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Old February 7th 04, 07:01 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

I was at Stratford Station today and noticed something very
distressing: the lack of a second gateline between the Central Line/NR
platforms and the Jubilee Line platforms means that Pre-Pay users who
don't see the validators on the Central Line platforms (there aren't
very many and they're not easy to find) will mis-validate when they
try to pass the gateline to get to the Jubilee Line. Even stranger is
that there appears to be no obvious way to reach the Jubilee Line
platforms from the street without passing the entrance gateline and
the Jubilee Line and mis-validating again.

Is this a known issue or has no one simply noticed?

Brad

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Old February 9th 04, 12:53 AM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

In article ,
TheOneKEA wrote:
I was at Stratford Station today and noticed something very
distressing: the lack of a second gateline between the Central Line/NR
platforms and the Jubilee Line platforms means that Pre-Pay users who
don't see the validators on the Central Line platforms (there aren't
very many and they're not easy to find) will mis-validate when they
try to pass the gateline to get to the Jubilee Line. Even stranger is
that there appears to be no obvious way to reach the Jubilee Line
platforms from the street without passing the entrance gateline and
the Jubilee Line and mis-validating again.


Is this a known issue or has no one simply noticed?


I don't know when they started to plan Oyster, but the gateline layout
at Stratford dates from about 1996 (from memory). Originally there was
only going to be the one gateline in the new Concourse - that guarding
the Jubilee Line. The old station entrance (to the east of the
concourse) had no gateline or even proper ticket barriers.

It was then decided to install the one guarding ALL the lines. We had
to add the gateline to the drawings, and more importantly from our
point-of-view, the additional accommodation for the additional ticket
offices and machines at the eastern end of the station.

When the station opened there was a major revenue operation mounted.
That was when they realised the number of people who had been
travelling without tickets. Many of them got quite offended when
confronted by a gateline!!

John Haines
Design Manager for Hyder Consulting for the Stratford Concourse project.

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Old February 9th 04, 02:34 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

John Haines wrote in message ...
In article ,
TheOneKEA wrote:
I was at Stratford Station today and noticed something very
distressing: the lack of a second gateline between the Central Line/NR
platforms and the Jubilee Line platforms means that Pre-Pay users who
don't see the validators on the Central Line platforms (there aren't
very many and they're not easy to find) will mis-validate when they
try to pass the gateline to get to the Jubilee Line. Even stranger is
that there appears to be no obvious way to reach the Jubilee Line
platforms from the street without passing the entrance gateline and
the Jubilee Line and mis-validating again.


Is this a known issue or has no one simply noticed?


I don't know when they started to plan Oyster, but the gateline layout
at Stratford dates from about 1996 (from memory). Originally there was
only going to be the one gateline in the new Concourse - that guarding
the Jubilee Line. The old station entrance (to the east of the
concourse) had no gateline or even proper ticket barriers.

It was then decided to install the one guarding ALL the lines. We had
to add the gateline to the drawings, and more importantly from our
point-of-view, the additional accommodation for the additional ticket
offices and machines at the eastern end of the station.

When the station opened there was a major revenue operation mounted.
That was when they realised the number of people who had been
travelling without tickets. Many of them got quite offended when
confronted by a gateline!!

John Haines
Design Manager for Hyder Consulting for the Stratford Concourse project.


Thanks for the info. John - this also explains the rather redundant
ticket offices and machines by the Jubilee barrier. Architecturally I
think Stratford is a wonderful station - with the North London Line
running through the middle of the concourse. I'm not a fan of the
trend to hide away the trains behind high barriers, many modern
stations (or refurbs of old ones) seem to be pretending to be airport
lounges. Shame about the scaffolding still in place around it though
where (so I'm told) there is a risk of the glass falling out - will
they ever put it right?
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Old February 9th 04, 02:55 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

John Haines wrote in message ...
In article ,
TheOneKEA wrote:
I was at Stratford Station today and noticed something very
distressing: the lack of a second gateline between the Central Line/NR
platforms and the Jubilee Line platforms means that Pre-Pay users who
don't see the validators on the Central Line platforms (there aren't
very many and they're not easy to find) will mis-validate when they
try to pass the gateline to get to the Jubilee Line. Even stranger is
that there appears to be no obvious way to reach the Jubilee Line
platforms from the street without passing the entrance gateline and
the Jubilee Line and mis-validating again.


Is this a known issue or has no one simply noticed?


I don't know when they started to plan Oyster, but the gateline layout
at Stratford dates from about 1996 (from memory). Originally there was
only going to be the one gateline in the new Concourse - that guarding
the Jubilee Line. The old station entrance (to the east of the
concourse) had no gateline or even proper ticket barriers.


