Sequence of Platform Numbering

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

And then there a stations with letters instead of numbers, such as St Pancras Thameslink. 

 

Done for the same reason as Waterloo East has letters rather than numbers.

 

In both cases it makes it clear that we are dealing with two totally separate stations despite them both being part of a single transport hub and linked by undercover walking routes.

 

Doesn't Cardiff Queen Street also use letters due to its proximity to Cardiff Central?

[newbryford]

6 hours ago, eastglosmog said:

I believe the up bay at Oxford used to be No. 3. Seemed a bit odd being next to Platform 1.

 

Blackburn has the west/south pointing bay as platform 3 between the through platforms 1 & 2.

When another through platform was added (actually reinstated) it became P4, so the real order is 1/3/2/4.

[melmerby]

Edinburgh Waverley is numbered clockwise going from Platform 1 at the NE around to platform 20 which is at the NW (and actually a  continuation of platform 1!)

 

Just to be confusing I think platforms 8 & 9 have E & W ends

Edited August 31, 2020 by melmerby

[melmerby]

Birmingham Moor Street as a terminus used to be numbered 1,2,3 from the Down side.

When the new through platforms opened and the terminus closed the new platforms were 1 & 2 from the Up side.

When two of the old platforms re-opened they became 3 & 4 (3 was previously 3 but 4 was previously 2.

[H2O]

On ‎30‎/‎08‎/‎2020 at 19:20, Mike_Walker said:

On the GWR the convention was to number from the Down side but, as with all such "rules", there were/are exceptions such as Bristol Temple Meads.

Bristol Temple Meads was a jointly run station by GWR and MR (later LMS). Not just the old station as from about 1880 to 1948 the running costs were split 5/8 GWR to 3/8 LMS. This might of determined platform number sequences, perhaps at other places where the GWR shared stations this was also true?

[bécasse]

The Southern Railway had a rule that at terminal stations the platform numbers should run from left to right when viewed from the concourse, and they actually renumbered the platforms at a number of stations to conform with this rule, usually when other work was being done anyway. I have a vague recollection of coming across an exception to this rule somewhere but I can't now remember where. The rule did have the rather odd effect that platform 1 was sometimes an obscure and little-used bay.

[BR60103]

Toronto (Canada) Union Station for the better part of 100 years had platforms numbered from the station building, 1 to 12 or 14 (I forget exactly). Most of them alternated a passenger platform with a baggage platform and odd and even tracks were accessed from opposite sides of the underground (undertrack?) walkway.

Since I retired the station has been (is being) majorly rebuilt and the commuter area moved from one end to the other. Platforms 1 to 3 are now in the subway station (3 is a streetcar line) and the numbers seem to go up to the 23 range.

Nobody in authority will tell you which platform to use until the train appears on the display by which time the regular users have filled all the seats. (We now only go there twice a year.)

(Note: station building is on city/north side of the tracks. Tracks were on the lakeshore or possibly on fill in the lake.)

 

[DY444]

16 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Done for the same reason as Waterloo East has letters rather than numbers.

 

In both cases it makes it clear that we are dealing with two totally separate stations despite them both being part of a single transport hub and linked by undercover walking routes.

 

Doesn't Cardiff Queen Street also use letters due to its proximity to Cardiff Central?

 

Waterloo East makes sense.  The St.Pancras scenario sort of makes sense as the Thameslink platforms are underground (although the similar arrangement at Glasgow Central LL for example doesn't use letters).  The Cardiff one doesn't make any sense at all to me.  Neither does New Cross which also has letters supposedly to distinguish it from New Cross Gate whereas Catford and Catford Bridge are closer than New Cross and New Cross Gate yet they both have numbers 1 and 2. 

[Butler Henderson]

The little used northern bay platform at Harrogate is 2 so as that end of the station from west to east read 2, 1, 3

Edited September 1, 2020 by Butler Henderson

[Edwin_m]

21 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Waterloo East makes sense.  The St.Pancras scenario sort of makes sense as the Thameslink platforms are underground (although the similar arrangement at Glasgow Central LL for example doesn't use letters).  The Cardiff one doesn't make any sense at all to me.  Neither does New Cross which also has letters supposedly to distinguish it from New Cross Gate whereas Catford and Catford Bridge are closer than New Cross and New Cross Gate yet they both have numbers 1 and 2. 

