HS2 under review

[Colin_McLeod]

When I holidayed in London in 1976 and again in 1977 I loved Euston station.

[jamie92208]

I never knew the old Euston but lived n London in 71 and also liked the big open concourse and the easy access to all the platforms. However the exterior never inspired me.

 

 

Jamie

[caradoc]

I also like Euston with its huge open concourse, the problem nowadays (as with so much of the railway) is too many people; Getting from the platforms to the underground can be an obstacle course! Hopefully newly designed stations will segregate arriving and departing passengers, where justified. And direct access between Euston and Euston Square is long overdue.

[Edwin_m]

The problem with Euston is the late calling of trains meaning far too many people having to hang around on the concourse.  This may have something to do with the platform area not being somewhere most people would want to spend time. 

[lmsforever]

Think new Euston has the edge over the old visited trainspotting in the fifties and remeber it being dirty and awkward to navigate  whilst the new is rathe brutalist(think I read that in a mag) it is open access is good.

[jjb1970]

The problem with Euston is the late calling of trains meaning far too many people having to hang around on the concourse.  This may have something to do with the platform area not being somewhere most people would want to spend time. 

 

 

Regular travellers avoid that, if you are familiar with the incoming train which will provide the stock for the outbound service you're taking you can keep an eye on the arrival boards, and the LNWR services tend to have a regular platform (not sure if that is true for the Virgin services). Every now and then it doesn't work but for me it is very rare to get caught out, the 17:24 departure for Northampton is the 17:12 arrival from Tring and now goes out of platform 11 (just changed from platform 6). A lot of regular travellers use the same trick.

[The Stationmaster]

Think new Euston has the edge over the old visited trainspotting in the fifties and remeber it being dirty and awkward to navigate  whilst the new is rathe brutalist(think I read that in a mag) it is open access is good.

 

Streets ahead of the old station - it was a mess of bits and pieces added at different times and must have been an atrocious place to manage passenger flows as well as tangling them up with mail traffic to/from the platforms.  The new Euston came along like a breath ofd fresh air and the only problem it really suffers from in my experience is that it is unsuited to the idea of large queues/bodies of people waiting on the concourse for trains to be made available (plus the swiping of concourse space for other uses which has robbed it of its original suitability for that purpose).

[pete_mcfarlane]

I do sometimes suspect that the new station was always doomed to be disliked 'disastrous and inhuman' (as Betjeman put it), no matter how good it was, because it's construction involved knocking down a couple of nice bits of architecture.that people were fond of

[Fenman]

I do sometimes suspect that the new station was always doomed to be disliked 'disastrous and inhuman' (as Betjeman put it), no matter how good it was, because it's construction involved knocking down a couple of nice bits of architecture.that people were fond of

 

I think it's not bad: my only real criticism is that you can't see any trains from the concourse. I know this was deliberate - they were trying to replicate the experience of using an airport terminal. But rail travel is not the same as air and, in any case, a few years later Norman Foster reinvented the air terminal with Stansted where the basic design principle was that ... as soon as you walked in the front door, you could see through the terminal to planes waiting on the other side.

 

Liverpool Street, in many ways an otherwise admirable refurb, repeated the same trick, hiding the trains behind a row of retail opportunities.

 

Paul

[Ron Ron Ron]

Some of the design ideas for the redeveloped HS2 Euston Station.

 

https://grimshaw.global/projects/hs2-euston-station/

 

https://grimshaw.global/projects/gallery/?i=829&p=GAL_12016_Euston_HS2_Platform_Wide_005D

 

https://www.railway-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/10/2l-image-10.jpg

 

 

 

.

[melmerby]

I think it's not bad: my only real criticism is that you can't see any trains from the concourse.

 

Paul

My criticism is that the concourse is much too small, with the high number platforms accessible along a not particularly wide "corridor" from the main circulating area.

Another down point is the practice of not posting the departure info until close to the scheduled time (presumably for operating reasons), leading to a mad rush down this corridor if the train is on, say, platform 17 once it appears on the display.

 

A major re-vamp would IMHO be needed & desirable, even if HS2 wasn't coming.

 

Keith

[jjb1970]

It's funny how opinions of stations change if you have to use them, and also over time. The first time I visited the new Antwerp station I thought it was stunning, and in terms of impact it remains a stunning station. The open multi-level design melded with the old building is an amazing piece of work. However, as a semi-regular user of the station it's not a particularly great station in terms of ease of access and layout and the people I know in Antwerp have been quite negative about it for the same reasons.

