London Banter - View Single Post

Duncan · December 18th 07, 10:34 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

In article 5772d5e1-0b86-4b95-a1b7-64e68bfd6144
@c4g2000hsg.googlegroups.com, says...
On 18 Dec, 21:52, Roland Perry wrote:

Now that the station is fully open it's even more apparent what a stupid
idea it was not to have some escalators down from the P1-4 concourse to
(eg) the same place as the FCC escalators go down.

I think that it's also rather silly that there are signs for "UK rail
tickets" - and two totally separate ticket offices next door to each
other. One for East Midlands and one for FCC. I guess SET will get one
of their own too when they start!

I wondered that when I was there yesterday. The FCC ticket office had
quite a queue building up even with all the ticket windows open, but the
EMT ticket office next door was empty. There appeared to be no clear
guidance over which ticket office to use, so I expect most people were
just using the first one they came across. I assume there is no
incentive for FCC to direct some of their customers to the EMT office as
they will lose the commission on the sale.

And, for the last day or so the information screens haven't been
working at platform/station entrance level (but do seem to work on the
200 mile long departure boards)

These also stopped working when I was yesterday evening. The screens on
the Low Level platforms were just displaying 'listen to announcements
for details'.

The whole station still seemed unfinished to me. I can't understand why
a lot of the retail units have still not been fitted out. If WHS and M&S
can manage by the opening, why are others struggling weeks later? At the
moment it hasn't got the feel of a shopping centre, which they were
aiming for, nor a station.

Personally I think there are too many fancy shops. Most of the
passengers there, e.g. domestic travellers, I'm sure will just want
snacks and something to read on the journey. Those retailers that have
been allowed in, such as WHSmith, have units far too small for the
number of passengers trying to use them.

Duncan