Last year we had a good view of the fireworks from the Embankment but
the impossibility of getting into Charing Cross put us off ever going
back (we caught two night buses home instead, taking three hours to get
to our home, in Zone 6).

This year, however, we were lured back into London after all, to a great
party at the Royal Festival Hall. We finally left there at 01.40, and
crossed the footbridge to go to Charing Cross.

As we were crossing, we saw a twelve-carriage train to Dartford via
Bexleyheath departing on the railway bridge next to us. It was pretty
much empty - by which I don't mean only half the seats were taken, I
mean it was literally almost empty. I think there were more people on
the 05.55 Crayford to Gravesend train I caught one Friday in November.

All the back entrances to Charing Cross, and the whole of Embankment
station, were closed so we were forced around near Trafalgar Square and
past a load of police, some on horseback, etc. in the Strand.

Then we saw the most enormous queue of people waiting to get into
Charing Cross. The back end of the queue was almost at Aldwych. This was
a good 90 minutes or more after the fireworks had ended. In all the time
we were walking past the station we didn't see anyone getting let in
from the queue.

My question is this: when that many people are standing in a queue
outside a station, why on earth are twelve-carriage trains leaving that
same station completely empty? They could have filled that train up to
rush-hour levels and still had the same number left to go onto the next
one.

When we realised the night buses' starting points had been moved even
further from Trafalgar Square than last year, we decided to cross
Waterloo Bridge and go to London Bridge station instead. As we crossed,
we could again make out a distinctly empty-looking train leaving Charing
Cross in the distance.

Ultimately we got into Southwark tube without any problem to save a bit
of walking, then of course caught our train at London Bridge, which was
no busier than during a typical weekend 'closing time' period. The train
was of course about 75% empty (or nearer 90% by rush-hour standards!) so
we were able to choose from a wide selection of vacant double seats.

Quite why I'm posting that previous paragraph on the internet when my
plan for next year (if we go back) is to head straight for London Bridge
via Southwark, is anyone's guess - now our fast-track route will be full
of Usenet users

Does anyone know what on earth was going on at Charing Cross? Why did
they not let enough people in to fill the available trains? Is the crowd
management always that atrocious?

Paul

Paul Speller wrote:


Does anyone know what on earth was going on at Charing Cross? Why did
they not let enough people in to fill the available trains? Is the crowd
management always that atrocious?

Paul

The Met Police were probably in charge!

On Jan 2, 9:20*pm, Paul Speller wrote:
Last year we had a good view of the fireworks from the Embankment but
the impossibility of getting into Charing Cross put us off ever going
back (we caught two night buses home instead, taking three hours to get
to our home, in Zone 6).

This year, however, we were lured back into London after all, to a great
party at the Royal Festival Hall. We finally left there at 01.40, and
crossed the footbridge to go to Charing Cross.

As we were crossing, we saw a twelve-carriage train to Dartford via
Bexleyheath departing on the railway bridge next to us. It was pretty
much empty - by which I don't mean only half the seats were taken, I
mean it was literally almost empty. I think there were more people on
the 05.55 Crayford to Gravesend train I caught one Friday in November.

All the back entrances to Charing Cross, and the whole of Embankment
station, were closed so we were forced around near Trafalgar Square and
past a load of police, some on horseback, etc. in the Strand.

Then we saw the most enormous queue of people waiting to get into
Charing Cross. The back end of the queue was almost at Aldwych. This was
a good 90 minutes or more after the fireworks had ended. In all the time
we were walking past the station we didn't see anyone getting let in
from the queue.

My question is this: when that many people are standing in a queue
outside a station, why on earth are twelve-carriage trains leaving that
same station completely empty? They could have filled that train up to
rush-hour levels and still had the same number left to go onto the next
one.

When we realised the night buses' starting points had been moved even
further from Trafalgar Square than last year, we decided to cross
Waterloo Bridge and go to London Bridge station instead. As we crossed,
we could again make out a distinctly empty-looking train leaving Charing
Cross in the distance.

Ultimately we got into Southwark tube without any problem to save a bit
of walking, then of course caught our train at London Bridge, which was
no busier than during a typical weekend 'closing time' period. The train
was of course about 75% empty (or nearer 90% by rush-hour standards!) so
we were able to choose from a wide selection of vacant double seats.

