Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

Can anyone shed any light on why the Victoria Line platforms at King's
Cross St Pancras have been in an absolutely disgraceful state for some
time, completely stripped of tiles but with nothing very much changing
and no publicity (that I've seen) announcing refurbishment work?

It seems ever so slightly ironic that St Pancras station is supposed
to give visitors from the continent such a great first impression of
London, but then when many of them get down to the Underground they're
confronted with such appallingly ugly Tube platforms...

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
16:38:23 on Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:
They've been busy for several years digging new tunnels to the 3 sets
of tube platforms and building a brand new ticket hall. It all opens
December this year,

The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

which means they're only just now getting on to the cosmetic finishing
off, which means the refurbishment of the platforms.

Have a look at some of the PDFs here for an explanation:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/proj...tion/2339.aspx

--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 08:14, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
16:38:23 on Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:

They've been busy for several years digging new tunnels to the 3 sets
of tube platforms and building a brand new ticket hall. It all opens
December this year,

The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

Didn't we go over this a few days ago? The DfT have asked them to get
it done by December, TfL have agreed, but haven't made it a binding
promise. Thus 2010 remains the official opening date, but there's a
very good chance it will be open in December.

U

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 09:48, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 6 Feb, 08:14, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
16:38:23 on Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:

They've been busy for several years digging new tunnels to the 3 sets
of tube platforms and building a brand new ticket hall. It all opens
December this year,

The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

Didn't we go over this a few days ago? The DfT have asked them to get
it done by December, TfL have agreed, but haven't made it a binding
promise. Thus 2010 remains the official opening date, but there's a
very good chance it will be open in December.


We did indeed - you told us this a week and a bit ago in the thread
about the concourse entrance to KXSP Underground station closing in
this 'ere post:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....d9d01352d11adc

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 10:30, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 08:14:07 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
, at
16:38:23 on Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:
They've been busy for several years digging new tunnels to the 3 sets
of tube platforms and building a brand new ticket hall. It all opens
December this year,

The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

The fit out work has been accelerated by 3 months bringing completion
back in to 2009.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , at 10:30:40 on
Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

The fit out work has been accelerated by 3 months bringing completion
back in to 2009.

Looking forward to that news appearing in a newsletter, then :)
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , at 12:47:17 on
Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

The fit out work has been accelerated by 3 months bringing completion
back in to 2009.

Looking forward to that news appearing in a newsletter, then :)

As Mr Thant has stated the public message has not changed. I doubt that
it will until much closer to the time when it becomes certain that the
revised target date will be met. Plenty can go wrong between now and
year end in terms of equipping the new ticket hall, integrating it with
the rest of the LU complex and getting it in to service. Digging holes
and filling them with concrete structures is a relatively simple task.

In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 13:08, Roland Perry wrote:
In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?

Yeah, bloody optimists. String 'em up, I say.

Let's see what the horse has to say:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...-programme.pdf

"The Northern Ticket Hall is forecast to be opened three months ahead
of schedule in December 2009."

U

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 13:08, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 12:47:17 on
Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:

The newsletters you link to, below, all say 2010.

The fit out work has been accelerated by 3 months bringing completion
back in to 2009.

Looking forward to that news appearing in a newsletter, then :)

As Mr Thant has stated the public message has not changed. *I doubt that
it will until much closer to the time when it becomes certain that the
revised target date will be met. *Plenty can go wrong between now and
year end in terms of equipping the new ticket hall, integrating it with
the rest of the LU complex and getting it in to service. Digging holes
and filling them with concrete structures is a relatively simple task.

In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?

But that's the whole point in that they haven't said that publicly!
And don't start saying Paul's post was an official pronouncement
because it quite clearly wasn't.

Mr Thant has also got this info from somewhere so I dare say it has
appeared somewhere, perhaps the TfL board papers.

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 13:21, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 6 Feb, 13:08, Roland Perry wrote:

In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?

Yeah, bloody optimists. String 'em up, I say.

Let's see what the horse has to say:http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...and-finance-an...

