Roland Perry wrote in
:

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.

On a Friday afternoon (eg) the place is heaving. If you are waiting in
front of the departure board towards the west (St Pancras) side and your
train is announced from 0-4, it used to be easiest to walk round behind the
board.

Now you can't. It's not 'gated' in the sense that there are gates you can
get through; it's totally blocked. You have to use the bypass lane, which
is not really wide enough for 2-way traffic of people dragging their life's
possessions on wheels.

Something needs to be done about it. Perhaps they could build a new
concourse somewhere :-)

Peter

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|| Peter CS ~ Epsom ~ UK | pjcs02 [at] gmail.com |