On Thu, Sep 01, 2011 at 01:44:04PM +0100, Paul Scott wrote:

At a total of 11 stations, therefore, it is recommended
that interventions are investigated to understand and
address crowding by the end of Control Period 5 (CP5)
in 2019. The stations are as follows:

Basingstoke, Bristol Parkway, Clapham Junction
Liverpool Lime Street, London Charing Cross
London Fenchurch Street, London Victoria
Preston, Surbiton, Watford Junction, Wimbledon

Of those, the two I'm familiar with are Victoria and Clapham Junction.
The only part of Victoria that regularly gets horribly crowded is the
passageway from the main concourse to the stairs leading down to the
Victoria Line ticket hall. But that's because the tube station gets
horribly overcrowded and LU then close the gates. At Clapham Junction,
you get bad crowding at three points:

* in the tunnel, but it's not *that* bad; also note that I've not used
it since the new exit from the bridge to St John's Hill has opened,
that may have changed matters;
* on platform 2 when WLL trains arrive in the evening peak;
* on platform 17 when WLL trains arrive in the evening peak.

The problems on platform 2 are because the staircases up and down are
narrow, and there's some pointless buildings eating valuable platform
space.

The problems on platform 17 are because the staircases up and down are
even narrower and the platform is very narrow. The staircase problems
may be soluble, I doubt the platform problem is.

I am, of course, ignoring the crowding you get at both stations when it
all goes tits up, such as last night when platforms 15/16 at Clapham
were horribly crowded because some daft bugger had decided to take a
stroll on the tracks and so the trains were all screwed up.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

Blessed are the pessimists, for they test their backups