In message , at 15:49:33
on Sun, 6 Mar 2011, Roy Badami remarked:
I'm not sure I can think of any mode of transport that combines *all*
of those (clearly desirable) elements. At least, not one that would
be suitable for inter-city distances.

A modest mid-life family car.

It's difficult to see how running any form of car can be described as
'cheap' given the amount it's going to cost you to tax it and ensure
it and MOT it. Add in servicing, break down cover and (depending on
where you door is) residents parking and you have to pay a huge whack
before you even start travelling anywhere.

I'll concede that it may be the least expensive option for some usage
patterns but the high fixed costs pretty much ensure that there are no
circumstances under which it it could be described as 'cheap'

Perhaps you live in a congested urban area? I've lived all over the
place, but never somewhere I've had to pay for residents parking. Over a
typical mileage of 5-10k a year, the total cost of the sort of car I
mention is about twice the fuel - so perhaps 25p/mile. (That's a £2k
budget, is residents parking really going to be significant on top of
that?)

That cost may not be competitive with someone bashing an unlimited urban
day-bus-ticket to death, but neither is it noticeably more expensive
than a regular train ticket. Get two or more people in the car, and you
are winning hands down.

[Let's take a typical trip to see my mum down in Essex... the SVR ticket
is £87; and it's 130 miles each way, or £32.50 (x2) at my "all costs
accounted for" rate. So I more than break even with just me in the car].
--
Roland Perry

On Sat, 5 Mar 2011 13:44:30 -0800 (PST)
NM wrote:
On Mar 4, 3:29=A0pm, wrote:

1 minute is
more than enough for someone who's not physically handicapped to walk fro=
m
one side to the other.


No it isn't, in crowded conditions I would allow much longer. also
consider many travel with bags having a platform allocated is a great
help in these circumstances.

*shrug* I guess you're all slow walkers. Its never taken me very long to
do it.

Thalys is good, even tell you where to stand on the platform, FGW will
not tell you at Paddington which platform the Penzance train leaves
from until 10 minutes before departure even when you can see it parked
there.

Perhaps they're still cleaning the train and don't want passengers in the
way?

B2003

On Fri, Mar 04, 2011 at 05:53:21PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

It's still quite a jog to the suburban platforms though. And if you are
waiting for an Intercity, as soon as the platform's announced there is
generally an instant impenetrable scrum of people between you and the
relevant platform barrier.

I've never noticed this when using Kings Cross. There's always a lot of
people walking from the concourse to the train, but no significant
holdups and certainly no impenetrable scrum.

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

engineer: n. one who, regardless of how much effort he puts in
to a job, will never satisfy either the suits or the scientists

In message , at 14:21:43
on Mon, 7 Mar 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
It's still quite a jog to the suburban platforms though. And if you are
waiting for an Intercity, as soon as the platform's announced there is
generally an instant impenetrable scrum of people between you and the
relevant platform barrier.

I've never noticed this when using Kings Cross. There's always a lot of
people walking from the concourse to the train, but no significant
holdups and certainly no impenetrable scrum.

Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get people to
stand in queues across the concourse, having announced the platform but
not opened the gate. These days I find everyone congregates in a mass in
front of the big departure broad, and as soon as a platform is announced
about a third of them will suddenly start scurrying in the same
direction. If you are any distance from the front of the "clump", you
will get held up.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote in
:

Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get people to
stand in queues across the concourse [at King's Cross]

The lettered queues go back before GNER well into BR days. The queue
positions are still marked on the floor of the concourse, though their days
are of course numbered.

Peter

--
| Peter Campbell Smith | Epsom | UK |

In article , (Roland
Perry) wrote:

In message , at
14:21:43 on Mon, 7 Mar 2011, David Cantrell
remarked:
It's still quite a jog to the suburban platforms though. And if you
are waiting for an Intercity, as soon as the platform's announced
there is generally an instant impenetrable scrum of people between
you and the relevant platform barrier.

I've never noticed this when using Kings Cross. There's always a lot
of people walking from the concourse to the train, but no significant
holdups and certainly no impenetrable scrum.

Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get
people to stand in queues across the concourse, having announced
the platform but not opened the gate. These days I find everyone
congregates in a mass in front of the big departure broad, and as
soon as a platform is announced about a third of them will suddenly
start scurrying in the same direction. If you are any distance from
the front of the "clump", you will get held up.

Especially on platforms 0-3 now they have barriers in use.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Peter
Campbell Smith) wrote:

Roland Perry wrote in
:

Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get
people to stand in queues across the concourse [at King's Cross]

The lettered queues go back before GNER well into BR days. The
queue positions are still marked on the floor of the concourse,
though their days are of course numbered.

I think they are still used but not very often.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message , at 15:44:46
on Mon, 7 Mar 2011, remarked:

[Kings Cross]

These days I find everyone
congregates in a mass in front of the big departure broad, and as
soon as a platform is announced about a third of them will suddenly
start scurrying in the same direction. If you are any distance from
the front of the "clump", you will get held up.

Especially on platforms 0-3 now they have barriers in use.

Well spotted - I forgot they were in use now. I wonder if they will
announce platforms further in advance when the barrier project is
complete?

At St Pancras they had to introduce a secondary queuing system between
the barriers and the buffers, because the barrier queues which built up
were too long if they delayed giving a platform number until the train
was "ready", but they didn't want people to spread themselves along the
platform in advance of the doors being unlocked. So the worst of both
worlds, really.

They also use the secondary queues as a way to curtail (or alternatively
"chase up the platform") the very last few passengers, who can still get
through the barriers after the train is ready to depart (ie handling
that awkward 60 seconds before published departure time).
--
Roland Perry

On 2011-03-07 16:34:46 +0000, Peter Campbell Smith said:

Roland Perry wrote in
:

Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get people to
stand in queues across the concourse [at King's Cross]

The lettered queues go back before GNER well into BR days. The queue
positions are still marked on the floor of the concourse, though their days
are of course numbered.

Peter

Until not too long ago there were mobile signs at Waterloo that they
would try to get you to queue behind for some of the longer-distance
trains.

On Mon, Mar 07, 2011 at 03:34:25PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:21:43
on Mon, 7 Mar 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
It's still quite a jog to the suburban platforms though. And if you are
waiting for an Intercity, as soon as the platform's announced there is
generally an instant impenetrable scrum of people between you and the
relevant platform barrier.
I've never noticed this when using Kings Cross. There's always a lot of
people walking from the concourse to the train, but no significant
holdups and certainly no impenetrable scrum.
Several years ago (when GNER was in charge) they tried to get people to
stand in queues across the concourse, having announced the platform but
not opened the gate.

They still do. Or rather, they direct passengers for a particular train
to "queue C" or whatever even before a platform is announced.

These days I find everyone congregates in a mass in
front of the big departure broad, and as soon as a platform is announced
about a third of them will suddenly start scurrying in the same
direction. If you are any distance from the front of the "clump", you
will get held up.

This wasn't the case when I travelled to Edinburgh in December, when all
the trains were ****ed up because of the snow and so were horribly
overcrowded. The queue just moved forward and through the gate. I
would have thought that with all the cancellations at the time that
would have been the time to expect the behaviour you describe.

Perhaps I have a magic superpower that makes those around me behave well
:-)

--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

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