On Nov 14, 10:55 am, Jamie Thompson wrote:

snip

Ok, it would seem that I made a minor error, zone 9 is indeed shown on
the map, but only Amersham & Chesham reside in it. Watford junction
now has the dubious honour of being the new owner of Hatch End's
former special orange-outlined box stating that special fares apply,
though Bushey & Watford High St. definitely live in zone 8, along with
Chalfont & Latimer. Only had a quick
glance again though, a rather sultry looking LO employee was standing
in front of said machine overseeing the heaving crowds coming through
the newly-active barriers (Hmm. roughly 1/3 of a 8-car trainload of
people heaving down steep steps to a barrier line 1/2 a metre from the
bottom of said stairs. I suspect there'll be trouble soon enough if
they don't extend the ticket hall to give more space.....


I've noticed that too, part of the problem appears to be that the
barriers are new and people are not ready for them. The other part of
the problem is that there are only four 'normal' gates (plus the wide
gate) and even in the middle of the evening peak, it was two gates in
and two out, with the two out gates being on the ticket office (left
hand side when leaving) side and so clashing with the people buying
tickets to get in. They really need to have three out and one in
during the evening peak and to keep the gates away from the ticket
window as the exit ones.

However, the crowding at Harrow is nothing compared to the current
chaos at Euston, where the one-way system for entry to the LU station
sends everyone from the platforms 8-11 up onto the main concourse, in
order to queue across most of it before finally going down a single
escalator plus narrow staircase. Whilst all the passengers from the LU
station come out of the entrance by Platforms 8 - 11 and up the same
slope to the concourse.

Now, I understand that they are worried about overcrowding during the
refurbishment work, but they don't seem to have thought things through
very well. Surely it is better to keep the commuters flowing. Have the
one way system operating in the opposite direction, to above, in the
morning, so that a large percentage of the mainline customers can go
where they want (to or from platforms 8-11) without blocking up the
concourse.