[pete_mcfarlane]

The new St Pancras is another example of a fantastic looking building that's a bit rubbish as a station. Getting from the tube to the Midland Mainline platforms involves a lengthy trek through a shopping mall full of people who have turned up 10 hours early for their Eurostar and are aimless ambling around. 

[The Great Bear]

The new St Pancras is another example of a fantastic looking building that's a bit rubbish as a station. Getting from the tube to the Midland Mainline platforms involves a lengthy trek through a shopping mall full of people who have turned up 10 hours early for their Eurostar and are aimless ambling around.

Or turn left and use underpass to Kings Cross, might be easier?

[Edwin_m]

Or turn left and use underpass to Kings Cross, might be easier?

If you're coming from there you have to walk through most of said shopping mall before turning back, up an escalator and much of the same distance in the opposite direction. 

[jjb1970]

When did they start attaching railway stations onto shopping malls anyway? I find it dashed inconvenient to have to battle past people cluttering the place up trying to catch trains when I go shopping.

[Davexoc]

When did they start attaching railway stations onto shopping malls anyway? I find it dashed inconvenient to have to battle past people cluttering the place up trying to catch trains when I go shopping.

Same time corner shops started selling petrol. You go into The Wild Bean cafe and there are all these people paying for petrol and diesel to contend with. Be alright soon though, they'll all be wanting coffee while their EV charges up.....

 

Dave

[The Great Bear]

If you're coming from there you have to walk through most of said shopping mall before turning back, up an escalator and much of the same distance in the opposite direction. 

 

Oh yes. I was referring to coming off the Midland Mainline platforms. Going the other way I use the lift, cuts some of the mall, that's what I do, anyway; I'm a lazy so and so so wouldn't walk further than necessary! 

Edited July 10, 2018 by The Great Bear

[GoingUnderground]

The new St Pancras is another example of a fantastic looking building that's a bit rubbish as a station. Getting from the tube to the Midland Mainline platforms involves a lengthy trek through a shopping mall full of people who have turned up 10 hours early for their Eurostar and are aimless ambling around.

How dare the Eurostar passengers wait around doing nothing when they've all those wonderful retail outlets waiting to be used.

 

They're almost as bad as the masses huddled round the ticket barriers waiting to see which platform their train to Nottingham, Derby & Sheffield will be using, as they ready themselves the 100 yard dash up the platform to their train when the time comes.

 

Perhaps we need spaces in stations where people can wait for trains without obstructing other passengers included in modern designs. We could even call these dedicated areas Waiting Rooms.

 

But seriously, when we're passing through STP we always bild in extra time to allow for possible delays getting to STP so that we don't miss our train, be it Eurostar or an EMT service back home. There is very little free public waiting space with seating, and Eurostar nowadays don't let you go through security too early to try to stop overloading the security & border control checks, and departure lounge capacity. What was the standing waiting/meeting area in front of the Eurostar ticket barriers is now mostly taken up with a labyrinth queueing area. So there is nowhere to go in STP if you don't want to buy a drink or shop 'til you drop.

 

The HS2 Euston needs to learn from these mistakes, and recognise that people can't wait in their trains like they once could, we need general waiting areas, and only retail should be food & drink outlets surrounding an open to all seating area, preferably without muzak or the now unversal large screen TV.

[Mike Storey]

How dare the Eurostar passengers wait around doing nothing when they've all those wonderful retail outlets waiting to be used.

 

They're almost as bad as the masses huddled round the ticket barriers waiting to see which platform their train to Nottingham, Derby & Sheffield will be using, as they ready themselves the 100 yard dash up the platform to their train when the time comes.

 

Perhaps we need spaces in stations where people can wait for trains without obstructing other passengers included in modern designs. We could even call these dedicated areas Waiting Rooms.

 

But seriously, when we're passing through STP we always bild in extra time to allow for possible delays getting to STP so that we don't miss our train, be it Eurostar or an EMT service back home. There is very little free public waiting space with seating, and Eurostar nowadays don't let you go through security too early to try to stop overloading the security & border control checks, and departure lounge capacity. What was the standing waiting/meeting area in front of the Eurostar ticket barriers is now mostly taken up with a labyrinth queueing area. So there is nowhere to go in STP if you don't want to buy a drink or shop 'til you drop.

