"Roland Perry" wrote in message ...
remarked:
One of the changes they've made in the last year or two (I can't say
exactly when) was to rope off a corridor across the old concourse in
front of the departure board. I suppose that directs people towards the
newish stairs down to the tube station, but it does reduce the number of
people filtering through the waiting crowds.
You have misunderstood the purpose of that corridor. If you look carefully
you can see that it was created because the route between the halves of
the train shed near the platform ends has been gated off so there is
otherwise no route to the barriers opposite platforms 0-4 from the ends of
the other platforms.
Hmm, why would you want to get to platforms 0-4 *from* platforms 5-8,
without first standing around in the crowd waiting to see which platform
you want? Although that's a bit recursive, because until the platform's
announced you don't know you need to head for p0-4.
I don't see much need for a "bypass" there for passengers catching trains
who happen to be near platform 8 when their number is called, but it's
heavily used by people leaving p0-4.
I agree with Roland's interpretation here - I mainly use that 'bypass' to
exit from the lower-numbered platforms towards the Travel Centre/newish
underground entrance, and I think it was 'created' (or 'signed', to be more
accurate) at around the same time as the 0-5 barriers became operational.
Nitpick: the two sides are 0-5 and 6-8, not 0-4 and 5-8.