Does this mean that before Jubilee Line services terminated at
Stratford it was possible to reach the Central Line, the DLR and the
mainline platforms without actually possessing a valid ticket?
Fascinating.


It was then decided to install the one guarding ALL the lines. We had
to add the gateline to the drawings, and more importantly from our
point-of-view, the additional accommodation for the additional ticket
offices and machines at the eastern end of the station.

When the station opened there was a major revenue operation mounted.
That was when they realised the number of people who had been
travelling without tickets. Many of them got quite offended when
confronted by a gateline!!


I'm sure that would have been quite amusing to the TfL staff who were
placed on duty there to catch the fare dodgers.

Thank you for explaining the rationale behind the rather unusual
setup, which answers my first question, but it doesn't answer my
second question: how do you get from the street to the Jubilee Line
with a Pre-Pay Oyster without mis-validating?


John Haines
Design Manager for Hyder Consulting for the Stratford Concourse project.


Brad


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Old February 9th 04, 11:46 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

In article ,
umpston wrote:

Thanks for the info. John - this also explains the rather redundant
ticket offices and machines by the Jubilee barrier. Architecturally
I think Stratford is a wonderful station - with the North London Line
running through the middle of the concourse. I'm not a fan of the
trend to hide away the trains behind high barriers, many modern
stations (or refurbs of old ones) seem to be pretending to be airport
lounges. Shame about the scaffolding still in place around it though
where (so I'm told) there is a risk of the glass falling out - will
they ever put it right?


We only shut the NLL for about 4 weekends during the construction of
the Concourse - not bad!

Don't get me started about the glass. There's nothing wrong with it,
its just a perception.

Remember, the design was carried out when bombs were still going off in
London. One of the JLEP team was very near South Quay when that went
up. We designed for that. We carried out a full risk assessment for all
the glass - I know, I wrote it. LUL has never formaly got back to us
with any criticism, even when a contractor knocked out a panel and
virtually the first people on the scene was a group of HM Railway
Inspectors!

John Haines

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Old February 10th 04, 10:18 AM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

John Haines wrote in message ...
In article ,
umpston wrote:

Thanks for the info. John - this also explains the rather redundant
ticket offices and machines by the Jubilee barrier. Architecturally
I think Stratford is a wonderful station - with the North London Line
running through the middle of the concourse. I'm not a fan of the
trend to hide away the trains behind high barriers, many modern
stations (or refurbs of old ones) seem to be pretending to be airport
lounges. Shame about the scaffolding still in place around it though
where (so I'm told) there is a risk of the glass falling out - will
they ever put it right?


We only shut the NLL for about 4 weekends during the construction of
the Concourse - not bad!

Don't get me started about the glass. There's nothing wrong with it,
its just a perception.

Remember, the design was carried out when bombs were still going off in
London. One of the JLEP team was very near South Quay when that went
up. We designed for that. We carried out a full risk assessment for all
the glass - I know, I wrote it. LUL has never formaly got back to us
with any criticism, even when a contractor knocked out a panel and
virtually the first people on the scene was a group of HM Railway
Inspectors!

John Haines


Glad to hear there is nothing wrong with the glass (sorry if I'm
getting you started) - but why then is the scaffolding still there?
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Old February 11th 04, 07:58 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

In article , umpston
wrote:
John Haines wrote in message
...

Don't get me started about the glass. There's nothing wrong with
it, its just a perception.

Remember, the design was carried out when bombs were still going
off in London. One of the JLEP team was very near South Quay when
that went up. We designed for that. We carried out a full risk
assessment for all the glass - I know, I wrote it. LUL has never
formaly got back to us with any criticism, even when a contractor
knocked out a panel and virtually the first people on the scene was
a group of HM Railway Inspectors!

John Haines


Glad to hear there is nothing wrong with the glass (sorry if I'm
getting you started) - but why then is the scaffolding still there?


I have no involvement or contact with the station now so I don't have
any definite information. I also haven't been there for a while so I
don't know exactly what is there now.

I was aware, shortly after the station opened, that there was concern
throughout the network over the possibility of individuals being
prosecuted under H&S law or at least being held responsible for a
prosecution of LUL.

I understood that there had been a number of accidents throughout the
network (about 300 separate locations) relating to glass, fragile roof
materials and falls. The HSE had made it known that they would be
minded to prosecute when the next one happened. No individual manager
wanted to risk being that one so they were all playing very safe. This
in turn created an impression that this was the right thing to do.

There was then talk about adding some additional protection but nothing
was done. I suspect there may be the impression that something will be
done and the temporary protection is thee until that happens.

