Overcrowding at St. Pancras (EMR) 03/12/23

[YorkshireTom]

Just boarded the 13:02 to Sheffield at St Pancras.

I’m an enthusiastic railway user but I have never been so appalled at the lack of customer service when traveling on the railway. A very sour end to a family trip to London.

EMR have setup a queue system, managed by private security contractors along the concourse.
The platform was never announced and the screens did not display the destination (from RTT I knew it was platform 1).

Security kept us penned in the queue despite the dispatcher announcing “the train on platform 1” would leave in one minute. At which point I remonstrated with EMR staff at the barrier to let us through and called to the dispatcher as we passed to say that there were many more behind for the Sheffield train.

I witnessed a lady trip and drop her case in the rush to get on. The whole situation felt very unsafe, especially traveling with young children.

It was clear that they were going to dispatch the train without letting everyone in the queue onboard. And this indeed did happen.

The guard has just informed us the front half has seats available (2 units coupled together). Meanwhile we are standing as our reserved seats are in the front half.

I understand the safety issues and need for crowd control with ECML works and strike action - but what was EMR’s intent here? Because from a safety perspective I would be recording this as a near miss, and from a customer service perspective an abject failure.

Posting here to share my experience. About to walk forward at Market Harborough and find a seat. My child has asked if we can take the car next time.

 

[TheBigD]

Sadly, whenever the WCML or ECML is shut for engineering work St Pancras gets overwhelmed. The low capacity of the (predominantly) 5 car 222 intercity services means that it simply does not have the capability to handle extra passengers from the other mainline.
I've not checked if there's been any services strengthened, but EMR don't normally strengthen their services to cater for the extra punters.
The lack of diverted services (for a whole number of reasons) results in the current situation.

 

[YorkshireTom]

Yes. And it’s good that EMR was at least aware there would be issues.

We’ve now moved forward and there is plenty of room. The train was on the platform in good time prior to departure. Why the need to hold us in the queue and then announce the train was leaving?

 

[TUC]

But this is

Sadly, whenever the WCML or ECML is shut for engineering work St Pancras gets overwhelmed. The low capacity of the (predominantly) 5 car 222 intercity services means that it simply does not have the capability to handle extra passengers from the other mainline.
I've not checked if there's been any services strengthened, but EMR don't normally strengthen their services to cater for the extra punters.
The lack of diverted services (for a whole number of reasons) results in the current situation.

But this isn't primarily about strengthening services. It's about staff doing their jobs and allowing passengers onto the platform at an appropriate time.

 

[Saint66]

Currently on a 5 carriage EMR service from Sheffield. As you can imagine it is absolutely packed - people were stood in the aisles and sat on the floor even before departure.

 

[Silver Cobra]

The situation would have been even worse had LNER continued with their original plan to run replacement buses between St Neots and Bedford. Thankfully they took the decision to reroute the buses to run between St Neots and Cockfosters, lessening the pressure at least a bit from EMR with no Thameslink services today due to the strike.

 

[Hadders]

No Thameslink services today due to strike action won't help EMR either as their electric services will be overhwelmed with passemgers travelling to Luton and Bedford. This is probably why a queueing system was set up at St Pancras.

 

[43055]

Sadly, whenever the WCML or ECML is shut for engineering work St Pancras gets overwhelmed. The low capacity of the (predominantly) 5 car 222 intercity services means that it simply does not have the capability to handle extra passengers from the other mainline.
I've not checked if there's been any services strengthened, but EMR don't normally strengthen their services to cater for the extra punters.
The lack of diverted services (for a whole number of reasons) results in the current situation.

Looks like a fairly normal Sunday to me with mostly 10's in the morning which to increase to the frequency in the afternoon most of them split into 5's.

 

[43074]

But this isn't primarily about strengthening services. It's about staff doing their jobs and allowing passengers onto the platform at an appropriate time.

Indeed, more often than not the queueing system they implement at St Pancras makes things worse than if passengers were allowed to trickle onto the platforms as they arrived.

EMR staff at St Pancras have been poor at dealing with this for a long time, and not just when there's disruption but day to day. They tend to block access to Intercity platforms until the Connect departs then cause a crush when they advertise both Nottingham and Sheffield services for boarding at the same time. It's worse than the notorious crush you get at Euston.

 

[YorkRailFan]

I did this in June 2021 when the ECML was closed, so I traveled with EMR to Sheffield and then got XC up to York, I was on a 5 car 222 and was lucky enough to get a seat, at each station we served, the station boards kept saying "Standing Room Only, If Possible, Get Next Service"

 

[Starmill]

Sadly, whenever the WCML or ECML is shut for engineering work St Pancras gets overwhelmed. The low capacity of the (predominantly) 5 car 222 intercity services means that it simply does not have the capability to handle extra passengers from the other mainline.
I've not checked if there's been any services strengthened, but EMR don't normally strengthen their services to cater for the extra punters.
The lack of diverted services (for a whole number of reasons) results in the current situation.