Or you could adopt the Paris solution, where some or all of their interlinked multiple-station complexes have a single series of numbers throughout.  You see platform numbers in the 30s and 40s but I think they start at a new multiple of 10 for each of what we would consider as separate stations.  

[melmerby]

11 hours ago, melmerby said:

Birmingham Moor Street as a terminus used to be numbered 1,2,3 from the Down side.

When the new through platforms opened and the terminus closed the new platforms were 1 & 2 from the Up side.

When two of the old platforms re-opened they became 3 & 4 (3 was previously 3 but 4 was previously 2.

And conversely to this, the "new " Snow Hill had it's platforms numbered from the down side 1, 2, 3, 4

[keefer]

13 hours ago, melmerby said:

Edinburgh Waverley is numbered clockwise going from Platform 1 at the NE around to platform 20 which is at the NW (and actually a  continuation of platform 1!)

 

Just to be confusing I think platforms 8 & 9 have E & W ends

Not sure what the numbering is now (new platforms were added on the through loops some years back), but the two long through platforms were split in two. On the north side it was 1 (east) & 19 (west), on the south side it was 10 (east) & 11 (west).

There were also the two former suburban through platforms 20 & 21 - these were the two sides of an island platform outside of the main train shed, on the South side.

EDIT: platforms were renumbered in 2006, with the new 'loop' platforms coming in to use (several bays on the east side had been removed previously)

Haymarket also gained a new bay Platform 0.

http://www.scot-rail.co.uk/page/Edinburgh+Waverley+New+Platform+Numbers

Edited September 1, 2020 by keefer

[Clive Mortimore]

The old Bedford station had five platforms, number 1 for the Hitchin branch, number 2 for the Northampton branch, number 3 London bound, number 4 main line services going north and number 5 the other Northampton bay.

 

With the closure of the Hitchin and Northampton branches only two platforms were in use so they were renumbered. Soon after the renumbering we had a family trip to London, the man at the ticket barrier said " Next train to London platform one". So Dad marched us off to catch the train. We didn't half look a bunch of pillocks standing waiting on the Hitchin platform.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Clive Mortimore

[t-b-g]

Chesterfield Market Place was built with 4 platforms and was never altered. They were numbered 1,2,4 and 5.

 

It was to do with a centre loco release road between 2 and 4, which was designated 3 even though it didn't have a platform.

[TomJ]

Once they’ve added platform ‘0’s then where next? When will we see the first ‘Platform -1’?

[Reorte]

Gets more confusing abroad - either I'd completely failed to understand something, or Grasse station in France has platforms A, B, and 8.

[The Stationmaster]

16 hours ago, H2O said:

Bristol Temple Meads was a jointly run station by GWR and MR (later LMS). Not just the old station as from about 1880 to 1948 the running costs were split 5/8 GWR to 3/8 LMS. This might of determined platform number sequences, perhaps at other places where the GWR shared stations this was also true?

Made no difference - Temple Meads, as I posted yesterday, was definitely numbered from the Down side post 1933 (if not earlier)? with platform numbers ascending towards the upside and so the highest numbered platforms were then in the original GWR terminus.  Prior to 1933 the numbering might well have reflected that station was in fact two separate stations alongside each other - one formerly GWR and the other B&ER?

 

30 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Gets more confusing abroad - either I'd completely failed to understand something, or Grasse station in France has platforms A, B, and 8.

A potential confusion in France - as at Calais Ville - is most likely between quai (platform) and voie (track) although Grasse shows A & B as voie and they are clearly the two platform faces normally used for passenger trains.  The other, numbered, line is probably numbered as part of a siding etc numbering sequence which will have been done according to SNCF logic.

Edited September 1, 2020 by The Stationmaster

[caradoc]

On 31/08/2020 at 14:45, eastglosmog said:

I believe the up bay at Oxford used to be No. 3. Seemed a bit odd being next to Platform 1.

 

In steam/semaphore days Oxford had, as well as the Up and Down platforms, an Up bay (for arrivals only) and a Down bay (for departures only). Frustratingly, I have not been able to ascertain how they were numbered in those days, but by the time I started spotting at Oxford, in 1971, the Down bay had gone, the Up and Down platforms were 1 and 2, and the Up bay was unnumbered, presumably as nothing could depart from it; This obviously changed with resignalling. In earlier times the Up and Down platforms were both divided into two with scissors crossovers midway (albeit not used latterly as trains became longer); I'm not sure how passengers were informed where their train was if two were sharing the platform, perhaps a lot of shouting and gesturing by the platform staff ?!!

