• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Cambridge North: Cambridge's new station

Status
Not open for further replies.

bspahh

Established Member
Joined
5 Jan 2017
Messages
1,727
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/software-update-needed-door-opening-13091832 is a story in the Cambridge News about the slow opening of the doors for a 387 at Cambridge North.

A rail passenger says the doors on a train he was travelling on did not open when it pulled into the new Cambridge North station.

Adrian Stevens tweeted: "Trains not opening doors at new #cambridgeNorth. Class 387 GPS software doesn't like the station!"

He then posted a tweet thanking the driver for releasing the doors manually so passengers could get off.

Train operator GTR has admitted software needs to be updated, but has added that there is no need for each door to be opened singly and manually.

The company said the software allows trains to work out where they are, and this has to happen before the doors can be opened.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

White Ant

Member
Joined
19 Dec 2009
Messages
23
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/software-update-needed-door-opening-13091832 is a story in the Cambridge News about the slow opening of the doors for a 387 at Cambridge North.

That was certainly an issue for the train I arrived back in the station on Tuesday - which was a GN train. I had time to try two sets of doors in the carriage I was in, and then walk down to the next carriage, where another passenger had been trying the door too, so it was considerably longer than 10 seconds before the doors opened. As I got out I noticed the police presence on the station so thought they might be something to do with the delay.
 

rebmcr

Established Member
Joined
15 Nov 2011
Messages
3,845
Location
St Neots
Last edited by a moderator:

D365

Veteran Member
Joined
29 Jun 2012
Messages
11,397
"Train station"... :D

In all seriousness though, having driven through the construction site a few times (albeit not recently), I wasn't expecting a building half as impressive as this.
 
Last edited:

dk1

Veteran Member
Joined
2 Oct 2009
Messages
15,827
Location
East Anglia
Worked the 1938 Norwich-Cambridge & 2115 return last night. First call here for me & dropped 5, picked up 2 up road then dropped off 5 on the return. My guard had even checked tickets in the rear car between Cambridge stations & seems commuters are happily taking any train & changing for the convenience of this station.
 

Ianno87

Veteran Member
Joined
3 May 2015
Messages
15,215
That was certainly an issue for the train I arrived back in the station on Tuesday - which was a GN train. I had time to try two sets of doors in the carriage I was in, and then walk down to the next carriage, where another passenger had been trying the door too, so it was considerably longer than 10 seconds before the doors opened. As I got out I noticed the police presence on the station so thought they might be something to do with the delay.

Similar has happened to me on arrival at King's Cross twice this week.
 

Kite159

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Jan 2014
Messages
19,157
Location
West of Andover
It isn't just the 387s not opening their doors straight away, was on a pair of 379s which terminated in the bay earlier and the driver mentioned about there being a delay in the doors being opened
 
Joined
20 Jan 2014
Messages
101
Walked to the station from Nuffield Road in less than 10 minutes and notice that that the walking connections to Chesterton are very good but to the science park and the business parks seem poor and direction signs are not the best.
I could see no station sign when you drive out from Cambridge.
Nice design of building and staff being helpful.
 

jon0844

Veteran Member
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Messages
28,013
Location
UK
Heathrow Terminal 5 opened with terrible signage. St Pancras opened with terrible signage. Both were fixed after the fact.

Why should we be surprised Cambridge North is any different? You wonder who designs the layout of signs and wonder if architects wanted to keep things clean and forgot about how people are supposed to find their way around, or even to, their new wonderful buildings.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 

MikePJ

Member
Joined
10 Dec 2015
Messages
447
You wonder who designs the layout of signs and wonder if architects wanted to keep things clean and forgot about how people are supposed to find their way around, or even to, their new wonderful buildings.


This, I'm afraid, is part of the old multi-agency problem: signage within the station land is the responsibility of the railway (NR/GA), whereas on local roads it's Cambridgeshire County Council, and on the A14 it's Highways England. Given that the station was delayed several times in planning, you'd have thought that the signage would all have been ready by now, but I suspect a mixture of budget cycles and different authorities not working well together has caused delays. I know some of the highways team at Cambs CC, and they've said before (on other projects) that NR are difficult to deal with - finding the right people within the organisation can be a real challenge.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