Quite why I'm posting that previous paragraph on the internet when my
plan for next year (if we go back) is to head straight for London Bridge
via Southwark, is anyone's guess - now our fast-track route will be full
of Usenet users

Does anyone know what on earth was going on at Charing Cross? Why did
they not let enough people in to fill the available trains? Is the crowd
management always that atrocious?

Paul

As far as I know, Charing Cross wouldn't have been open at all for
trains at twoish in the morning, as the last trains leave some time
around midnight, and dont start till about five.

On 2 Jan, 22:53, BVETubeTrains wrote:
On Jan 2, 9:20 pm, Paul Speller wrote:


Last year we had a good view of the fireworks from the Embankment but
the impossibility of getting into Charing Cross put us off ever going
back (we caught two night buses home instead, taking three hours to get
to our home, in Zone 6).

This year, however, we were lured back into London after all, to a great
party at the Royal Festival Hall. We finally left there at 01.40, and
crossed the footbridge to go to Charing Cross.

As we were crossing, we saw a twelve-carriage train to Dartford via
Bexleyheath departing on the railway bridge next to us. It was pretty
much empty - by which I don't mean only half the seats were taken, I
mean it was literally almost empty. I think there were more people on
the 05.55 Crayford to Gravesend train I caught one Friday in November.

All the back entrances to Charing Cross, and the whole of Embankment
station, were closed so we were forced around near Trafalgar Square and
past a load of police, some on horseback, etc. in the Strand.

Then we saw the most enormous queue of people waiting to get into
Charing Cross. The back end of the queue was almost at Aldwych. This was
a good 90 minutes or more after the fireworks had ended. In all the time
we were walking past the station we didn't see anyone getting let in
from the queue.

My question is this: when that many people are standing in a queue
outside a station, why on earth are twelve-carriage trains leaving that
same station completely empty? They could have filled that train up to
rush-hour levels and still had the same number left to go onto the next
one.

When we realised the night buses' starting points had been moved even
further from Trafalgar Square than last year, we decided to cross
Waterloo Bridge and go to London Bridge station instead. As we crossed,
we could again make out a distinctly empty-looking train leaving Charing
Cross in the distance.

Ultimately we got into Southwark tube without any problem to save a bit
of walking, then of course caught our train at London Bridge, which was
no busier than during a typical weekend 'closing time' period. The train
was of course about 75% empty (or nearer 90% by rush-hour standards!) so
we were able to choose from a wide selection of vacant double seats.

Quite why I'm posting that previous paragraph on the internet when my
plan for next year (if we go back) is to head straight for London Bridge
via Southwark, is anyone's guess - now our fast-track route will be full
of Usenet users

Does anyone know what on earth was going on at Charing Cross? Why did
they not let enough people in to fill the available trains? Is the crowd
management always that atrocious?

Paul

I don't have an answer to your question Paul, but I have just perused
the TfL New Year's Eve travel info leaflet and there's no specific
information about closures of Charing X station on NYE. It might be
the Met Police being overzealous, I don't know.


As far as I know, Charing Cross wouldn't have been open at all for
trains at twoish in the morning, as the last trains leave some time
around midnight, and dont start till about five.

Aha - but there were special services in the early hours of New Years
day, sponsored by TfL and free to use. Charing X was the start point
of four separate half-hourly services.

In article
,
(BVETubeTrains) wrote:

As far as I know, Charing Cross wouldn't have been open at all for
trains at twoish in the morning, as the last trains leave some time
around midnight, and dont start till about five.

Not on New Year's morning, though, surely?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 3 Jan, 00:14, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:
In article
,

(BVETubeTrains) wrote:
As far as I know, Charing Cross wouldn't have been open at all for
trains at twoish in the morning, as the last trains leave some time
around midnight, and dont start till about five.

Not on New Year's morning, though, surely?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Charing X remained open with regular half hourly services to a variety
of destinations, except the one I wanted as there was no service
between Hither Green and Petts Wood (served from Victoria). The
problem was that you couldn't get into the station because the two
nomimal queues (over and underground) which started half way up the
Strand were actually mostly Underground passengers - when we finally
struggled into CX after an hour queueing it was practically deserted.
Outside, the queues were still several hundred yards long from
Trafalgar Sq, up to nearly the Savoy and then back again.

