This is very embarrassing for Network Rail to have the Transport Secretary order them to make changes to the elements of Euston that were clearly failing. The writing’s been on the advertising board for a long time that things needed to change. Euston, as a mainline terminus is not fit for purpose.

Not against advertising at stations, but removing the previous departure board and replacing with a huge advertising board was asking for trouble and an insult to passengers who had to endure in your face advertising whilst being crammed in like sardines at times of disruption.

Some point to the large advertising boards at Waterloo. Indeed there are, but Waterloo is a much bigger station and there’s still plenty of departure boards at various points of the station.

The replacement departure boards at Euston that replaced the main departure board are a joke.

Let’s hope Network Rail can implement this five point plan before GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and its passengers rock up starting on the 17th of November. I still have my doubts about GWR using Euston.

Bravo, but is she going to stop at Euston? And will she and NR^» (Network Rail - home page)/Great Briish Rail) get the money over 10-15 to plan and implement the fixes needed?

If those are single snapshots, they will have been cherrypicked. The concourse will be a very dynamic environment over time. What NR^» (Network Rail - home page) needed to do there is supply animations + maps aggregated to indicate a month's worth of passenger positions.

Also, those two images are puzzling, they state similar numbers of passengers on the concourse, but given the colour coding it's difficult to stir the first one up and imagine that it's the same number of people.

Also, it's surprising that the exact position of the new boards isn't more easily discernable.

Mark

Just been watching a report on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Breakfast with Simon Calder at Euston who confirmed that the screen has been switched off.

According to the Telegraph, Network Rail are adamant that it won’t be displaying train departures when it’s switched back on. They may not have much choice.

The current boards are still working

There's the question of "does the station have the capacity overall" and the question "are there pinch points in terms of time, place, and flow that need to be dealt with".    Changing times mean that I am *not* at Paddington anything like as often or as at busy times as I used to be,  but the use these days of multiple displays at each side of The Lawn, and repeaters on the bridge to the Hammersmith and City, have broken the crowd into a smaller chunks.   The late calling of trains there, with a resultant flow which I will describe as a rush but not quite a panic, has been a concern.   

Modern trains, with intensive utilisation, perhaps means that the railway operation is so slick it no longer gives the passengers sufficient time to get to them.   And a late, or quick, operational change can be fine by rail but cause chaos in the station.

The Saturday before last I was the passenger who joined the 15:32 Pilining that was said to be headed at the time for Penzance (not the only Pilning user; it dropped off too - another story) but as we approached Temple Meads, we were told that out train was to become the 16:00 to London, and that an alternative would be provided.  "But it will be just across the platform - we'll arrive at platform 13 and the onward train will be waiting at platform 15".   Good - but incorrect.  We pulled in to platform 8 I think it was - country end of different platform - and you could see the crowds lined up waiting for their London train on platform 13.   Big apologies from our train manager and I wondered what the scene was like in the subway and on the staircases as hundreds of passengers flowed each way; there was quite a load on the  Cardiff - Penzance, and the Bristol - London left a few minutes late and with the majority of seats taken - standing from Bath.