"Mark Goodge" wrote

the tendency to leave platform announcements until close to departure
times
creates too much of a scrum.

When the West Midlands service went to half-hourly (1974?) the principle was
established that these trains would leave alternately from either side of an
island platform, and that as far as possible each train would be open for
boarding as soon as the previous train had left. With the Virgin high
frequency service it should be possible to extend this principle to
Manchester as well as the West Midlands. This could halve the number of
passengers who need to wait on the concourse, though it would also be
necessary to come up with a new approach to Advance tickets, which encourage
passengers to arrive very early even when trains are at 20 minute frequency,
for fear of missing the one train their ticket is valid on and having to buy
a much more expensive new ticket.

Peter