"The Northern Ticket Hall is forecast to be opened three months ahead
of schedule in December 2009."


A nicely qualified statement - hopefully open by December, but leaves
open the possibility that it could fall back to the original scheduled
opening date.

The alternative would have been to keep completely and totally schtum
about any attempt to open it early in time for the arrival of the
'Kent domestics at St P - would that have been preferable, Mr Perry?

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
05:21:02 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:
In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?

Yeah, bloody optimists. String 'em up, I say.

Let's see what the horse has to say:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...-programme.pdf

"The Northern Ticket Hall is forecast to be opened three months ahead
of schedule in December 2009."

We seem to be going round in circles here. If it's "that official" then
surely they can spill the beans in their newsletters?
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
05:29:39 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
The alternative would have been to keep completely and totally schtum
about any attempt to open it early in time for the arrival of the
'Kent domestics at St P - would that have been preferable, Mr Perry?

They should have planned the opening to co-incide, in any event.

After all, there's one set of escalators down from the Kent platforms,
then another adjacent set down to the Northern Ticket Hall; so why not
open them both at the same time.
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , at 13:28:08 on
Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
Sheeesh!

Just for you then - it will open sometime in the next 24 months or so.
Happy? I'll call the KX Comms Team on Monday and have a special
brochure produced just for you.

Tsk. Keep your hair on :)
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 14:13, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
05:29:39 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:

The alternative would have been to keep completely and totally schtum
about any attempt to open it early in time for the arrival of the
'Kent domestics at St P - would that have been preferable, Mr Perry?

They should have planned the opening to co-incide, in any event.

After all, there's one set of escalators down from the Kent platforms,
then another adjacent set down to the Northern Ticket Hall; so why not
open them both at the same time.

But under the original plan the northern ticket hall (NTH) would
already be open now, however the DfT withdrew and then reinstated
funding for it - unfortunately not that surprising when one considers
the saga of the fit-out of the Thameslink box at SPILL.

If the NTH opens in time for the arrival of the Kent domestics, then
for most people it'll look as though this was all part of the
masterplan all along and no-one will ever know about the DfT's earlier
dithering - a result for the DfT, plus TfL might well hope it would
earn them some brownie points with the DfT too.

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 14:11, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
05:21:02 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mr Thant
remarked:

In which case perhaps it's a bit optimistic to go round saying it'll
open in December?

Yeah, bloody optimists. String 'em up, I say.

Let's see what the horse has to say:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...and-finance-an...

"The Northern Ticket Hall is forecast to be opened three months ahead
of schedule in December 2009."

We seem to be going round in circles here. If it's "that official" then
surely they can spill the beans in their newsletters?

You can be so ridiculous at times Roland, and this is one of those
times. One could say it's not official per-se, it's more of an
aspiration. Anyway what does "official" even actually mean?

The rationale being employed here is simple - why get people's hopes
up for something that might not actually happen?

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
06:35:56 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
If the NTH opens in time for the arrival of the Kent domestics, then
for most people it'll look as though this was all part of the
masterplan all along and no-one will ever know about the DfT's earlier
dithering - a result for the DfT, plus TfL might well hope it would
earn them some brownie points with the DfT too.

But there's a risk that people will already be getting worked up about
the bad planning, if the newsletters (etc) continue to state that the
ticket hall opens in 2010, when everyone knows the Kent platforms open
in early December.
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
06:41:53 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
We seem to be going round in circles here. If it's "that official" then
surely they can spill the beans in their newsletters?

You can be so ridiculous at times Roland, and this is one of those
times. One could say it's not official per-se, it's more of an
aspiration. Anyway what does "official" even actually mean?

The rationale being employed here is simple - why get people's hopes
up for something that might not actually happen?

See my posting about dithering/brownie-points.
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 14:56, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
06:35:56 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:

If the NTH opens in time for the arrival of the Kent domestics, then
for most people it'll look as though this was all part of the
masterplan all along and no-one will ever know about the DfT's earlier
dithering - a result for the DfT, plus TfL might well hope it would
earn them some brownie points with the DfT too.

