Euston overcrowding

[The Planner]

• 5 minutes for disembarkation and platform to clear
• (25mins ex-Scotland, 20mins other services) delay recovery time
• 10 minutes for cleaners to clean with doors locked (platform called once doors locked)
• 7 minutes to board

So 42 to 47 minutes. Although this would require the way the station works to be overhauled into something far more suitable than that which exists at present.

To avoid overcrowding and the Euston Scrum, the circa. 15 mins allowed for boarding has to be sacrosanct. I'm less fussy about the delay recovery time, but it depends how late you want departures off Euston to be. From a cursory examination of RTT, delays up to the 20 minute mark seem pretty common, so a 20 minute recovery time would be reasonable. If, however, you're happy for trains to routinely leave late with the consequent performance issues across NW&C and beyond, then you can trim that down to suit your taste.

A hot set would be useful, but I'm not sure I'd trust Avanti to do set swaps on such large numbers of services and have them ready to start to time whilst retaining the 15 minutes protected boarding window.

I dont expect Avanti to have the rolling stock to even deal with that. 20 minutes as a buffer on top just in case is far too much.

 

[Trainbike46]

• 5 minutes for disembarkation and platform to clear
• (25mins ex-Scotland, 20mins other services) delay recovery time
• 10 minutes for cleaners to clean with doors locked (platform called once doors locked)
• 7 minutes to board

So 42 to 47 minutes. Although this would require the way the station works to be overhauled into something far more suitable than that which exists at present.

To avoid overcrowding and the Euston Scrum, the circa. 15 mins allowed for boarding has to be sacrosanct. I'm less fussy about the delay recovery time, but it depends how late you want departures off Euston to be. From a cursory examination of RTT, delays up to the 20 minute mark seem pretty common, so a 20 minute recovery time would be reasonable. If, however, you're happy for trains to routinely leave late with the consequent performance issues across NW&C and beyond, then you can trim that down to suit your taste.

A hot set would be useful, but I'm not sure I'd trust Avanti to do set swaps on such large numbers of services and have them ready to start to time whilst retaining the 15 minutes protected boarding window.

you know that, in the case of delay, you can just skip the cleaning? Also, for many services, it will not take 12 minutes to empty and refill the set with passengers. If a set arrives 25 minutes before it is due to depart, 20 minutes of that is in effect available as delay recovery time

 

[AndrewE]

There is a culture on LNER of the staff being very loud around the seating near the kitchen and taking over seats but it tends to be slightly less annoying as the service is generally more passenger focussed. Be better if it didn’t happen though.

I imagine the whole train being reserved solid and absolutely full (as it was in my only recent experience) would stop staff taking first class seats!

 

[Busman]

Euston Station really does have to be knocked down and started again, it is a shockingly bad station. And no matter how many changes, refurbs etc you do, it proves the saying, you simply cannot polish a turd.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Euston Station really does have to be knocked down and started again, it is a shockingly bad station. And no matter how many changes, refurbs etc you do, it proves the saying, you simply cannot polish a turd.

I'm increasingly thinking that way, however there are things that could be done to make it less unpleasant, but Network Rail and Avanti seem to be opposed to actually doing them for some reason I just can't fathom. They instead seem to prefer doing things that make it worse, such as the stupid new departure boards.

 

[WAB]

you know that, in the case of delay, you can just skip the cleaning? Also, for many services, it will not take 12 minutes to empty and refill the set with passengers. If a set arrives 25 minutes before it is due to depart, 20 minutes of that is in effect available as delay recovery time

Are you suggesting that in times of disruption, the platform would be called 5-8 minutes before the inbound working arrives with no ticket checks on the ramp, with the train then dispatched as soon as everyone is aboard? 5 minutes to turnaround would be... interesting.

The whole point of this thread isn't the recovery time available in the current timetables. It is dealing with the overcrowding and the Euston scrum. The layout of the station incentivises hurrying, and I'd suggest that 10 minutes is not entirely generous for less experienced/agile customers to get from some point in the crowded station, down the narrow corridor, down the ramps and down the length of an 11-car Pendolino without hurrying. Especially given the repeated reminders about doors being locked 2 mins prior to departure, and the countdowns on screens!

The cleaning is a bit of a red herring, really. In my plan, cleaning is taking place whilst the platform is already called so cutting it out doesn't achieve any time saving.

I dont expect Avanti to have the rolling stock to even deal with that. 20 minutes as a buffer on top just in case is far too much.

That's fair enough. They'd just have to deal with the increased late running as a result then. It's all about trade-offs isn't it!

 

[occone]

I noticed on a recent trip to London via Euston that there was an extremely tight turnaround time. Train in, passengers off, cleaners on, passengers on, all in about five or ten minutes.

