those like myself who naturally walk at about 90mph, an "open" station is a much better preposition, and being able to jump right on board a train and not worry about presenting ones ticket until the Guard comes around is far easier than, say, trying to catch a soon-to-depart train at Liverpool Street, having to juggle three heavy bags and my wallet on the concourse to find my ticket, then queue up in a long line at the wheelchair gate just so I can get on the friggin' platform! hock:
Sadly though, the age of fare evasion is upon us, and it's thanks to those FEing idiots (For want of a better word) that we now have to put up with these annoying CTS things. :mad:

However, I have a simpler solution to the FE problem:
Why not simply equip each commercial Guard with a 20lb steel mace. Whenever he encounters an obvious fare evader, he simply uses the aforementioned mace to knock the 'evaders head off of their shoulders in the most Bloody and satisfying way. As the interiors on most latter-day BR and modern rolling stock is often nylon, fibreglass, or plastic based, washing the Blood out of the affected area shouldn't add any extra time to a cleaning crews schedule.
Obviously, this new (And much better IMO) practice would be extensively advertised around the network to warn fare evaders. A foolish few might not consider such a thing an effective deterrant...But I'm sure that the risk of having my head knocked off would be a more than good enough reason for buying a valid ticket!

Given how peed off I am with being held up by gatelines though, I might just start a new practice of simply forcing them out of the way whenever I have a valid ticket in my possession, but don't have the time available to stop for the gates. hock: 8)
Does anyone know how much effort would be needed to force one of those gates open from a normal closed position? I'm thinking - Given that they'd need to allow it for emergency evacuations anyway - It can't be a greater effort than about 30Kg/f or so.

Farewell...
>> Death <<

 

[Mojo]

AFAIK anyway barriers are not programmed to deal with BoJ.

It can't be all barriers. I buy a return from Filton Abbey Wood to Stapleton Road as it's cheaper than one to Temple Meads and the OUT portion works in the barriers both ways.

It is actually G4S, not Securicor.

G4S basically are Securicor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securicor

 

[dan_atki]

I too will be intrigued as to Waterloo's gates for a different reason - using a Clapham Junction to London Terminals ticket to London Bridge via Waterloo - gates are obviously gonna eat that ticket up. Wouldn't surprise me either if the gateline assistant tried to take the ticket off of me.

Going back to your earlier post - VIC is busy even in the middle of the afternoon but they have the right sort of layout for the gates - each set protects about 5 platforms. The other problem you'll encounter, though, is the lack of trains stopping at CLJ in the peaks due to SWT wanting to get as many trains in and out of WAT as they can.

Regarding the gates - the older manual ones (without paddles/ticket slots) are actually magnetic. Those with paddles I think are pneumatic.

In emergency evacuations a big red button next to the gate is pressed to open them all up. It makes a very loud alarm go off and has to be tested regularly (every day IIRC). A key is then turned to stop the alarm and shut the gates again. You'll also find though, many of the barrier staff really don't care about your ticket and just hold the manual gate open for you to wander through anyway... defeats the point of having the barriers if you ask me!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

It can't be all barriers. I buy a return from Filton Abbey Wood to Stapleton Road as it's cheaper than one to Temple Meads and the OUT portion works in the barriers both ways.

Hmm maybe they are for local journeys. I remember tickets from London to Luton didn't work the gates at Luton Airport at one time. Not sure if that's still the case though.

 

[Mojo]

Does anyone know how much effort would be needed to force one of those gates open from a normal closed position? I'm thinking - Given that they'd need to allow it for emergency evacuations anyway - It can't be a greater effort than about 30Kg/f or so.

I do not condone or advise this in any way (even though I may have done this in the past... ) but the Railway Group Standards Guidance on Automatic Ticket Gates at Stations says "Regardless of the design of the particular ATG selected, the force applied by a person pushing through a gate should be not more than 0.5 kN."

 

[PhilipW]

Are Platform tickets still available ? I think not. I have never seen them on any ticket machine.

Escorting an elderly relative to the train, carrying their luggage and seeing that they are seated fine seems like an eminently good thing to do. How is this going to work if the platform has gates ?