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Dangerous overcrowding at Stratford 31st Jan

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mrmartin

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Went through this earlier - video on this tweet https://twitter.com/liam_peanut/status/1223309446308384770?s=19 (not my video).

I've seen the station pretty bad but that was pretty scary coming off the jubilee line as new trains were arriving with nowhere for people to go. It all seems to be because central line eastbound was off. Took me 10+mins to get out of the station.

The station really needs a rethink. I think there could be a bad crush there one day (imagine if west ham were playing, for example, and a fire alarm went off and caused panic). I can't really see what TfL could do apart from stopping Jubilee line at West ham (which would cause enormous disruption in itself).
 
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dk1

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I have known drivers cautioned to pass through platforms 9 & 10 at 20mph rather than the normal 70/80mph via the GSMR when it's been really bad although not for a long while. They seem to have better crowd control on these platforms now. Platform 8 must be the worst through platform.
 

lordbusiness

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Basically the station cannot handle the volume of passengers coming in and out of the area and it's likely to get worse. Once again, the area round the station has been developed with housing, offices, Westfield, WHFC etc without any thought being given to the station being able to cope. It doesn't help that the station was redone on the cheap for the Olympics, the stairs to the platforms for example are lethal when its wet. You're absolutely right that one day there will be a serious incident there.
 

mrmartin

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Agreed. I think also it's pretty unique in having massive interchange volume and high entry/exit in one station (as opposed to king's cross etc which has a more separate tube station that can be managed separator).
 

theking

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Problem is there is ZERO spare capacity on the tfl rail lines out to the east in the evening peaks so when the central line goes down its game over.

No matter what the dreamers say in the crossrail thread about it not being busy out of liverpool street on a normal day when the tfl rail arrives at Stratford its packed sometimes have to let 2 or 3 go before you can board and then it's absolute sardines.

Can't really see much use with terminating the jub line at west ham because then the dlr will just get hammered and west ham will be equally as dangerous.
 

Taunton

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Agreed. I think also it's pretty unique in having massive interchange volume and high entry/exit in one station (as opposed to king's cross etc which has a more separate tube station that can be managed separator).
TfL have overcrowding to deal with every day, the default approach is to close the entrances and non-stop the trains to stop people getting off.

Stratford is unusual as a terminal for the Jubilee Line in a high usage station, so this approach is not possible. You could non-stop the DLR alongside, but not the Jubilee, whose eastbound arrival volumes can be up there with central London loads. Of course, closing the third Jubilee platform for some inexplicable reason, which would have given an extra reservoir, didn't help. Yes, I've been in the underpass when jammed and stationary. Not pleasant.

One of the issues nowadays is the lack of resilience provision in the infrastructure. If something happens on the Central at Marble Arch there's no service at Stratford. Likewise an incident on the Jubilee out at West Hampstead (even on the adjacent Chiltern line, as happened recently) means no Jubilee service at Canary Wharf or Stratford.
 

mrmartin

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I mean the lack of resilience "nowadays" :s due to the very high tph that most tube lines have. Nothing would allow you to turn back a 30+ tph service without crippling delays. Except maybe building huge grade separated loops.

I mean was it ever better in the past?
 

StephenHunter

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West Ham spectators are held back by stewards and only allowed through a bit at a time; you also get sent on a long detour around Westfield. Many of them will also go to get some food before boarding the train, so that spreads things out.

10a also gets plenty of use, I believe.
 
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The third platform inexplicable reason is that it is easier to work a two platform terminus with stepping up/back around a single island than have crews move platform. What’s inexplicable to you is usually done for a very good reason.
 

VT 390

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Went through this earlier - video on this tweet https://twitter.com/liam_peanut/status/1223309446308384770?s=19 (not my video).

I've seen the station pretty bad but that was pretty scary coming off the jubilee line as new trains were arriving with nowhere for people to go. It all seems to be because central line eastbound was off. Took me 10+mins to get out of the station.

The station really needs a rethink. I think there could be a bad crush there one day (imagine if west ham were playing, for example, and a fire alarm went off and caused panic). I can't really see what TfL could do apart from stopping Jubilee line at West ham (which would cause enormous disruption in itself).
Would this not just cause disruption but even more dangerous overcrowding as everyone would try to get the DLR from Stratford towards West Ham and this has much less capacity than the Jubilee line, so unless the DLR ran through Stratford without stopping then I think this would make everything even worse.
 

StephenHunter

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The third platform inexplicable reason is that it is easier to work a two platform terminus with stepping up/back around a single island than have crews move platform. What’s inexplicable to you is usually done for a very good reason.

It's a three platform terminus at Stratford.
 

Panupreset

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Quite often you find West Ham are 0-3 at half time and people leave early, which alleviates the congestion
 

Ethano92

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Stratford station is interesting because I thought it was completely renovated for the Olympics/Westfields but even on the weekend when everything is working perfectly it's still way too congested. One thing they've done on weekends is only allowed access to Central Line/TFL rail eastbound platforms by the lift and the stairs are only for people alighting the trains, took a good 15 minutes to get to the platform. At least once on the platform, even congested the 345s suck everyone up easily, even better once they're 9 car.
 

