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Old September 20th 06, 11:44 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london
jonmorris jonmorris is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jul 2005
Posts: 38
Default Kings Cross or St Pancras? Eurostar started already?

What's going on with the work at Kings Cross for the H&C, Met & Circle
lines? Is there anyone overseeing the work as it progresses?

Apart from the slow gates that ensure nice long queues in the rush
hours (sorry Paul C, but they are not up to the task, at least at the
moment), it seems that both sets of stairs are now marked 'way out'
from the platform. As you might imagine, when a train arrives in the
peak periods on either platform - the stairs become a battle ground.

Think of the old stairs, when there were signs/indicators to show which
section you could use (two down, one up and swapped). Sure some people
ignored it, but imagine having NO such guidance! Carnage.

And it seems that if you're going towards Farringdon then the wording
on the walls will tell passengers you are at Kings Cross, only. The
signs also have Eurostar on them!! Are they ahead of schedule for
opening this?

On the other side, going towards Euston Square, it's St Pancras, only.
Yes, the Underground logos are the wall (with Kings Cross St Pancras
marked) but is there any reason for having only half the name on each
platform? My guess is that they're slightly different sizes and half
the signs didn't arrive/were damaged or whatever, but why not wait
until everything can be done at once?

One more question; will there be any form of ventilation when the
station is renovated? At the moment there are some rooms/offices
inbetween the two sets of stairs with air conditioning units that blast
out huge amounts of hot air. In effect, the platforms have their own
fan heaters in operation. You can feel the heat the minute you get to
the bottom of the stairs and on to the platform.

Apart from that, everything is just fine! When the signs upstairs start
showing arrival/departure times for the lines, I'll be particularly
happy. When you walk down at 0830 to see 'delayed' or 15 minutes
showing, it's a right PITA to walk back up and out to get a bus. I also
think that it's going to look very nice when finished, even if the
platforms will actually have less space on them than they did before.

Jonathan