Incidentally, we did put in some additional protection in two places,
on the NLL platforms. That's what those inverted wire umbrella things
are. (I assume they are still there). They represent the higher risk of
there being someone under that part of the facade.

Glass - yes you have got me started.

To summarise, there are two basic types of safety glass, laminated and
toughened.

Laminated glass has one or more layers of 'plastic' material and does
not fall apart if fractured. In a high energy impact situation, such as
a bomb, that would create a sort of floppy blanket of glass and
significant load would be transferred to the fixings and structure. In
such a situation, the entire sheet would break away and fall as a
quarter ton of glass. The loads transferred to the structure could
cause major structural failure. However, in lower energy impact it
would fracture but stay in place. It would still have to be replaced as
its load-carrying capacity would be reduced.

Toughened glass is heat treated to create a highly stressed outer layer
of glass which makes it typically 5 times as difficult to break. Low
energy impact will not break it. (Lobbing bricks at it, even using the
pinty end of a road spike would not damage it). In an incident with
enough energy to break it, the internal stresses will cause it to
shatter into dice sized chunks, a bit like gravel. This will cause
lacerations if projected at sufficient speed, but is more survivable
that a great blanket of glass or major structural collapse.

There is however a small problem with laminated glass. There are
impurities in all glass. The problematical ones expand over time and
can cause the glass to fracture. Because of the 'locked-in' stress, a
toughened glass panel will shatter explosively. Modern techniques of
heat treatment effectively artificially age the glass to eliminate the
most likely problems but current wisdom says it cannot be ruled out. In
some cases the fragments do not entirely separate, a bit like picking
up a jigsaw by one corner. The wire umbrellas over the NLL are to break
up such fortuitous agglomerations.

I have seen a TV programme where a family who had been under such a
failure in a shopping mall were interviewed. It was not a good
experience, the father was hit on the shoulder by such a chunk, but
they were bruised and a little scratched only.

As I said before, the decision to use toughened glass was particularly
influenced by the risk of explosion. I still think we made the right
decisions for that situation. Laminated glass is most suitable in other
cases. The one action which could make the Concourse a potential death
trap would be to replace the toughened glass with laminated glass.

Fundamentally, if you want light, open, wonderful structures, you have
to accept the (in my opinion very small) risks associated with that.
After all, if it were gloomy, it might increase the suicide rate.

John Haines

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Old February 11th 04, 08:20 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

In article , TheOneKEA
wrote:
John Haines wrote in message
...


I don't know when they started to plan Oyster, but the gateline
layout at Stratford dates from about 1996 (from memory). Originally
there was only going to be the one gateline in the new Concourse -
that guarding the Jubilee Line. The old station entrance (to the
east of the concourse) had no gateline or even proper ticket
barriers.


Does this mean that before Jubilee Line services terminated at
Stratford it was possible to reach the Central Line, the DLR and the
mainline platforms without actually possessing a valid ticket?
Fascinating.


Yes.

Originally there was only funding (from LUL) for the western half -
approximately the western 2/3rds of the current Concourse. The Jubilee
line gateline was part of this scheme but it would not have provided a
new entrance. The old entrance and linking tunnel from the shopping
centre, which looked a bit like entering a public toilet (mostly
subterranean and white tiled) would have stayed.

Funding for the eastern half, mainly from Newham, was in place just in
time to start construction with a single unified design.

Part of the design brief was to produce a structure which could be
extended. This concept, although rendered unnecessary, was too far
embedded to change. The whole roof structure, including the front
truss, is basically a kit of parts connected together with bolts. Even
the front concrete piers are bolted down (and then the pocket filled
with concrete).

The Architects we worked with, then called Chris Wilkinson Architects,
now Wilkinson Eyre Architects, went on to win the Sterling prize for
architecture two years running - Magna and the Gateshead millennium
bridge. (- and if that's not the way to spell the m word, blame my
spell checker).

John Haines

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Old February 11th 04, 09:33 PM posted to uk.transport.london
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Default Oyster Pre-Pay and Stratford Station

John Haines wrote the following in:


Originally there was only funding (from LUL) for the western half
- approximately the western 2/3rds of the current Concourse. The
Jubilee line gateline was part of this scheme but it would not
have provided a new entrance. The old entrance and linking tunnel
from the shopping centre, which looked a bit like entering a
public toilet (mostly subterranean and white tiled) would have
stayed.


The closure of the subway to the station from the shopping centre is
the only part of the design that I don't like. It's a shame they had to
do that although I suppose it's much better than keeping the original
entrance which was not nice at all.

--
message by Robin May, enforcer of sod's law.
The Hutton Report is a whitewash! Long live the BBC!

Crime is confusing.


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