StephenHunter

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They can also close the barriers at the Westfield entrance if things get bad. If you don't want to queue, go shopping.
 

Chris M

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Stratford station needs a complete rebuild, starting with a blank sheet of paper. Every platform needs more space, and the only way to achieve this is grade separation - move the Central line and Crossrail underground (the latter will probably require new underground platforms at Maryland as well) with very wide platforms like the Z1 Crossrail stations are getting. Then expand the other platforms into the space vacated. While you are at it, treble the width of the current subways and double the width of the high-level walkway.
The only problem is that this would require years of disruption and a truly massive budget to achieve and there aren't any alternatives that people can divert onto.
But they only use two most of the time (which was the cause of the original moan).
They only use two because it's more reliable that way.
 

dk1

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Stratford station needs a complete rebuild, starting with a blank sheet of paper. Every platform needs more space, and the only way to achieve this is grade separation - move the Central line and Crossrail underground (the latter will probably require new underground platforms at Maryland as well) with very wide platforms like the Z1 Crossrail stations are getting. Then expand the other platforms into the space vacated. While you are at it, treble the width of the current subways and double the width of the high-level walkway.
The only problem is that this would require years of disruption and a truly massive budget to achieve and there aren't any alternatives that people can divert onto.

They only use two because it's more reliable that way.
No chance now.
 

bramling

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Stratford is unusual as a terminal for the Jubilee Line in a high usage station, so this approach is not possible. You could non-stop the DLR alongside, but not the Jubilee, whose eastbound arrival volumes can be up there with central London loads. Of course, closing the third Jubilee platform for some inexplicable reason, which would have given an extra reservoir, didn't help.

The Jubilee works off two platforms at Stratford because they use stepping back to give a quicker throughput of trains. This is similar to what is done at Morden, and leaving the third platform spare is good operational practice as it can be used to house any train which turns up and can't depart immediately for whatever reason, or for those trains going to depot which need time to tip out. Furthermore, stepping back works better when the platforms are close together, as part of the rationale is that if a train turns up with no driver then reformations can be carried out to keep things moving - the more complex the layout the longer things take, which ultimately acts as a roadblock to running a high-frequency service, which is why stepping back is there in the first place.

Having said all this, it is unusual to have stepping back occur at a terminus where there is such a prevalent flow right to the end of the line, this certainly doesn't apply to Morden where generally trains only have a comparative trickle of people on and off. The layout at Stratford also doesn't help with everything being biased towards one end of the platforms.

As usual the numbers of people have simply outgrown the infrastructure. Quite why so many people seemingly want to go to Stratford is a bit of a mystery - to me the place is still a bit of a dump!
 
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Stratford’s busyness is in part Westfield, in part new housing and in part because it’s a key access point to Docklands jobs from a swathe of east London and Essex.

Incidentally the passenger numbers are a bit of a fiddle as a move from the TfL lines to National Rail is counted as a Stratford exit as opposed to an interchange. That doesn’t stop the numbers being high, just that the numbers LEAVING the station complex are not as high as the suggested.
 

tsr

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Incidentally the passenger numbers are a bit of a fiddle as a move from the TfL lines to National Rail is counted as a Stratford exit as opposed to an interchange. That doesn’t stop the numbers being high, just that the numbers LEAVING the station complex are not as high as the suggested.

Indeed. It's quite entertaining to sometimes watch the comparative vacuum of passengers around the entry/exit to the station, compared to the number of people swarming around just inside, using the place as the humongous interchange that it really is. (The same can apply to Clapham Junction.)
 

Railwaysceptic

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Stratford’s busyness is in part Westfield, in part new housing and in part because it’s a key access point to Docklands jobs from a swathe of east London and Essex.

Incidentally the passenger numbers are a bit of a fiddle as a move from the TfL lines to National Rail is counted as a Stratford exit as opposed to an interchange. That doesn’t stop the numbers being high, just that the numbers LEAVING the station complex are not as high as the suggested.
As one who uses Stratford Station two or three times a week, I agree with this. I do enter/exit from the station and the numbers going through the gates are not especially high. Stratford Station is used mainly as a major transport interchange hub. It's not unusual in that respect and many other interchange stations in London are similar; Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters being prominent examples.
 

swt_passenger

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Stratford station needs a complete rebuild, starting with a blank sheet of paper. Every platform needs more space, and the only way to achieve this is grade separation - move the Central line and Crossrail underground (the latter will probably require new underground platforms at Maryland as well) with very wide platforms like the Z1 Crossrail stations are getting. Then expand the other platforms into the space vacated. While you are at it, treble the width of the current subways and double the width of the high-level walkway.
The only problem is that this would require years of disruption and a truly massive budget to achieve and there aren't any alternatives that people can divert onto...
I think we had a discussion about this very point a few years back. You’re right, the Central line “cross platform design”, whenever it was first done, really painted them into a corner in perpetuity. The interchange space just isn’t enough, and although Crossrail full length trains will soak up passengers through more doorways the relevant platforms are still far too tight, despite flattening the buildings a few years ago before the Olympics.