Yes but the problem was mostly caused by no Avanti West Coast services due to strike action, not engineering works.

Yes. And it’s good that EMR was at least aware there would be issues.

We’ve now moved forward and there is plenty of room. The train was on the platform in good time prior to departure. Why the need to hold us in the queue and then announce the train was leaving?

I strongly recommend complaining to EMR and asking for compensation in respect of their choice not to provide you with the reserved seats.

 

[Deafdoggie]

The railways are shocking at this. They actively encourage crushing and rushing and point blank refuse to do anything about it. Somebody will, very sadly, have to be seriously injured or die before they change their attitude. But that is the railways general attitude to safety-learn from an accident, rather than preventing it happening in the first place. Anyone with even a modicum of common sense can see penning people in & not revealing the platform till the last minute will only encourage rushing and crowd surges. Concerts expressly prohibit this sort of behaviour but railways actively encourage it. On the plus side, they'll learn from it when it all goes wrong.

 

[Richardr]

Indeed, more often than not the queueing system they implement at St Pancras makes things worse than if passengers were allowed to trickle onto the platforms as they arrived.

The other thing if they did that, then passengers would spread along the length of the train. Now letting people on near dispatch time means most people who can get to the train end up getting on the first few carriages, even though the other end of the train is nearly empty. Surely there could be a way of letting, say, half the train capacity onto the platform, and trying to spread them, only holding back the rest?

 

[MCR247]

EMR staff at St Pancras have been poor at dealing with this for a long time, and not just when there's disruption but day to day. They tend to block access to Intercity platforms until the Connect departs then cause a crush when they advertise both Nottingham and Sheffield services for boarding at the same time. It's worse than the notorious crush you get at Euston.

Indeed. I’ve not seen many (if any?) stations before where the gateline staff will just turn off the whole gateline whenever they feel like it.

As 43074 said, the staff seem to like to wait for the 360 on platform 1 to leave, turn off the barriers for a few minutes (so they show a red X from both sides) before then announcing the InterCity platforms 5-10 minutes before departure (and remember - doors close 2 minutes before departure!). If you’re at the front of the crowd you’d like to hope they’ve remembered to turn the gates on at the same time the platform number goes up. Sadly, this isn’t always the case and a bit of a crush can develop. Even worse when the departure is from platform 4 and by now a train has arrived in 1 or 2 so you’ve got two large groups of passengers in conflicting directions. Ridiculous way of doing things.

The railways are shocking at this. They actively encourage crushing and rushing and point blank refuse to do anything about it. Somebody will, very sadly, have to be seriously injured or die before they change their attitude. But that is the railways general attitude to safety-learn from an accident, rather than preventing it happening in the first place. Anyone with even a modicum of common sense can see penning people in & not revealing the platform till the last minute will only encourage rushing and crowd surges. Concerts expressly prohibit this sort of behaviour but railways actively encourage it. On the plus side, they'll learn from it when it all goes wrong.

It’s a recipe for disaster. To make matters worse, whilst penned into a big crowd waiting for a platform to you’ll be constantly seeing or hearing notices about ‘train doors closing 2 minutes’ before departure. And then they’ll wonder why people rush/run

 

[alistairlees]

Here are some pictures from about 12.35 on Sunday. I had just arrived from Hull. Hull Trains queue on the left - it was just about to start moving. The labelling on the queue was clear. On the right were several (or one big?) EMR queues. They went all the way down the upper level to the Booking Office. The EMR trains depating were a mixture of 5 and 10 car, I think.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Wonderful - I wonder how many of those passengers will be "driving next time"

 

[43066]

It's about staff doing their jobs and allowing passengers onto the platform at an appropriate time.

Their job primarily is to ensure safely, so it may be appropriate to prevent passengers from accessing the platform just before departure. Trains are generally clearly advertised and only removed from boards a couple of minutes before departure to assist with this.

To the OP, are you suggesting the Sheffield train was never displayed on departure boards? If so, it does seem that something has gone amiss somewhere. What time did you join the queue?, and were any announcements made?

No Thameslink services today due to strike action won't help EMR either as their electric services will be overhwelmed with passemgers travelling to Luton and Bedford. This is probably why a queueing system was set up at St Pancras.

The queueing system really isn’t ideal, partly because the area of the concourse dedicated to EMR departures is far too small for the numbers using it. Made worse when Hull trains are operating into the station (which IMO is a ridiculous state of affairs). The general approach is that reservations etc go out the window and trains are dispatched before the point they get dangerously overcrowded. TMs generally take a very liberal approach to tickets and don’t hold people to their booked trains (assuming they can even get through the train to check!).

before then announcing the InterCity platforms 5-10 minutes before departure (and remember - doors close 2 minutes before departure!)