(The cleaners didn't have a chance to finish before people were throwing their oversized luggage into the undersized racks and bagsying table seats so they could loudly air their laundry to their friends and the rest of the carriage... Or am I bitter?)

With a 20 minute service I can imagine there is very little time to spare. It would be lovely if there was a spare set or two to offset the cleaning/loading time squeeze.

I'd bet there already is, but they get called into service due to various issues so that by rush hour it's in and out again.

 

[uglymonkey]

Cleaners used to board GWR services at Reading and clean until they got off at Paddington. So don't understand what is so sacrosanct about it at Euston.

 

[modernrail]

Cleaners used to board GWR services at Reading and clean until they got off at Paddington. So don't understand what is so sacrosanct about it at Euston.

With the state of Euston, and the fact that they have people gathering rubbish on the move anyway, surely the completely obvious thing to do is move the main clean up the other end (Manchester, Liverpool etc) so only the lightest touch is required at Euston. They are still long trains though - do the current teams work from one end to the other? If so, two teams working from the end to the middle would make sense.

Main point is, they should be in a position where it is not the end of the world if cleaners and passengers need to mix on the train at Euston to maintain an absolute position of yr train being ready to board 15 mins before. In general this should apply at all terminus stations in London.

How come it is much more relaxed over at Kings Cross? What are they doing differently?

 

[james_the_xv]

Cleaners used to board GWR services at Reading and clean until they got off at Paddington. So don't understand what is so sacrosanct about it at Euston.

First stop on the hourly fast service to Glasgow is Warrington...

 

[Falcon1200]

Euston Station really does have to be knocked down and started again, it is a shockingly bad station. And no matter how many changes, refurbs etc you do, it proves the saying, you simply cannot polish a turd.

Euston was of course totally rebuilt in the 1960s for the WCML electrification, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, however before and after maps show just what a mess the old station was; The book 'Britain's New Railway', O.S.Nock, Ian Allan 1966, contains such maps. The book also has a section on the New Railway's timetable, the basic express service being;

Every two hours to Manchester
Every two hours to Liverpool
Every hour to Birmingham, extending alternately to Manchester or Liverpool
Every hour to Glasgow/Barrow/Blackpool or Holyhead

Plus odd extras such as the Pullmans to Manchester and Liverpool, and of course variations early in the day and in the evening, with the overnight trains especially.

In contrast today's services are double, and in some cases treble, the frequency! So it is perhaps unsurprising that the 1960s station struggles to cope with the 2020s hugely greater number of trains, and passengers, and thus the need for HS2, in its full, complete and unexpurgated form is demonstrated. Which is not to say that things could not be improved now, the late boarding of long distance trains and resulting stampede is a serious issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How come it is much more relaxed over at Kings Cross? What are they doing differently?

The biggest difference in my mind is that almost everyone travelling on long distance services out of Kings Cross has a seat reservation, which significantly reduces the need to rush to the train to fight over unreserved seats, which is the main reason for the scrum.

Despite both Avanti and LNER nominally operating the same "fake compulsory reservations" approach, LNER make it much easier for someone on a flexible ticket to get a reservation separately from that ticket once they know when they're going to travel (e.g. on the way to Kings X) and change it as well, both with seat selection. Thus a significant proportion of people do that. Avanti do not provide such an option. If they did, without question I'd use it, and thus have no need to rush. Witness how much more civilised boarding a low-cost airline flight is now there's no need to rush yourself silly to get to the aircraft first to choose the best seats (and that's in a situation where everyone is guaranteed *a* seat even if you couldn't pick one!)

KX has only a small suburban service, so this element of it isn't really comparable, though I can compare Euston before and after they started suppressing platforms for suburban services, and it was MUCH better before. Even if they only stopped suppressing for 8-11 where it wouldn't get in the way of Avanti it would help hugely. Platform alterations would be a pain, but in my experience last minute alterations are very rare at Euston - the platforming these days is almost consistent enough for it to be written on a sheet of paper (and way back when it was, in the Tube station!)

 

[BRX]

A lot of it is down to the physical layout. In the images below I've marked in bright pink the points where everyone going between concourse & platforms has to pass through.

Then I've made copies of each of those lines in bright green and laid them out end-to-end across the platform area.

This is not very scientific as these maps probably aren't exactly to scale but I think it shows that the amount of exit width at Euston, relative to the number of platforms, is much less than at KX.

Additionally, at KX you can get from any platform to any point on the exit line .... so if four trains are trying to load/unload at the same time, all the people can use the whole gateline. But at Euston if 4 trains are all in the same "bunch" then all the passengers have to get through one small portion of available gateline. Plus, of course, KX has the additional exit/entry bridge halfway down the platform (although this never seems to be very heavily used).

 

[Bletchleyite]

It should be noted, however, that other than 8-11* and very occasional stings no arrival checks are carried out at Euston. This means platforms clear reasonably quickly even without a wide gateline.

