Trivia: Stations with too many/not enough platforms

[Tomnick]

You certainly couldn't go around recessing the stoppers to be overtaken at even other station stop - not only would it hammer journey times, but it wouldn't do much for the overall capacity either.

 

[SeanG]

Morecambe has to have two, as there is no way (beyond Bare Lane) for a Heysham service to use the northernmost platform , and the run-round loop would still be required anyway for the Heysham flask services. Check your Quail!

So just keep the one that has the loop ie the southern one. That is what was meant

 

[MidnightFlyer]

So just keep the one that has the loop ie the southern one. That is what was meant

Probably not much point as there are still a reasonable amount of occasions during the day, especially if freight is on, that there are two trains running on the branch.

 

[najaB]

I have never been sure where to ask this question but this thread seems kind of appropriate: why do continental stations have so many more platforms and other infrastructure?

My guess: because Europe is bigger than the UK so they have more room. Also, they didn't suffer a 'Beeching axe' and so didn't lose as many lines, platforms and stations as we did.

 

[nw1]

Havant could probably do with more than two through platforms for the amount of services that go through. It's commonplace for either SWT or Southern trains to have to wait outside Havant for a platform when coming in from the London direction. Also making Platform 2 at Fareham a through platform would allow "looping" of slow trains to allow late running fasts overtake.

 

[Class377]

Not much you can do to change it, but I always thought Bath Spa struggles with only 2 platforms given the departure times. If the Cardiff-Portsmouth service is a few minutes late (as it often is) it will frequently knock on delays to the following London HST...and this is before peak time traffic can add another service into that short period of time!

No idea what they'd do with 4 platforms during the 15 minute gaps in service though...

 

[30907]

My guess: because Europe is bigger than the UK so they have more room. Also, they didn't suffer a 'Beeching axe' and so didn't lose as many lines, platforms and stations as we did.

It actually varies enormously across Europe and I suspect depends on varied national policies, when the last major rebuild took place, and in some cases the massive changes in traffic flows over the last century.
On the whole French stations don't seem over large, whereas many German ones are generously laid out. Against that there's Köln Hbf which is cramped, and the only big German termini, Munich and Leipzig, have lost platforms over the years.

 

[londiscape]

Oxford with only 2 through platforms (1 up, 1 down) surely has too few to cope with the quantity of trains stopping there. It also doesn't appear to help that the bay platform is on the wrong side (ie North facing rather than South) despite the number of terminating trains originating from Paddington...

 

[306024]

never mind platforms, the Great Eastern could do with being six-track to Shenfield (maybe even Chelmsford!) with two for Metro/Crossrail, two for Suburban and two for Express, four track to Ipswich.

I look forward to receiving your quotation for the above work

Yes it would be nice if the GEML had the same number of tracks as the WCML and DC lines (plus the HS2 relief lines), but it hasn't, which makes the traffic handled by the GEML all the more remarkable.

 

[jopsuk]

I look forward to receiving your quotation for the above work
.

Hah! Sanity doesn't come into it, pure crayon scrawling

 

[thenorthern]

The biggest problem is not the amount of trains using a station but the variables of the speed of the trains. For example I see nothing wrong with Aston station as most of the trains going through the station are at a similar speed and non of them terminate there.

Stations such as Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester Piccadilly's 13 and 14 have a varied speed of 75 MPH trains through to 125 MPH capable trains both coming from a variety of locations with even some terminators at Piccadilly. realistically Piccadilly's 13 and 14 should be like Oxford Road with 4 through platforms and a bay platform for terminating trains from the east.

 

[Parallel]

Not much you can do to change it, but I always thought Bath Spa struggles with only 2 platforms given the departure times. If the Cardiff-Portsmouth service is a few minutes late (as it often is) it will frequently knock on delays to the following London HST...and this is before peak time traffic can add another service into that short period of time!

No idea what they'd do with 4 platforms during the 15 minute gaps in service though...