But there's a risk that people will already be getting worked up about
the bad planning, if the newsletters (etc) continue to state that the
ticket hall opens in 2010, when everyone knows the Kent platforms open
in early December.


If a few people really want to get worked up about this then let them
get worked up about it - it's not as though there isn't an Underground
station at Kings Cross/ St. Pancras, it's just that the entrance off
the Kent platforms might not be ready in time - big deal, if it isn't
ready it will be shortly thereafter.

The first users of the Kent domestic service are likely to be the more
intrepid adventurous type anyway. If the NTH isn't ready I suppose
it's possible a few might get put off going via St. Pancras
altogether, but that could be abated through the use of hoardings and
other publicity indicating the imminent opening of the NTH.

I hardly think the lack of the NTH being open on day one would prove a
killer blow to the Kent high-speed service - it might attract a few
comments, but of course the potential bad publicity would be far worse
if a promise was made that the NTH would be open and that promise was
then broken. By avoiding any such concrete promise, they avoid these
adverse repercussions if it doesn't in fact open in December - instead
it can simply be stated that a new entrance to the Tube station 'will
be opening shortly', which is a far more positive message for
potential users of the Kent high-speed service. It's a simple case of
managing expectations.

I wonder what you're going to come up with to argue with this...

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
07:28:13 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
I hardly think the lack of the NTH being open on day one would prove a
killer blow to the Kent high-speed service - it might attract a few
comments,

It's just another drip-drip-drip bit of un-joined-up planning.

but of course the potential bad publicity would be far worse
if a promise was made that the NTH would be open and that promise was
then broken.

Which is why I query it, when I read postings here saying "it will open
in December".
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 15:32, Roland Perry wrote:
Which is why I query it, when I read postings here saying "it will open
in December".

With transport projects there's an inherent "(or whenever they
actually finish it)" inherent to any date prediction. If the thread
was specifically about the precise opening date, obviously I'd have
put in the qualifications about the different possible dates. But
otherwise, no, "December" is good enough as the approximate opening
date at this point.

U

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 6 Feb, 15:32, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
07:28:13 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:

I hardly think the lack of the NTH being open on day one would prove a
killer blow to the Kent high-speed service - it might attract a few
comments,

It's just another drip-drip-drip bit of un-joined-up planning.

It is a bit daft, but it's far preferable to there not being a new NTH
in the first place, or to the NTH not being finished until years after
the Kent domestics arrive (being done in a rush before the Olympics,
for example).

This RailwayPeople article from April '05 has a little bit more
information about why work on the NTH was suspended by the DfT:
http://tinyurl.com/da43nv

---quote---
The government has recently announced that work on the northern ticket
hall at King’s Cross/St. Pancras underground station will go ahead.
[...]
The decision has been a long time coming. The northern ticket hall,
part of the works currently in hand, was suspended back in April 2003
when the estimated cost rose to £250 million. Subsequently, early last
year, the then Transport Minister Kim Howells ordered a cost review of
the proposal, which was undertaken by consultants Mott Parsons Gibb.
---/quote---


I dare say there was rather more that lay behind all that - e.g.
bickering with the Treasury over the growing DfT budget, or perhaps a
spending squeeze across all departments (it was the same time as the
Iraq 'adventure', for example). Perhaps the DfT simply saw it as a
good candidate for a project that could be postponed until such a time
as the departmental budget could handle it - in other words, boot it
down a couple of years.


but of course the potential bad publicity would be far worse
if a promise was made that the NTH would be open and that promise was
then broken.

Which is why I query it, when I read postings here saying "it will open
in December".

But no one here has made an official announcement from TfL that "it
will be open in December", and Paul's comment was merely a quick
confirmation what the latest plan was (cue pedantic discussion as to
what constitutes a "plan" and whether that counts as being "official"
or not) - I dare say that if he expects to get this level of
inquisition each time he posts a one-sentence comment and feels that
he needs to couch everything in qualifications he might well not
bother doing so in the future, which would be rather a shame.