* And if two trains arrive at once the gateline is generally opened, though things are slowed a bit compared to before even then because of Oyster/contactless users tapping out.

 

[Skie]

I really must be missing why this is all such a terrible idea.

Because Avanti staff at Euston would be redundant and instead ticket checks would need to be done by train managers on departure.

Passengers would be safer, but there’s an element of self interest at play at Euston so the resistance to sensible change continues. Until someone dies.

 

[Bungle965]

It should be noted, however, that other than 8-11* and very occasional stings no arrival checks are carried out at Euston. This means platforms clear reasonably quickly even without a wide gateline.

* And if two trains arrive at once the gateline is generally opened, though things are slowed a bit compared to before even then because of Oyster/contactless users tapping out.

This has changed now, ATGs gated platforms should now have most arrivals gated.

 

[Watershed]

More chaos this evening due to earlier OLE problems. Security staff shouting at passengers not to stand in particular places for no obvious reason, a manager-looking type shouting something unintelligible, and the barrier to platform 5 for the 17:46 was closed 5 mins before departure, denying at least 20 or 30 passengers boarding.

It's hard to imagine it being - or getting - much worse. Blackpool North is facing stiff competition for the "worst station" award!

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

It should be noted, however, that other than 8-11* and very occasional stings no arrival checks are carried out at Euston. This means platforms clear reasonably quickly even without a wide gateline.

* And if two trains arrive at once the gateline is generally opened, though things are slowed a bit compared to before even then because of Oyster/contactless users tapping out.

Policy, which is subject to staffing and a few other conditions is that Avanti services on 1-3 should be checked on arrival if it doesn't cause a delay and there's enough space (i.e. customers waiting to travel North aren't crowding near the gates, obstructing exiting passengers). No surprise that they catch a fair few with no/invalid tickets.

Attempts are made to prioritise arrival checking of double Voyager/Hitachi sets - but again, resourcing and operational constraints means it doesn't go to plan.

 

[Kite159]

So it will be like Kings Cross where if you are in the wrong part of the train you can wait up-to 10 minutes to leave the platform due to congestion around the ticket gates which catch passengers off-guard.

Euston, forever putting passengers first... Not.

 

[Peter0124]

Following is taken from a 10:00 to 16:00 sample off Realtime Trains on a Wednesday (ie off-peak hours) using platform number data. This is as of now (June 2024 TT change).

Keep in mind set swaps are common at Euston so the following isn't always the case, especially during disruption, but when everything's fine the general turnaround times and diagrams are:

xx:13 Manchester - 32 minutes/46 minutes (arrives from Manchester)
xx:30 Glasgow - 36 minutes/52 minutes (arrives from Scotland via Brum)
xx:33 Manchester - 27 minutes (arrives from Birmingham)
xx:40 Birmingham - 30 minutes (arrives from Manchester)
xx:43 Liverpool - 40 minutes (arrives from Liverpool)
xx:53 Manchester - 40 minutes (arrives from Glasgow)

Its not always like this, depending on the hour, but this is the general trend off peak at least.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So it will be like Kings Cross where if you are in the wrong part of the train you can wait up-to 10 minutes to leave the platform due to congestion around the ticket gates which catch passengers off-guard.

Euston, forever putting passengers first... Not.

Last time I was at Kings Cross the exit gatelines were closed but the entrance ones open. As I was heading for Euston I just turned right and avoided any check. Half expected to be chased but wasn't.

(A valid ticket was of course held)

 

[uglymonkey]

Kings Cross , if its really manic, I've seen them flip all the gatelines open to clear the "crush" for a while. ( Also happens if staff are not around- much rarer).

 

[jon0844]

you know that, in the case of delay, you can just skip the cleaning? Also, for many services, it will not take 12 minutes to empty and refill the set with passengers. If a set arrives 25 minutes before it is due to depart, 20 minutes of that is in effect available as delay recovery time

Let me make it clear, I don't want a delayed train or to arrive late (and be further delayed from missing paths etc) but nor do I want to board a dirty train that might also have no food or drink provision.

Plus there a number of checks and processes for the crew to follow before a train can just start in service. There's scope to save a few minutes I'm sure, but you aren't turning an Intercity train around in five, or likely even ten, minutes.

Depending on what caused the delay, you might also find crew are displaced from other disrupted services. I've been on an Avanti train late into Euston whereby another service going out was delayed as crew for that train were on our train. So nothing would have got that train moving sooner.

Could you reduce such examples with more crew and more trains as spares? Yeah, I'm sure you could... but who is paying for spare crew and trains?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Let me make it clear, I don't want a delayed train or to arrive late (and be further delayed from missing paths etc) but nor do I want to board a dirty train that might also have no food or drink provision.

Best not use WMT's long distance services, then, as that's the norm!