I think it would be very difficult to extend Bath Spa due to the station buildings and roads either side, you'd probably need a new line built between Bristol Temple Meads and Bath/Bathampton Junction too. Not sure the cost would pay off though.

I agree with you however, I travel from Bath most days and one issue is when the London Waterloo train leaves about 5 mins before the Paddington one, and a load of passengers get on that one and then get taken for a tour of the south west for a few hours

Knock on delays are a problem though, the worst services as you mention are the Portsmouth services being delayed and causing delays to the Paddington ones, and the Westbury/Weymouth/Brighton stoppers doing the same. On the other platform the stopping services get held before Bathampton Junction for up to 15 minutes to allow delayed Bristol HSTs to pass first.

With the Portsmouths and stoppers, delays can rapidly start escalate, with little room to catch up time.

What's even worse is when a HST fails at one of the platforms, and the other platform is used for both directions... this has happened twice this summer and is just chaos.

 

[Tomnick]

The biggest problem is not the amount of trains using a station but the variables of the speed of the trains.

I don't think that's really a factor as far as the number of platforms are concerned - after all, if they're stopping, their maximum speed is irrelevant, and if they're passing, it makes relatively little difference whether they do so at 25mph or 125mph! Speed differentials become more significant over longer portions of plain line, where an express passenger might catch a class 6 freight, for example.

 

[BantamMenace]

I don't think that's really a factor as far as the number of platforms are concerned - after all, if they're stopping, their maximum speed is irrelevant, and if they're passing, it makes relatively little difference whether they do so at 25mph or 125mph! Speed differentials become more significant over longer portions of plain line, where an express passenger might catch a class 6 freight, for example.

I respectfully disagree. The speed differential is greatest when one train is stopped (at the station), especially when the station lies on a line where the speed limit is great. It doesnt matter whether the class of the train is express or the heaviest freight you can think of, if it is stopped at a station its stopped at a station. The faster the linespeed the faster something catches up with it.

 

[Tomnick]

That's really an issue that's more apparent over the longer distance though, unless the stopping train is to be recessed to allow the faster train to overtake. That's not booked to happen all that often, with a few notable exceptions, so it doesn't really affect the provision of platforms - even where it does, the 'overtaking' train doesn't need a platform line if it's not stopping!

 

[Rapidash]

Pondering this today, I'd say Exeter Central could do with the other side of P3 being opened up, as it could be used for the shorter SWML services, rather than than them clogging P1 at EXD, which could possibly help speed up Metro services (Back of fag packet idea this, admittedly) P1 could be used for Exmouth stoppers possibly.

Newton Abbot could do with a extra platform as well, as there is a fair bit of hanging around outside waiting for intercity services to move.

 

[CC 72100]

Pondering this today, I'd say Exeter Central could do with the other side of P3 being opened up, as it could be used for the shorter SWML services, rather than than them clogging P1 at EXD, which could possibly help speed up Metro services (Back of fag packet idea this, admittedly) P1 could be used for Exmouth stoppers possibly.

Are you effectively suggesting that SWT only run their Waterloo trains as far as Central? While a fair proportion of passengers on those trains use central, I think terminating them there solves a problem at St Davids which doesn't actually exist...

Although you say 'clogging up' platform 1 at St Davids, they merely go in after the :18 Exmouth has left. To be honest, it all works quite well and efficiently to be honest!

 

[Rapidash]

Are you effectively suggesting that SWT only run their Waterloo trains as far as Central? While a fair proportion of passengers on those trains use central, I think terminating them there solves a problem at St Davids which doesn't actually exist...

Although you say 'clogging up' platform 1 at St Davids, they merely go in after the :18 Exmouth has left. To be honest, it all works quite well and efficiently to be honest!

I'd say the majority of people got off at Central, to be honest. I use 'em fairly often to hop down to EXD to catch a connecting XC/HST down to Scabbot and its regularly about a dozen or less who stay all the way. Obviously it does vary throughout the day!