HGS

Member
Joined
20 Jun 2013
Messages
9
Yesterday I had to attend a meeting in a hotel on the Science Park. Opportunity to have a look at the new station and try out the extended guided busway. Plus an off peak return with plusbus was only £7 from Hitchin which seemed good value. It was a direct service terminating at Cambridge North which was even better. The train pretty much emptied at Cambridge with only 3 other people getting off at Cambridge North. I was in the front carriage so it seemed quite a long walk back to the footbridge which I think has already been mentioned.
The station is very impressive but had a slightly strange feel to it being almost empty of passengers. The guided bus was waiting outside and the driver was very helpful and informative telling me which stop I needed. Obviously I would have preferred that the railway line to St Ives had survived but the reality is that we would probably still be talking about re-opening if the guided busway had not been built. I was surprised at the speed the bus traveled once it had crossed the A1309 and the frequency of service. Didn't have to wait long for the return bus. All in all quite a pleasant experience.
 

dk1

Veteran Member
Joined
2 Oct 2009
Messages
15,827
Location
East Anglia
Yesterday's 10:03 ex-Norwich/11:50 return had a total of 33 passengers on/off at the North. According to internal sources on weekdays the station has been reaching 3000 passengers per day which is way above expectations at this early stage.
 

trivran

Member
Joined
23 Apr 2012
Messages
184
Is that so surprising given the station has only just opened though?
 

arb

Member
Joined
31 Oct 2010
Messages
411
Yesterday's 10:03 ex-Norwich/11:50 return had a total of 33 passengers on/off at the North. According to internal sources on weekdays the station has been reaching 3000 passengers per day which is way above expectations at this early stage.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-north-station--anyone-13128181 claims 4,200 passengers in the first week (so 600 per day if all days were equal), based solely on tickets sold to/from Cambridge North. So not including tickets to/from Cambridge where people used Cambridge North instead, and not including people who changed trains there (are there actually any connections you can make at Cambridge North that you couldn't make at Cambridge?)
 

bspahh

Established Member
Joined
5 Jan 2017
Messages
1,727
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-north-station--anyone-13128181 claims 4,200 passengers in the first week (so 600 per day if all days were equal), based solely on tickets sold to/from Cambridge North. So not including tickets to/from Cambridge where people used Cambridge North instead, and not including people who changed trains there (are there actually any connections you can make at Cambridge North that you couldn't make at Cambridge?)

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/more-21000-people-travelled-through-13249884 says:
A Greater Anglia spokeswoman said: "Since Cambridge North opened there have been at least 21,000 people use the station - with 42,000 passenger journeys.

"This figure is just the number of tickets either issued to or from Cambridge North. However, the actual figure of people using the station is higher than this because we know people have been either breaking their journey or travelling to Cambridge North with a Cambridge ticket or an Anglia Rover ticket.
 

jopsuk

Veteran Member
Joined
13 May 2008
Messages
12,771
Used it for the first time yesterday, heading to London straight from work. Train was a 387, and the doors took an age to open. Still got issues with the SDO system?

Meanwhile: is really not possible to sort the stopping positions on platform 3? On 1 (the up) it's fine having a single "S Stop" board, because even for a four car that puts the train alongside the canopy, stairs, lift. On platform 2 (the down), there's a 4, 8, 12 plus RLU and FLU stop stop boards (even though current Thameslink plans have no 700s north of Cambridge) positioned appropriately. They'll need additional stop boards for the Class 720s though (units of 5x24m carriages).
But over on poor platform 3, the bay? Everything goes to the far end. Which isn't even at the buffers, the siding goes well beyond the platform. But at the moment most services using 3 are 4 car.
 

jon0844

Veteran Member
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Messages
28,013
Location
UK
The S stop is about twenty miles on isn't it? I came in on a 4 car 317 GA service and had to walk what seemed like miles back in the rain!

And the driver of our GN 387 did warn us it would take about 30 seconds to release the doors, and didn't disappoint!
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,020
The S stop is about twenty miles on isn't it? I came in on a 4 car 317 GA service and had to walk what seemed like miles back in the rain
All sounds like a typical 21st Century Network Rail project.
 

jon0844

Veteran Member
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Messages
28,013
Location
UK
I had to laugh at the stairs with the rail for bikes, which are too far over to the side. Not a single bike user even tried it, and carried their bikes down, and up.

Wherever I've seen them before, often two rails so you can take buggies up and down, they're further away from the wall.
 

jopsuk

Veteran Member
Joined
13 May 2008
Messages
12,771
the bike channels on the stairs is amazingly annoying. They went through a lot of iterations to get them right at Cambridge station. Then seem to have installed the original design here.
 

arb

Member
Joined
31 Oct 2010
Messages
411
the bike channels on the stairs is amazingly annoying. They went through a lot of iterations to get them right at Cambridge station. Then seem to have installed the original design here.

