St Erth station - facilities, footbridge, improvements, incidents and awards (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[RailCornwall]

In service pics (Today - mine again, same rules as before) ..

























The Car Park will be operated by APCOA^▸ (Car parking company used at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - controlled stations in the area) it seems, although the machines aren't working on the South side. The bus incidentally is driving pax between the Station forecourt and the South site.

[grahame]

In service pics:

Many, many thanks for those pictures

Isn't it astonishing to consider how things have changed.  On a line that was so nearly closed under the Beeching plan, we now have a platform widened to take the crowds, maximum length trains, and a service that's running as frequently as the line will cope with - even cutting out stops at Lelant (Central not Saltings) to speed the trains up!

[Red Squirrel]

Yes, we've come a long way from:

The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate,
No passenger waits on Chittening Platform or Cheslyn Hay,
No-one departs, no-one arrives,
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives...

_{The Slow Train, Flanders and Swann}

Happily, they didn't all pass out of our lives...

[Clan Line]

This may be a silly question.....but why didn't they move the buffet side platform over and extend that to full length ?  Then you could have had passengers boarding one side and leaving the train from the other side - (at the same time ?). One way traffic on each platform.

[RailCornwall]

Most of the flow to/from St Ives would be rail side, operating as you envisage Clan Line, would have made this difficult without taking more of the 'non rail' part of the Hub. Space is still tight on the North Side. A full fence reconstruct would have been needed too.

The one issue I think that needs some permanent remedial work is the area, currently temporarily fenced, around the buffer stop considering the potential volumes of potential pax in that area. The low level railings as on the leaflet illustration will need to be installed quickly.

[grahame]

Most of the flow to/from St Ives would be rail side, operating as you envisage Clan Line, would have made this difficult without taking more of the 'non rail' part of the Hub. Space is still tight on the North Side. A full fence reconstruct would have been needed too.

The one issue I think that needs some permanent remedial work is the area, currently temporarily fenced, around the buffer stop considering the potential volumes of potential pax in that area. The low level railings as on the leaflet illustration will need to be installed quickly.

I came up with the thought that
a) Dispatch with doors on both sides would be a more complex and perhaps lengthier process
b) Double sided isn't commonly built these days ... and might have needed a more detailed safety case
c) Traffic is predominantly to St Ives in the morning and from St Ives later in the day, so there are unlikely to be conflicting major flows off and on the same train.

[TonyK]

Double sided works best (and is probably only used) for exceptionally high volume commuter traffic, either by emptying a train onto two platforms quickly, or emptrying onto one and loading it from another by careful timing of the door sequence. St Erth doesn't fit that match.

[SandTEngineer]

Lesson No.1.  Never put any signalling equipment immediately behind a buffer stop.......

[Jamsdad]

The platform modifications were solely to cope with general passenger numbers. The old Platform3 was very narrow and could not efficiently handle growth in passengers. Wide platform is safer. Two sided boarding was never an issue , nor needed.

[RailCornwall]

The D&C Rail Partnership have updated their website with full details of the P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) site and connections ....

https://greatscenicrailways.co.uk/stations/st-erth-park-and-ride/

[RailCornwall]

There's a right mess going on the platform management, let me see if I can explain. The prime foot root from the South CP site to the train is up the ramp onto the Penzance direction platform and from there over the bridge to the Plymouth platform. This is where there's a kerfuffle.

All people coming off the bridge are being forced out of the station and back into the 'ticket hall' before coming out onto the St Ives platform, this is being done for fare issuing purposes. What's annoying is that this flow of P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) passengers is mixed with those coming from the East off of the mainline, the vast majority of these of course will be ticketed already, making an unnecessary detour.

When the service gets really busy this will cause imo unnecessary angst for Rail transferees.

This clearly hasn't been thought through in the design of the scheme.

[RailCornwall]

and we had a promo for the P&R^▸ (Park and Ride)

Devon and Cornwall Partnership Tweet - subsequently deleted it seems.

[rogerw]

Link not working for me. All I get is a message that the page cannot be found

[grahame]

and we have a promo for the P&R^▸ (Park and Ride)
https://twitter.com/DCRailPart/status/114609446028519833

Link not working for me. All I get is a message that the page cannot be found

Format looks right ... let's try another:

https://twitter.com/DCRailPart/status/1145969478607560704

[RailCornwall]

It's been deleted for some reason.