Rubbish organisation - next time (if ever) I will just stay on the
platform at CX, watch the fireworks, and hop on the train.

MaB

On Jan 3, 9:03 am, MaxB wrote:
On 3 Jan, 00:14, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article
,

(BVETubeTrains) wrote:

The
problem was that you couldn't get into the station because the two
nomimal queues (over and underground) which started half way up the
Strand were actually mostly Underground passengers ...

Rubbish organisation - next time (if ever) I will just stay on the
platform at CX, watch the fireworks, and hop on the train.

I don't see how it could be organized to have two separate queues into
CX, for overground & Underground, without punters trying to bypass the
Tube queue by using the shorter overground queue.
There is a usable walkway along Villiers Street, high above the
pavement - could you perhaps have used this?

On 3 Jan, 09:11, Offramp wrote:
On Jan 3, 9:03 am, MaxB wrote:

On 3 Jan, 00:14, (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

In article
,

(BVETubeTrains) wrote:
The
problem was that you couldn't get into the station because the two
nomimal queues (over and underground) which started half way up the
Strand were actually mostly Underground passengers ...
Rubbish organisation - next time (if ever) I will just stay on the
platform at CX, watch the fireworks, and hop on the train.

I don't see how it could be organized to have two separate queues into
CX, for overground & Underground, without punters trying to bypass the
Tube queue by using the shorter overground queue.
There is a usable walkway along Villiers Street, high above the
pavement - could you perhaps have used this?

You are quite right but 2 queues WERE set up albeit you had to walk
200 yards up the Strand to get into them. It would have been much
better to have had "BR" access from the Trafalgar Sq side and
underground from the east with any connections between them closed
(there was also a link into the hotel). It is quiet clear that the
numbers of people, twice the forecast overwhelmed many facilities, and
short notice closusures were being made in addition to those
advertised. And, of course, I was only going to CX because Waterloo
East was shut from 2345! Weird.

The density of crowd precluded checking out other options, but every
short cut I attempted was always blocked by police e.g. no access at
all to Westminster Bridge, no access from the north on to Lambeth
Bridge, no access into Parliament SQ from the south, no access into
Whitehall from Horseguards etc etc.

MaxB

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 01:11:57 -0800 (PST), Offramp wrote:

There is a usable walkway along Villiers Street, high above the
pavement - could you perhaps have used this?

This is the walkway that comes from the footbridge over the Thames, and
had it been open I would have used it but sadly it, like all the other
non-main entrances, was sealed off.

Paul

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 01:03:18 -0800 (PST), MaxB wrote:

The
problem was that you couldn't get into the station because the two
nomimal queues (over and underground) which started half way up the
Strand were actually mostly Underground passengers - when we finally
struggled into CX after an hour queueing it was practically deserted.
Outside, the queues were still several hundred yards long from
Trafalgar Sq, up to nearly the Savoy and then back again.

Aha, thanks, that makes some sense of the baffling empty trains!

As has been said by others, this surely isn't that difficult to work
around, using completely separate queuing areas and entrances for Tube
and National Rail and blocking connecting passages between the two.

It also makes me wonder why they shut Embankment, Westminster and Temple
Underground stations. Why would you want to direct all the Tube and Rail
passengers to the same place? A recipe for the disaster that ensued.

It's also quite depressing how little those queuing tube passengers must
know about the geography of central London and the tube network. I
wished I had been an Underground user that evening because I knew I
could always head to another station nearby, whereas with the closure of
Waterloo East, Charing Cross was the only place to catch my train
without trekking to London Bridge.

I suppose the narrow focus of the majority of tube users was further
evidenced when we walked past the hordes waiting outside Waterloo
Underground station and headed for Southwark Underground, which you
could just about see from the same spot as you could see the hordes!

Rubbish organisation - next time (if ever) I will just stay on the
platform at CX, watch the fireworks, and hop on the train.

Of course! That is actually an excellent idea. If I lack any better
plans myself next year I might just join you

Paul