Whilst the current system does work fairly well, there have been a fair few occasions where the service I've been on has been held up at St Thomas to wait for the platform. Dunno if thats been a Waterloo or an late running Barnstaple, but gets annoying after a while

As I said, back of a napkin stuff, with an eye on the fact that theres changes afoot in the coming years for us.

 

[edwin_m]

I have never been sure where to ask this question but this thread seems kind of appropriate: why do continental stations have so many more platforms and other infrastructure? For example, I recently caught a train at Bari Centrale in southern Italy which has 9 through platforms and 6 terminal platforms to cope with ~14 departures per hour, a similar traffic density to Wolverhampton.

Various reasons:

(1) Most continental railways don't follow the British practice of removing any facility when there is no short-term use for it.

(2) Related to (1) above, British Rail was the most financially efficient railway in Europe.

(3) In many countries the networks were planned by the state instead of being built by competing companies. This would more often produce a single large station in a city, whereas in Britain there would probably be several smaller ones and all but one would have been closed.

(4) Many countries operate a "Taktfahrplan" planned timetable. One feature of this is that all the local services arrive at the same time each hour and wait in the station while intercity services arrive and depart a few minutes later, after which the locals depart too. This ensures excellent connections between all services, but does need a lot of platforms!

 

[Crossover]

So just keep the one that has the loop ie the southern one. That is what was meant

The other thing to bear in mind is that once a train is occupying the Heysham Port branch (which includes freight), nothing can use that branch as it is One Train Working for the whole lot

I'm not sure how much the loop gets used these days, given a lot of traffic I believe is T&T

 

[edwin_m]

realistically Piccadilly's 13 and 14 should be like Oxford Road with 4 through platforms and a bay platform for terminating trains from the east.

Piccadilly will get 4 through platforms under Northern Hub, with the plan being that alternate trains in each direction will use alternate platforms so that one can be signalled in while the one before is leaving the adjacent platform. There won't be a bay (do you mean west facing - there are 12 east facing bays already!) and the bay at Oxford Road is going too, because there will be enough capacity to send all the trains through.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Late to the party here, but I was led to believe that St Pancras only has four platforms on the MML side because that was all that was needed to run the service when the plans for CTRL Phase 2 were drawn up (i.e. before National Express introduced the Turbostars and introduced the 4 trains per hour service).

As for stations needing additional platforms, I'd add St Pancras Thameslink to that list. The original plan was to make passive provision to provide a total of four platforms, but this was descoped to two which may cause problems once Thameslink 2000 is finally completed.

 

[Aictos]

Gordon Hill on the Hertford Loop definitely needs Platform 1 redone as a though platform instead of keeping it as a bay platform and the former Platform 4 needs to be brought back into service again as a though platform.

Simply because there are no places for trains to overtake on the Hertford Loop until they get to the Hertford North to Stevenage section and use the bidirectional signalling if possible.

Least with passing loop platforms at Gordon Hill, it allows greater flexibility to loop trains to allow diverted or freight services though quicker rather then crawling to Hertford behind a stopper.

It might also mean the opportunity to run more freight via Hertford freeing up a path over Digswell Viaduct.

 

[Wookiee]

Havant could probably do with more than two through platforms for the amount of services that go through. It's commonplace for either SWT or Southern trains to have to wait outside Havant for a platform when coming in from the London direction. Also making Platform 2 at Fareham a through platform would allow "looping" of slow trains to allow late running fasts overtake.

It's not that long since the up and down fasts were removed from Havant - I can't see that decision being reversed in a hurry.

Totally agree re Platform 2 at Fareham - this is a woefully underused resource, at present. I can remember when it was used for peak hour shuttles to Eastleigh, pre-electrification, but since then it's barely been touched, other than to stable SN trains terminated short of Southampton. If it was made a through platform (with a crossover on the Portsmouth side), those late running SN trains would be much easier to deal with. Currently they terminate on Platform 1, usually with an SWT or FGW train right up their chuff, which then has to wait while the SN stock shunts into Platform 2.