If you want to take the comments here as stating that the NTH *will*
open in December just so you can reserve the opportunity of being
disappointed if it doesn't then by all means do so, just know that
you'll be on your own if that happens.

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
...
On 6 Feb, 15:32, Roland Perry wrote:
Which is why I query it, when I read postings here saying "it will open
in December".

With transport projects there's an inherent "(or whenever they
actually finish it)" inherent to any date prediction. If the thread
was specifically about the precise opening date, obviously I'd have
put in the qualifications about the different possible dates. But
otherwise, no, "December" is good enough as the approximate opening
date at this point.


TBH I don't think the average passenger is too concerned about delays to
something he hasn't used before, and besides, the cynics here say no one is
going to use Kent domestic HS services anyway...

Failure of a short term planned closure, (such as a week of WCML engineering
works), to reopen on time seems to wind people up far more...

Paul

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message
, at
08:22:46 on Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Mizter T remarked:
But no one here has made an official announcement from TfL that "it
will be open in December", and Paul's comment was merely a quick
confirmation what the latest plan was (cue pedantic discussion as to
what constitutes a "plan" and whether that counts as being "official"
or not) - I dare say that if he expects to get this level of
inquisition each time he posts a one-sentence comment and feels that
he needs to couch everything in qualifications he might well not
bother doing so in the future, which would be rather a shame.

If you want to take the comments here as stating that the NTH *will*
open in December just so you can reserve the opportunity of being
disappointed if it doesn't then by all means do so, just know that
you'll be on your own if that happens.

My main interest is why the newsletters feel unable to make equally
"hey, we'll try to get open in December, but don't blame us if it's
Easter" type remarks. It wasn't a criticism of Paul.
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , at 16:50:44 on
Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
The only thing that is really important is when all the work is
actually finished at Kings Cross / St Pancras and we can look forward
to having a much better set of facilities with more capacity to handle
the hoardes of passengers.

OK, I'm happy to drop the issue about the exact timing of the NTH; but
when the whole thing is finished many passengers (especially those
arriving on the Midland Mainline) will be getting a much worse deal than
they used to before the works started.

Indeed, the plans don't even anticipate those passengers using the NTH
(the escalators down from the platforms are in the wrong place, anyway)
so it's a long trudge via the shops and the front of StPancras to the
original ticket hall - which as far as I can see has been refurbished
back to exactly where they started (bar the somewhat small lift.

Never mind, I shall enjoy exploring all the new passageways from the NTH
to the Victoria Line and so on, when they open.
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , Paul Corfield
writes
Never mind, I shall enjoy exploring all the new passageways from the NTH
to the Victoria Line and so on, when they open.

As, I am sure, will many other utlers. In fact I shall have to have a
little explore of the tube station to see just what is going on - I
only see the Vic Line platforms on a regular basis and they look an
utter mess because of the refurb works.

The Picc platforms aren't much better - Rustic I think the style is ;)
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

In message , at 20:35:46 on
Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:
My main interest is why the newsletters feel unable to make equally
"hey, we'll try to get open in December, but don't blame us if it's
Easter" type remarks. It wasn't a criticism of Paul.

You may or may not wish to look at page 5 of the investment report (or
page 38 of the full pdf) to see the entry for Kings Cross Station
Redevelopment and the forecast completion date of 1/12/09 vs the plan
date of 28/2/10.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...-Programme.pdf

Maybe in the next newsletter then?
--
Roland Perry

Victoria Line platforms at King's Cross
 

On 11 Feb, 20:52, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 20:35:46 on
Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Paul Corfield remarked:

My main interest is why the newsletters feel unable to make equally
"hey, we'll try to get open in December, but don't blame us if it's
Easter" type remarks. It wasn't a criticism of Paul.

You may or may not wish to look at page 5 of the investment report (or
page 38 of the full pdf) to see the entry for Kings Cross Station
Redevelopment and the forecast completion date of 1/12/09 vs the plan
date of 28/2/10.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...ps-and-Finance...

Maybe in the next newsletter then?

Not if the comms team have been reading this thread, no!