Hi,

I find trying to get out of Liverpool Street station in the morning
takes longer than it could, principally because there are too few
ticket barriers. Every morning there are large queues just to get to
the barrier. It now seems the staff have been told to not open the
disabled-access barrier to able-bodied passengers, making the problem
worse.

Across the entrance to platforms 13 and 14 is what appears to be an
old ticket office (I've tried to purchase tickets from there before,
but got told in barely-understandable English to use the main ticket
office).

One way to alleviate the passenger-congestion problem is to remove the
old ticket office and install additional barriers in its place. I have
sent Network Rail the following message:

-------------------------------
Hi,
it takes a long time to get through the ticket barriers at London
Liverpool Street durng the morning rush hour.
To solve this, could you remove the office that is in front of plaform
13 and install extra ticket barriers there instead?
Many thanks,
Thirty9.
-------------------------------

I'll keep you updated.

Has anyone had a response from Network Rail to a suggestion they made?
Was the suggestion acted upon?

As another gripe, why do they persist in placing A-boards with
ridiculous messages, such as "ENVIRONMENTAL NOTICE - do not feed the
pigeons", in the already congested main walkway in the station?

All the best,

Thirty9.

wrote in message
...

Every morning there are large queues just to get to
the barrier. It now seems the staff have been told to not open the
disabled-access barrier to able-bodied passengers, making the problem
worse.

Nothing new I've seen people with large items be ignored by staff as they
can't be bothered to open the gate.

Across the entrance to platforms 13 and 14 is what appears to be an
old ticket office (I've tried to purchase tickets from there before,
but got told in barely-understandable English to use the main ticket
office).

I think thats a platform office now issn't it ? - I don't use that side of
the station much these days.

Has anyone had a response from Network Rail to a suggestion they made?
Was the suggestion acted upon?

Yes but only after nearley being run over by the person on the electric cart
moving bins arround in morning rush - that was after telephone calls to
station management, and a review of about a week's worth of CCTV to see the
problem (as was) every day.

As another gripe, why do they persist in placing A-boards with
ridiculous messages, such as "ENVIRONMENTAL NOTICE - do not feed the
pigeons", in the already congested main walkway in the station?

Take some photos send them to NR (General) NR LST Station management and
copy in health and safety. - that usually dose the trick.
We had all of the west side gates out of service a long while ago due to a
H&S issue with a lack of staff. They where told either open the gates and
allow people to pass or we close the entire station...

Good luck though!

snip

Nothing new I've seen people with large items be ignored by staff as they
can't be bothered to open the gate.

Me too. Sometimes when my ticket does't work in the barriers, I have
to tap the person attending the gate and get a look of surprise that
somebody should want to use it.

snip

I think thats a platform office now issn't it ? - I don't use that side of
the station much these days.

Ah, thanks. It should still be moved and replaced with ticket barriers

snip

Take some photos send them to NR (General) NR LST Station management and
copy in health and safety. - that usually dose the trick.
We had all of the west side gates out of service a long while ago due to a
H&S issue with a lack of staff. They where told either open the gates and
allow people to pass or we close the entire station...

Good luck though!

Argh! Taking photos! Mr. Policeman: "Excuse me sir...". If Network
Rail had a measure of common-sense, they would know blocking the
(already too narrow) walkway was a bad idea.

wrote in message
...

Me too. Sometimes when my ticket does't work in the barriers, I have
to tap the person attending the gate and get a look of surprise that
somebody should want to use it.

Surprise, is that all! they must like you. I've had them try and close the
gate on me as I go throught with something big - that was fun.

I think thats a platform office now issn't it ? - I don't use that side
of
the station much these days.

Ah, thanks. It should still be moved and replaced with ticket barriers

I'll double check who actually uses it for what these days - I had a feeling
the people from the Pl.1 office ended up in there about a year or so ago.
Either way its highley unlikley that NR would remove it and but a gateline
in. Not until there is a persistant problem that lands them in trouble and
there forced into something.


Argh! Taking photos! Mr. Policeman: "Excuse me sir...". If Network
Rail had a measure of common-sense, they would know blocking the
(already too narrow) walkway was a bad idea.

Good point - there is another way.

All you need is an 'incident' someone falling over a sign, or getting
crushed, caught, injured in some way even better if the staff don't get
involved. Then you complain about that and involve whoever you feel you need
and make them review the CCTV. That should get something done.
Since the staff are down to the TOC you should also contact them about the
problems in general.

Keep your eyes open for the 'meet the manager/director' events that we have
on the main concourse every couple of months. Before everything went 'bad' I
used to have a few good contacts who could get things done.

On 16 Aug, 22:34, "Q" ..@.. wrote:
wrote in message

...

Me too. Sometimes when my ticket does't work in the barriers, I have
to tap the person attending the gate and get a look of surprise that
somebody should want to use it.

Surprise, *is that all! they must like you. I've had them try and close the
gate on me as I go throught with something big - that was fun.

I think thats a platform office now issn't it ? - I don't use that side
of
the station much these days.