Usually because the platforms (only four remember, and three if HT is knocking one out) will have other trains arriving and disgorging loads of passengers, or splitting/joining. In which case having hoards of passengers already on the platform is a safety risk. The *last* thing you want is an uncontrolled crush of passengers going in both directions when another train is silently gliding along the platform towards them and they have their back to it…

The railways are shocking at this. They actively encourage crushing and rushing and point blank refuse to do anything about it. Somebody will, very sadly, have to be seriously injured or die before they change their attitude.

The arrangements have been signed off and risk assessed by various members of staff at both EMR and NR, as being safer than a free for all, given the available infrastructure. The railway does a pretty good job of being extremely safe, so I’m afraid this suggestion is simply nonsense.

 

[Starmill]

Looks like a fairly normal Sunday to me with mostly 10's in the morning which to increase to the frequency in the afternoon most of them split into 5's.

Very little that could be done anyway even if more rolling stock were available, given EMR drivers are withdrawing from overtime.

 

[43066]

Very little that could be done anyway even if more rolling stock were available, given EMR drivers are withdrawing from overtime.

Albeit fair to say the shortage of stock is a major issue on the vast majority of days in the year when EMR drivers are working overtime. The queuing/crowding at St Pancras is usually because of engineering works/disruption on the ECML/WCML rather than strike/ASOS.

Another drawback of the doubled meridians, that will remain when the 810s start, is of course the lack of gangway between units (which is what prevented the OP from reaching their seats in this case ).

 

[MCR247]

Usually because the platforms (only four remember, and three if HT is knocking one out) will have other trains arriving and disgorging loads of passengers, or splitting/joining. In which case having hoards of passengers already on the platform is a safety risk. The *last* thing you want is an uncontrolled crush of passengers going in both directions when another train is silently gliding along the platform towards them and they have their back to it…

Splitting and joining? These days? I wish! And whilst I appreciate the sentiment of your post (because these things are what the staff would be doing in an ideal world), the situations I’ve witnessed have been almost the opposite of that.

The example in post you quoted for example, the platform was announced just as a busy 5 car 222 had arrived and a massive crowd of people were trying to leave, in direct conflict with the crowd of people rushing for their train. If the platform had gone up earlier, this could’ve been avoided.

 

[43066]

Splitting and joining? These days? I wish!

Still happens at St Pancras on a regular basis!

The example in post you quoted for example, the platform was announced just as a busy 5 car 222 had arrived and a massive crowd of people were trying to leave, in direct conflict with the crowd of people rushing for their train. If the platform had gone up earlier, this could’ve been avoided.

It’s generally a judgment call between not announcing too early/creating a crush on the platforms and not delaying trains. The other issue can be the stock having come in ECS and not having a crew (so doors closed), which leads to people standing on the platform. Also where the Nottingham is directly behind the Sheffield on the same platform etc. The station layout is fundamentally compromised, which is unfortunate, and simply has to be worked around as best as it can be.

Not to say they always get it right, of course, but the suggestion upthread that no thought is given to trying to avoid crowding, or even that it’s “actively encouraged” as one poster seems to think, is totally divorced from reality.

 

[MCR247]

Still happens at St Pancras on a regular basis!



It’s generally a judgment call between not announcing too early/creating a crush on the platforms and not delaying trains. The other issue can be the stock having come in ECS and not having a crew (so doors closed), which leads to people standing on the platform. Also where the Nottingham is directly behind the Sheffield on the same platform etc. The station layout is fundamentally compromised, which is unfortunate, and simply has to be worked around as best as it can be.

Not to say they always get it right, of course, but the suggestion upthread that no thought is given to trying to avoid crowding, or even that it’s “actively encouraged” as one poster seems to think, is totally divorced from reality.

Sorry the first part (about splitting and joining) was definitely tongue in cheek.

Again, I do understand that there are instances where people will unfairly bash rail staff online for simply doing their job correctly, and it’s just that passengers don’t know the background stuff that makes what seems like an odd decision on the surface the correct decision.

But in a lot of the cases I’ve seen it really has just been a poorly managed situation.

 

[edwin_m]

The other issue can be the stock having come in ECS and not having a crew (so doors closed), which leads to people standing on the platform.

Why exactly do the doors have to be closed if there is no crew on board? Couldn't the previous crew boot up the reservations for the next working then just leave the doors released for boarding?

And why is people standing on the platform not acceptable, when standing on the concourse is considered OK?

