Who is supposed to maintain stations?

[Donny Dave]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7655810.stm

 

[me123]

That looks a mess? They should try Glasgow Central Low Level, Hyndland Station, they'd realise what a nice station it is!

To be fair, though, it is rather stupid to miss out the roof and certainly someone should paint it. Since it's in a passenger visible area, it should therefore be EMT. THey can't really have saved that much money by omitting it, can they?

 

[djw1981]

But it coems dopwn to legal responsibility. If EMT paint it, and it turns out to be rotten, or falls down then NR will transfer blame to EMT.

Glasgow Central low-level may not be lovely, but it is fairly clean (if damp) and well painted. Underground stations are always tricky when painted. The Tyne & wear metro policy of ceramic coated metal facings is easier to keep clean IMO, and a graffiti'd section can be removed for cleaning. Also white reflects the light better meaning lower levels of illumination are acceptable.

Hyndland needs a good weed, but little else IMO,e specially with a station redevelopment on the cards in the next Control Period.

 

[me123]

Have you been in the tunnel to Gartnavel Hospitals?

 

[Mojo]

Do they have a Community Rail Partnership (CRP) up there? In Bristol Severnside CRP using offenders from the Probation Service recently repainted all of Redland station (including the roof) and it now looks lovely!

 

[LucaZone]

Seems to me like EMT are taking the biscuit. Yes they look after the 'passenger areas' but that I would say meant everything the passengers have access to, and the roof above their heads falls into that catagory.

I guess to save money they are willing to disbute what technically falls in 'passenger areas' and their current position is anything the public can see from their head downwards.

I can only see this making EMT look stupid and petty.

 

[spoony]

They should go to Sunderland station.

 

[Jim]

Do they have a Community Rail Partnership (CRP) up there? In Bristol Severnside CRP using offenders from the Probation Service recently repainted all of Redland station (including the roof) and it now looks lovely!

Until the next group of ASBO's come and repaint it for you - back to the original colour scheme of Graffiti!!!!!

 

[djw1981]

Have you been in the tunnel to Gartnavel Hospitals?

Yeah - 7 times a week for most of last year and last time I was there it had a lovely mural painted by school kids onto ceramic tiles which was fitted to one wall (and signed by the former head of Scotrail in the mid 90's). Itw as a bit damp but nothing serious compared to say the hole that is Charing Cross (Glasgow). For really awful stations, look no furtehr than one of Glasgow's newer ones - Argyle St.
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Seems to me like EMT are taking the biscuit. Yes they look after the 'passenger areas' but that I would say meant everything the passengers have access to, and the roof above their heads falls into that catagory.

I guess to save money they are willing to disbute what technically falls in 'passenger areas' and their current position is anything the public can see from their head downwards.

I can only see this making EMT look stupid and petty.

Or EMT copuld be applying teh conditions imposed by their insurers. If they paint it without doing a full structure assessment - due to peeling paintm, there will be water ingress into the wood - then they may cover up damage to the wood, meaning that any rot is unseen until a section of the roof collapses onto the platform. Then who is liable? NR or EMT?

It would be easierr if the 2 organisations talked to each otehr though:
EMT: We want to repaint that section, but we need your permission to do your bits.
NR: Ok, we weren't planning to, but we will do a check if you want, then you can get contractors to paint all of it.
EMT: Hmm that will cost a bit.
NR: Ok, I'll give you some from my discretionary budget to pay for some of the painting of the roof, but you can pay for the walls to be painted
<much negotiation>
NR: Ok, the survey is back and we have done some remedial work.
EMT: Ok, the painters start on Monday; here is teh risk assessment.

 

[me123]

I'm also a frequent user of Hyndland, and I have seen frequent users at Hyndland if you know what I mean. The mural was a nice touch, but is now dirty and dark. All that's needed there, to be fair, is a bit of a clean, a lick of paint and some lighting, but it would make a lot of a difference. It would be easier, cheaper and more effective than the work at Spalding, for example.

I don't really mind Charing X or Argyle Street myself, but both of them could do with some work I'll admit. There's also a smell of sewage between Charing X and Partick which is rather revolting; does the line cross over the sewage system or something?

 

[Waverley125]

As I'm only down the road from Spalding, this station is quite close to my heart. It's sad to see what used to be the biggest junction station in the fens reduced like this-peeling paint & 1 skateboard an hour. Really it shouldn't take too much to paint the roof & give the stairwell a clean. That said, it does look a big improvement from when i was there a few months ago.

 

[ADRboy]

I'm also a frequent user of Hyndland, and I have seen frequent users at Hyndland if you know what I mean. The mural was a nice touch, but is now dirty and dark. All that's needed there, to be fair, is a bit of a clean, a lick of paint and some lighting, but it would make a lot of a difference. It would be easier, cheaper and more effective than the work at Spalding, for example.

I don't really mind Charing X or Argyle Street myself, but both of them could do with some work I'll admit. There's also a smell of sewage between Charing X and Partick which is rather revolting; does the line cross over the sewage system or something?

Passes over the old line to Finneston, Down tehre's always flooded, could be the reason?

Argyle Street and Central LL are both disgusting and CLL's platforms are dangerous with the damp on the floors.

 

[Aureol]

<snip> ...CLL's platforms are dangerous with the damp on the floors.

And so is Nottingham's Platform 1 at night, I'm sure Jacknottm will back me up on this one

 

[jacknottm]

He aint lying !
Was coming off the train saturday evening onto said platform and i had about 2 minutes before my tram, needless to say this was missed as i could hardly stand up !

 

[johnmb]

This sort of thing reflects very badly on the railway and is an absolute nightmare for Train Operators to deal with. There is a detailed breakdown of TOC and Network Rail responsibilities regarding station maintenance but Network Rail rarely live up to their half of their bargain. Remember although Network Rail is slightly better run, it is still the same organisation as Railtrack who famously did not have an asset registry and had no idea of the condition or state of the track / buildings that they owned.

The problem is that Network Rail are only concerned with making sure that their buildings don't fall down, as they are not a customer facing organisation they have no notion whatsoever of what customers think about the buildings they are supposed to be maintaining. In this case East Midlands Trains have repainted the station but the inside of the canopy is needing to be repaired. When I worked as an SM on South West Trains numerous stations were repainted by SWT but the areas of the canopy supports in the 'red zone' (i.e within 1.5 m of the track could not be repainted as it required a possession. To take a possession involved paying Network Rail money even though it was helping to maintain their asset!

It's a crazy industry sometimes.