Ah, thanks. It should still be moved and replaced with ticket barriers

I'll double check who actually uses it for what these days - I had a feeling
the people from the Pl.1 office ended up in there about a year or so ago.
Either way its highley unlikley that NR would remove it and but a gateline
in. Not until there is a persistant problem that lands them in trouble and
there forced into something.

Argh! Taking photos! Mr. Policeman: "Excuse me sir...". If Network
Rail had a measure of common-sense, they would know blocking the
(already too narrow) walkway was a bad idea.

Good point - there is another way.

All you need is an 'incident' someone falling over a sign, or getting
crushed, caught, injured in some way even better if the staff don't get
involved. Then you complain about that and involve whoever you feel you need
and make them review the CCTV. That should get something done.
Since the staff are down to the TOC you should also contact them about the
problems in general.

Keep your eyes open for the 'meet the manager/director' events that we have
on the main concourse every couple of months. Before everything went 'bad' I
used to have a few good contacts who could get things done.

Use of the manual gate by able bodied passengers opens all sorts of
possibility of passengers using out of date tickets, invalid tickets
and such like. I more than commend any staff who don't allow able
bodied passengers to go through the manual gate. They are doing their
job. What is the point of ticket barriers if people can circumvent
them by simply offering a passing glance of their ticket to human
eyes?

Incidentally, for some reason if you go through the West Anglia
barriers then the Great Eastern barriers at Liverpool Street you get a
133 error for re-using a ticket, in the other direction you don't.
Now that all platforms are barriered, it would be good if a route
between platform 11 and 12 could be opened up (maybe with barrier
gates) to allow easy passage between the two sides of the station.

Jonathan

On Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:43:36 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Use of the manual gate by able bodied passengers opens all sorts of
possibility of passengers using out of date tickets, invalid tickets
and such like. I more than commend any staff who don't allow able
bodied passengers to go through the manual gate.

Because sometimes there aren't enough barriers to control the flow.
Euston always allow people through the manual gate, if they didn't the
queue would be twice as long, and it's already far too long, yet
there's no room for more barriers. Milton Keynes Central used to
refuse, until I pointed this out to the "Meet the Manager", at which
point they started allowing people through as well.

Barriers are IMO a good thing, but they do need human help when the
passenger volumes get too big at the height of the peak. It also
helps that on peak trains it's unlikely that there will be many
without[1] tickets.

[1] There may be some with fraudulent combinations (season to the
first stop from the terminus, then another from the last stop to the
destination), but I don't think many people try to get away with
commuting ticketless to/from barriered stations day in, day out. When
a grip is carried out on the 1823 or 1824 EUS to Northampton, I don't
think I've seen a ticket issued in a long time.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

Now that all platforms are barriered, it would be good if a route
between platform 11 and 12 could be opened up (maybe with barrier
gates) to allow easy passage between the two sides of the station.


11 & 12 are adjacent to each other, are they not? Do you mean 10 &11?

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 02:43:36PM -0700, wrote:

Use of the manual gate by able bodied passengers opens all sorts of
possibility of passengers using out of date tickets, invalid tickets
and such like.

Only if the barrier staff are blind or otherwise incapable of reading
what's printed on the ticket.

Anyway, there's a similar problem at Victoria for platforms 9-12.
Nowhere near enough gates, and people seem to be let through the manual
gate based on a complex calculation involving the phases of the moons of
Jupiter. The problem would go away if there were also gates going
sideways into the ungated Gatwick Express platforms, or they got rid of
the McHeartDisease shop, or preferably both.

--
David Cantrell | Hero of the Information Age

What is the difference between hearing aliens through the
fillings in your teeth and hearing Jesus in your heart?

wrote in message
...
Hi,

I find trying to get out of Liverpool Street station in the morning
takes longer than it could, principally because there are too few
ticket barriers. Every morning there are large queues just to get to
the barrier. It now seems the staff have been told to not open the
disabled-access barrier to able-bodied passengers, making the problem
worse.




When we discussed this in the thread "Gatelines - relative numbers" on Jan
16th onwards, Paul C suggested Liverpool St had about 60 'mainline' ticket
gates.

Apparently Waterloo is getting something around 170 ticket gates. Given the
similar footfalls (to within the odd 10 million or so), perhaps that is
evidence in itself that Liverpool St needs more gates?

http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co...Categ oryID=8

Paul S

Paul Scott wrote:

When we discussed this in the thread "Gatelines - relative numbers" on Jan
16th onwards, Paul C suggested Liverpool St had about 60 'mainline' ticket
gates.

Apparently Waterloo is getting something around 170 ticket gates. Given
the
similar footfalls (to within the odd 10 million or so), perhaps that is
evidence in itself that Liverpool St needs more gates?

From experience of Liverpool Street in the mornings it often seems that far
too many gates are set for entering the plaform instead of for exiting,
reducing the numbers further. The high numbers (13-17 odd) are especially
bad with some of the exit gates not always recognising my Oyster.