 

[theageofthetra]

The railways are shocking at this. They actively encourage crushing and rushing and point blank refuse to do anything about it. Somebody will, very sadly, have to be seriously injured or die before they change their attitude. But that is the railways general attitude to safety-learn from an accident, rather than preventing it happening in the first place. Anyone with even a modicum of common sense can see penning people in & not revealing the platform till the last minute will only encourage rushing and crowd surges. Concerts expressly prohibit this sort of behaviour but railways actively encourage it. On the plus side, they'll learn from it when it all goes wrong.

Not only is it incompetent and dangerous it is discriminatory against any passengers with mobility issues.

 

[MCR247]

Why exactly do the doors have to be closed if there is no crew on board? Couldn't the previous crew boot up the reservations for the next working then just leave the doors released for boarding?

Even if there is crew onboard, and passengers have been herded into a crowd until a few minutes before departure, don’t expect the reservations to be booted up for another few minutes after boarding has started.

Why this happens I’ve no idea, as the train PIS will be working so clearly some part of the train knows it’s headcode etc but it’s EMR so I don’t expect any better anymore.

 

[edwin_m]

Even if there is crew onboard, and passengers have been herded into a crowd until a few minutes before departure, don’t expect the reservations to be booted up for another few minutes after boarding has started.

Why this happens I’ve no idea, as the train PIS will be working so clearly some part of the train knows it’s headcode etc but it’s EMR so I don’t expect any better anymore.

That's my experience too. Chaos then ensues when the reservations start appearing after a lot of people have sat down, closely followed by the people claiming their reserved seats. Hopefully the 810s will be able to update more quickly.

Not criticising the staff on the ground here - this sort of problem seems so frequent that it must be down to a failure of management.

 

[43096]

Still happens at St Pancras on a regular basis!

Although you wouldn’t think so from the utter farce I witnessed when they had to split/re-join two sets as they wouldn’t play nicely.

 

[QueensCurve]

Just boarded the 13:02 to Sheffield at St Pancras.

I’m an enthusiastic railway user but I have never been so appalled at the lack of customer service when traveling on the railway. A very sour end to a family trip to London.

EMR have setup a queue system, managed by private security contractors along the concourse.
The platform was never announced and the screens did not display the destination (from RTT I knew it was platform 1).

Security kept us penned in the queue despite the dispatcher announcing “the train on platform 1” would leave in one minute. At which point I remonstrated with EMR staff at the barrier to let us through and called to the dispatcher as we passed to say that there were many more behind for the Sheffield train.

I witnessed a lady trip and drop her case in the rush to get on. The whole situation felt very unsafe, especially traveling with young children.

It was clear that they were going to dispatch the train without letting everyone in the queue onboard. And this indeed did happen.

The guard has just informed us the front half has seats available (2 units coupled together). Meanwhile we are standing as our reserved seats are in the front half.

I understand the safety issues and need for crowd control with ECML works and strike action - but what was EMR’s intent here? Because from a safety perspective I would be recording this as a near miss, and from a customer service perspective an abject failure.

Posting here to share my experience. About to walk forward at Market Harborough and find a seat. My child has asked if we can take the car next time.

It could be handled so much better.

During the Liquid bomb fiasco we turned up at Heathrow Terminal 3 to find a long serpentine queue almost to the door. within a couple of minutes someone came along asking if there was anyone with a departure before 1300. 1235 to Vancouver I said, and we were escorted straight to security.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

I've often found the EMR St Pancras staff to be rude and unhelpful. It's disappointing to hear not much has improved since I used the station last, which was over a year ago now due to me living in Australia.

 

[ALEMASTER]

Here are some pictures from about 12.35 on Sunday. I had just arrived from Hull. Hull Trains queue on the left - it was just about to start moving. The labelling on the queue was clear. On the right were several (or one big?) EMR queues. They went all the way down the upper level to the Booking Office. The EMR trains depating were a mixture of 5 and 10 car, I think.

There were 4 lines - from left to right facing the gatelines these were Corby, Nottingham, Sheffield and Hull.

The up escalators were out of use and operatives were controlling access to the lift, which when it arrived upstairs passenger were shouted at to join a queue although there was no information to explain what the queue was for! When the marshals were asked they just stated EMR's drivers were on strike so it was a reduced service. Intercity trains were a mix of 5, 7 and 10 cars.

I travelled on the 1202 departure to Sheffield which was a 10 car train. I'd got to the station well early as I wanted to sit and have a meal before the train and did so then joined the queue about 25 minutes before departure. Once the train had been cleaned/prepped and opened for boarding the queue moved reasonably quickly and I got on a few minutes before departure, got my reserved seat at the front of the train in coach A with no problem and had a fairly comfortable journey.

Customer communication/service at the station could be so much better but the operation of the actual train service on the day was the best they could have done to be fair, although ideally the plan would have involved more trains being strengthened given they knew it was going to be busier than usual. The regular station staff and train staff were all good, the operatives recruited to marshal the queue could have been better briefed but did what they were hired to do fine.