One other potentially annoying feature of the bike channel at Cambridge North (I would have thought - I've not had reason to use them myself) is that it's a single channel on a staircase that has turns/angles in it. So if you start to use the channel to go up, there's no way of knowing if somebody is already using it to come down. If that happens you're going to bump into each other in the middle, causing one person to have to move their bike out of the channel and into the middle of the staircase, causing an inconvenience to other people using the stairs.

No idea if that's actually a problem in reality, but given that it sounds like the channels aren't usable in the first place, I doubt it is at the moment!
 

jon0844

Veteran Member
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Messages
28,013
Location
UK
The channels are totally unusable, as I wouldn't imagine tipping the bike would work well and means shifting the weight of the bike such that it could be a hazard.

It's quite amazing to see that someone allowed it to be like that and didn't notice at the design or build stage.

Maybe someone who hates cyclists. Just like cyclists seem to design many new car parks. :)
 

bspahh

Established Member
Joined
5 Jan 2017
Messages
1,727
The channels are totally unusable, as I wouldn't imagine tipping the bike would work well and means shifting the weight of the bike such that it could be a hazard.

It's quite amazing to see that someone allowed it to be like that and didn't notice at the design or build stage.

Maybe someone who hates cyclists. Just like cyclists seem to design many new car parks. :)

I've tried using the bike rails with a Brompton. Tilting the bike, and also having to stop it from folding was a pain.

The stairs are narrower at Cambridge North than at Cambridge, so they might not have had space to move the track for bicycle wheels away from the wall.

The lifts at Cambridge North are pretty quick and quite quiet, so with a bike its often easier to use them instead of the stairs.
 

jon0844

Veteran Member
Joined
1 Feb 2009
Messages
28,013
Location
UK
I didn't see any bike users try the lifts. And I was amazed (but probably shouldn't be) just how many bike users there are.

If someone thought the track being further out would impede movement, someone didn't consider the width of someone carting a mountain bike up on their shoulders!

Clearly the trains serving Cambridge and surrounds are totally unable to cope with 3 or 4 bikes for every vestibule. But that's another topic of conversation.
 
Last edited:

Ianno87

Veteran Member
Joined
3 May 2015
Messages
15,215
The S stop is about twenty miles on isn't it? I came in on a 4 car 317 GA service and had to walk what seemed like miles back in the rain!

And the driver of our GN 387 did warn us it would take about 30 seconds to release the doors, and didn't disappoint!

The S stop is so positioned so in the event that a 4 car train fails in the platform (or is otherwise unable to depart), one can continue running the service by bringing a 4 or 8 car in on top (or to rescue).

A similar situation exists at Alloa.

The walking distance will cease to be an issue with longer fixed-formation rolling stock in future in any case for both GN and GA.
 

Mordac

Established Member
Joined
5 Mar 2016
Messages
2,303
Location
Birmingham
The channels are totally unusable, as I wouldn't imagine tipping the bike would work well and means shifting the weight of the bike such that it could be a hazard.

It's quite amazing to see that someone allowed it to be like that and didn't notice at the design or build stage.

Maybe someone who hates cyclists. Just like cyclists seem to design many new car parks. :)

I don't know if they were a cyclist, but whoever designed the speed bumps on Northampton Station car park clearly hates motorcyclists with a vengeance!<(
 

arb

Member
Joined
31 Oct 2010
Messages
411
The S stop is so positioned so in the event that a 4 car train fails in the platform (or is otherwise unable to depart), one can continue running the service by bringing a 4 or 8 car in on top (or to rescue).

I presume that there must be some rule or regulation that prevents trains making an initial stop in the sensible position for passengers, close to the station buildings, and then moving forward to the end of the platform (to allow for the situation you've just described) after everybody has got off the train?

The walking distance will cease to be an issue with longer fixed-formation rolling stock in future in any case for both GN and GA.

Although looking at the proposed timetables for Great Northern in 2018 (https://www.transformingrail.com/-/media/goahead/transforming-rail/files/gn-mainline-routes-2018.pdf), they don't appear to be planning to run any trains that terminate at Cambridge North any more...
 

MikePJ

Member
Joined
10 Dec 2015
Messages
447
Cambridge (main) station had the same problem with cycle channels when the footbridge to platforms 7 and 8 opened - if you look at the brackets, you can see where an extension piece was bolted in to get them into the right place. I know the Cambridge Cycling Campaign pointed this out on day one of Cambridge North being open, so I hope a similar solution will be implemented.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top