 

The HS2 Euston needs to learn from these mistakes, and recognise that people can't wait in their trains like they once could, we need general waiting areas, and only retail should be food & drink outlets surrounding an open to all seating area, preferably without muzak or the now unversal large screen TV.

 

You make some very good points and there is certainly much to be absorbed in the design of new, international stations these days.

 

Two of the key issues that haunt St P (and indeed its continental equivalents for E* services) were the planning assumptions that on board customs and passport checks would become inevitable, and that the security situation would have improved post the IRA campaign. The latter assumption has of course become entirely the opposite and the former still a dream, and probably unlikely in the foreseeable.

 

But other issues also drive station design along the Euston road, and one of those is public seating areas. In response to public opinion, whilst still RT Major Stations, we significantly reduced retail footprints at Euston (it had risen to absurd proportions), and to a smaller extent at the old Kings Cross, and replaced some of this with increased circulation and some with extra public seating, or perches in some cases, designed to be anti-vagrant (for want of a better description), plus RT with GNER introduced a Standard waiting room alongside its inherited First Class Lounge. We had also introduced the use of private security, which we had belatedly realised required specialist and confident (of the law) operators. The initial result was very promising and quite well received. But when the inevitable cost cutting came, it was the reduction in security which suffered, and the problems of the 1970's re-emerged - we know from past surveys that this is one of the most significant factors that passengers find concerning. The gradual gentrification of the area has not been total by any means. The resolution of these conflicts with the new Kings Cross design has once again been through use of private retail, who largely police their own seating areas, although I recall there are some public seating areas opposite the main departure board (? have not been there for some years now).

 

So whilst there is much merit in what you say, there is also a set of circumstances which preclude a more obviously beneficial environment for passengers in design. High cost, effective security is vital to keep public areas attractive, in the absence of private retail, but this ongoing cost is not necessarily supported by the minor TOCs, who use the same stations, and who have voting rights on the station access fees to which they contribute. (A classic example was that of a certain TOC MD who dragged me in over the station costs of Birmingham New Street and Manchester Piccadilly, which his trains used. He objected to the major improvements we were making and the increased running costs, primarily due to increased security and monitoring. He told me his passengers just needed a bus shelter and some decent information, and that was all he was going to pay for. I alerted him to the possibility of using other stations instead of mine, if he could persuade OPRAF (as it was at the time) the Regulator and the DforT, that this would be a good thing for his passengers, and that our costs had already been factored into his Franchise agreement. Of course, he was tilting at windmills, but his kind of attitude is no doubt still prevalent from those TOCs working on the bone of profitability.)

 

So the design for Euston post HS2 presents a very interesting challenge - I doubt they will please everyone, but I do hope they work out how to please most.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I also like Euston with its huge open concourse, the problem nowadays (as with so much of the railway) is too many people; Getting from the platforms to the underground can be an obstacle course! Hopefully newly designed stations will segregate arriving and departing passengers, where justified. And direct access between Euston and Euston Square is long overdue.

 

Better still, move the Euston Square platforms eastwards.

[GoingUnderground]

I know that these days the only thing that seems to matter to very many people is the price, and the less they pay the happier they are. But that TOC MD's attitude to his/her customers is IMHO despicable, especially if the TOC runs commuter services where most of us have no choice in our mode of transport to get to work. If that TOC overbid it should hand back their franchise, not seek to penalise the traveller with poor facilities. Privatisation was supposed to improve standards through competition, not drive them down to the lowest that fat cat MD's can get away with.

Edited July 13, 2018 by GoingUnderground

[lmsforever]

Noticed in Stoke Manderville work is going on on route and also a survey of an old church near the route plus ecoloigical work going on near Waddesdon.Here they are building a cycle and walking route to Waddesdon Manor which will bridge the line might be photo spot in future if you wish to photo these new fangled high speed trains !

[melmerby]

I also like Euston with its huge open concourse,

It's funny how we can have opposite views.

 

Every time I visit, the concourse is full of people milling around waiting for departure info, making it feel totally inadequate.

It certainly looks miniscule compared to the actual size of the station:

 

https://cdn.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Euston-Station-Map.pdf

 

Keith

[melmerby]

Better still, move the Euston Square platforms eastwards.

No need, just create access at the Eastern end of Euston Square Underground platforms as you will be by the front of the mainline station.

It would be easy to connect to the other LU lines & the main line station with new pedestrian tunnels. (to be done as part of the rebuilding AFAIK)

 

Keith