 

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, keefer said:

Not sure what the numbering is now (new platforms were added on the through loops some years back), but the two long through platforms were split in two. On the north side it was 1 (east) & 19 (west), on the south side it was 10 (east) & 11 (west).

There were also the two former suburban through platforms 20 & 21 - these were the two sides of an island platform outside of the main train shed, on the South side.

EDIT: platforms were renumbered in 2006, with the new 'loop' platforms coming in to use (several bays on the east side had been removed previously)

Haymarket also gained a new bay Platform 0.

http://www.scot-rail.co.uk/page/Edinburgh+Waverley+New+Platform+Numbers

What I posted was the latest numbering which your link confirms!

[eastwestdivide]

On 30/08/2020 at 18:16, Wickham Green too said:

On the Southern, at least, No.1 is normally on the 'UP' side.

Plenty of exceptions I'm sure. How about this sequence through Medway:

Gravesend 1 up

Higham 1 up

Strood 1 down

Rochester (new) 1 up

Chatham 1 up

Gillingham 1 down

Rainham 1 up

 

[D9020 Nimbus]

At Newcastle Central, a large through station with terminal bays at the East and West ends, the platforms have for a long time been numbered in a clockwise fashion starting at the left (east) of the main entrance.

In the 1960s the N. Tyneside electric line platforms were 1-3; the other north end bays 4-7; the main line through platforms 8-10, and the south end bays 11-15. At that time platforms 12-15 were parcels only and boarded off from the rest of the station. 
The layout was changed on electrification. Platforms 1-6 were removed; a new island platform was created on the far side of the station for local services. Around this time the west-end bays were brought back into use.

The remaining esst-end bay (old platform 7) is now platform 1; main-line platforms are 2-4; the new island platform is 5-8 (each end has a different number) and the west end  bays are 9-13 — once again clockwise from the main entrance.

[eastglosmog]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

 

In steam/semaphore days Oxford had, as well as the Up and Down platforms, an Up bay (for arrivals only) and a Down bay (for departures only). Frustratingly, I have not been able to ascertain how they were numbered in those days, but by the time I started spotting at Oxford, in 1971, the Down bay had gone, the Up and Down platforms were 1 and 2, and the Up bay was unnumbered, presumably as nothing could depart from it; This obviously changed with resignalling. In earlier times the Up and Down platforms were both divided into two with scissors crossovers midway (albeit not used latterly as trains became longer); I'm not sure how passengers were informed where their train was if two were sharing the platform, perhaps a lot of shouting and gesturing by the platform staff ?!!

 

I am not certain, but number 3 may have been applied in the 1990 rebuilding.  (Certainly was numbered that in 1993, there is a photo of it in Mitchell and Smith Oxford to Moreton in Marsh).  The Turbos used to leave from it going up the Cotswold line.

[andyman7]

I was at Newbury Racecourse today. From the northernmost (up) platforms the sequence is 2, 3 and 1.....

[John M Upton]

Haywards Heath is the wrong way around, 1 and 2 are Down, 3 and 4 are Up (although to be fair all four are now bi-directional).

[adb968008]

Never quite understood Clapham jn ‘s rebuild... for Overground.

 

Instead of reopening plat 1, they made plat 2 into plat 1 and shortened its length from approx 12 coaches it into an approx 6 coach bay, then widened the south end, to meet to a staggered new plat 2, made the centre road.

 

 

But I don't see why they couldn't rebuild plat 1... none of that would be required.. just move a few portacabins.

its still there, though if they did now , it would need to be plat 0.

 

 

December 2010, the 377 is on the old plat 2 (the north end is fenced off), to the right is plat 1 (oou).

Today, where the 377 stands is concreted over, the thru line is now plat 2. The barrier is removed and the northern end is plat 1.. but the old plat 1 remains oou.

 

Whats more, during the rebuilding, they relaid the sidings beyond old Plat 1/ new plat 2. and put a set of points directing towards the old plat 1.. but then built extra wide stairs next to the new plat 1, that prevents the sidings ever becoming thru to the old plat 1... so even if plat 0 emerged..it would be a terminating platform, of similar size to new plat 1...with a set of points to nowhere at the opposite end, blocked by stairs.

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by adb968008