 

[bramling]

Let me make it clear, I don't want a delayed train or to arrive late (and be further delayed from missing paths etc) but nor do I want to board a dirty train that might also have no food or drink provision.

Plus there a number of checks and processes for the crew to follow before a train can just start in service. There's scope to save a few minutes I'm sure, but you aren't turning an Intercity train around in five, or likely even ten, minutes.

Depending on what caused the delay, you might also find crew are displaced from other disrupted services. I've been on an Avanti train late into Euston whereby another service going out was delayed as crew for that train were on our train. So nothing would have got that train moving sooner.

Could you reduce such examples with more crew and more trains as spares? Yeah, I'm sure you could... but who is paying for spare crew and trains?

I always think the point about cleaning is over-stated. It’s quite possible for litter to be collected whilst the train is on the move, either before arriving or after departure. And there’s plenty of places where it’s done at termini with people on. Whilst it’s not ideal, nothing about Euston is ideal.

Personally I’d rather have to clear a few coffee cups off the table than endure the whole Euston boarding routine as it currently is.

I often used to board 365s very early at King’s Cross, and was quite happy to clear stuff away myself if necessary. I’d much prefer this to being stuck outside for 15 minutes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

FWIW Avanti *do* have mobile rubbish collection. So it can be done. They don't wipe down tables or similar, but they could probably get away with only doing that at the outer terminus?

 

[jon0844]

I always think the point about cleaning is over-stated. It’s quite possible for litter to be collected whilst the train is on the move, either before arriving or after departure. And there’s plenty of places where it’s done at termini with people on. Whilst it’s not ideal, nothing about Euston is ideal.

Personally I’d rather have to clear a few coffee cups off the table than endure the whole Euston boarding routine as it currently is.

I often used to board 365s very early at King’s Cross, and was quite happy to clear stuff away myself if necessary. I’d much prefer this to being stuck outside for 15 minutes.

If people didn't decide to leave so much mess, including spilling drink everywhere and leaving food on seats (as is common on trains coming out of King's Cross and Moorgate at night) then we'd likely be fine. I wonder what condition a train in Japan is left in when it arrives at its terminus.

Some foreign IC trains have bins at each seat/bay and people perhaps tidy up after themselves. Others take their stuff with them. Most likely don't look like they'd had a food fight.

If society could be fixed, we'd eliminate many of the issues we face now and why the phrase 'why we can't have nice things' applies to so many things. This goes way beyond just Euston and its trains!

 

[modernrail]

If people didn't decide to leave so much mess, including spilling drink everywhere and leaving food on seats (as is common on trains coming out of King's Cross and Moorgate at night) then we'd likely be fine. I wonder what condition a train in Japan is left in when it arrives at its terminus.

Some foreign IC trains have bins at each seat/bay and people perhaps tidy up after themselves. Others take their stuff with them. Most likely don't look like they'd had a food fight.

If society could be fixed, we'd eliminate many of the issues we face now and why the phrase 'why we can't have nice things' applies to so many things. This goes way beyond just Euston and its trains!

In general the trains arriving at Euston are pretty clean. I can’t think of a train I have alighted there that has been in a state. Not that no cleaning is required but compared to the filth buckets Northern runs, they are generally not arriving filthy.

The other easy win would be putting an exit into Eversholt Street and improving the exit onto Melton Street. The Melton Street exit could become the signposted route for Euston Sq station and Eversholt for St Pancras/KC.

 

[WAB]

How come it is much more relaxed over at Kings Cross? What are they doing differently?

The built environment counts for a lot.

• The Kings Cross concourse feels spacious even when packed to the rafters, whereas Euston feels a bit cramped even when empty - perhaps it's the shape and the clutter everywhere.
• Kings Cross has large open lines of view, well-lit with high ceilings. Euston is cluttered with retail units, and platforms are accessed down a narrow, low-ceilinged, grotty corridor.
• The Cross has straight platforms at concourse-level. Euston's ramps and curved platforms tell you to hurry.
• The departure board is in a logical place on the KX concourse, but you struggle to see the correct
• KX station ops feel largely orderly, with trains generally called in good time. Euston calls trains with short notice a few minutes before. Their piss-poor running of the station has caused crowding and scrumming even when only the London Overgrounds are running!

Need I go on?

I'd like to know what building design specialists would make of the two stations. I suspect they'd tell you that Euston encourages rushing and stress, whilst KX is a much calmer environment.

 

[BRX]

Euston could be a much calmer environment. Look at the images of it when it was new. Clutter has been allowed to accumulate everywhere and the original design is hardly visible and is not shown the slightest respect. And of course they've recently made it even worse with the awful giant advertising screen. It's literally telling passengers they are there to be milked for revenue - that function of the space takes priority over providing people somewhere calm and pleasant to wait. It makes me quite angry in fact!