They’d need to approach a rebuild to give adequate circulation like the way London Bridge was done - with the added complexity of the Central Line...
 

hwl

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The big question is surely whether Crossrail will improve things in the medium term (18+ months), providing an alternative Canary Wharf route with interchange via Whitechapel that might encourage current TfL rail users from east of Stratford to/from Canary not to change to the Jubilee line.
If so you can see why they might be waiting till after crossrail is open.
 

Peter Mugridge

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No chance now.

I'd agree with you that there's no chance - apart from everything else already mentioned, isn't there also going to be an issue with the DLR passing underneath the main station, meaning any movement of the Central / Crossrail underground would need to be quite deep?

There's also the HS1 tunnels at the east end of the station; the Central Line, I think, passes over them so any new tunneling would have to stay really deep until past that point which in turns means coming up past Forest Gate - which would be another can of worms with the existing junction there?
 

londonboi198o5

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TfL have overcrowding to deal with every day, the default approach is to close the entrances and non-stop the trains to stop people getting off.

Stratford is unusual as a terminal for the Jubilee Line in a high usage station, so this approach is not possible. You could non-stop the DLR alongside, but not the Jubilee, whose eastbound arrival volumes can be up there with central London loads. Of course, closing the third Jubilee platform for some inexplicable reason, which would have given an extra reservoir, didn't help. Yes, I've been in the underpass when jammed and stationary. Not pleasant.

One of the issues nowadays is the lack of resilience provision in the infrastructure. If something happens on the Central at Marble Arch there's no service at Stratford. Likewise an incident on the Jubilee out at West Hampstead (even on the adjacent Chiltern line, as happened recently) means no Jubilee service at Canary Wharf or Stratford.

Not exactly accurate on your last point.

A problem at West Hampstead will cause a suspension on the jubilee between Waterloo and say Willesden Green. If Waterloo is out they would suspend it London Bridge to Willesden Green. Waterloo is the preferred reversing point as you can change into the Bakerloo line and carry on northbound from there to keep going north then head into the met at Baker Street or London Overground (LO) from Willesden and continue.
 
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bramling

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not exactly accurate on your last point.
A problem at West Hampstead will cause a suspension on the jubilee between. Waterloo and say Willesden Green. If Waterloo is out they would suspend it London Bridge to Willesden Green. Waterloo is the preferred reversing point as you can change into the Bakerloo line and carry on northbound from there to keep going north then head into the met at Baker Street or London Overground from Willesden and continue.

Unfortunately whilst these reversing options exist, none of them offers the ability to run anything more than a token service provision to Stratford, especially during unplanned service disruption. That token service would be quite unable to carry the numbers that present themselves at busy times.
 

dk1

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I'd agree with you that there's no chance - apart from everything else already mentioned, isn't there also going to be an issue with the DLR passing underneath the main station, meaning any movement of the Central / Crossrail underground would need to be quite deep?

There's also the HS1 tunnels at the east end of the station; the Central Line, I think, passes over them so any new tunneling would have to stay really deep until past that point which in turns means coming up past Forest Gate - which would be another can of worms with the existing junction there?
Yes Peter. I don't think we will see any further change here now.
 

Taunton

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not exactly accurate on your last point.
A problem at West Hampstead will cause a suspension on the jubilee between. Waterloo and say Willesden Green. If Waterloo is out they would suspend it London Bridge to Willesden Green. Waterloo is the preferred reversing point
Alas that doesn't happen, apart maybe from planned works on quiet Sundays. In the case a few months ago it was a police incident on the Chiltern tracks at West Hampstead, and it was determined to close the Met/Jubilee alongside as well. Although the principal depot on the Jubilee is at the east end, all the intermediate turning points face west, and you ended up with the whole line being closed. Then the DLR at Bank got overwhelmed with diverted passengers from Canary Wharf, so that was closed as well. I'm sure Stratford then got pressed as well.
 

Chris M

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I'd agree with you that there's no chance - apart from everything else already mentioned, isn't there also going to be an issue with the DLR passing underneath the main station, meaning any movement of the Central / Crossrail underground would need to be quite deep?

There's also the HS1 tunnels at the east end of the station; the Central Line, I think, passes over them so any new tunneling would have to stay really deep until past that point which in turns means coming up past Forest Gate - which would be another can of worms with the existing junction there?
New tunnelling only needs to be sub-suface deep, as the DLR is basically at street level (± about a metre), and as a light railway it shouldn't need foundations as deep as a mainline railway (look at the viaducts it runs on).
This doesn't make it any more likely - any redevelopment on the needed scale is at least a generation away, but there's no point inventing more problems than already exist!
 
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