Reliability of station lifts and escalators

[whole diary]

[grahame]

There seems to be a national issue with the reliability and maintenance of lifts and escalators on the railways.

Indeed - and I am splitting that into a separate thread

[grahame]

There seems to be a national issue with the reliability and maintenance of lifts and escalators on the railways.

I have used Southampton Central quite a few time in the last 18 months and more often than not the lift to the central platforms - 2 and 3 - is out of use.    And on cruise ship days (which are most days in the summer) ...

Chippenham lifts seem to have lots of "out of action" reports ....

Are there any stats published for lift availability?

[TaplowGreen]

There seems to be a national issue with the reliability and maintenance of lifts and escalators on the railways.

I have used Southampton Central quite a few time in the last 18 months and more often than not the lift to the central platforms - 2 and 3 - is out of use.    And on cruise ship days (which are most days in the summer) ...

Chippenham lifts seem to have lots of "out of action" reports ....

Are there any stats published for lift availability?

I'm sure I read somewhere (possibly within this forum) that one of the issues is that they are not really designed to be used "outdoors"?

[Mark A]

'"Dawlish Lifts" has entered the chat'.

Mark

[CyclingSid]

Other stations which appear to have regular issues with lifts are Southampton Airport, Basingstoke and Fareham. Probably many others but the noticeable ones on the routes I regularly use.

[ray951]

Didcot Parkway lifts are quite often out of action after heavy rain.

[nickswift99]

To be fair, after heavy rain, the subway at Didcot is often out of action too, so no need for any lifts to be working.

[JayMac]

Westbury too post profuse precipitation.

[didcotdean]

To be fair, after heavy rain, the subway at Didcot is often out of action too, so no need for any lifts to be working.

The subway which is of course at ground level. It is usually a problem with blocked or collapsed drains somewhere - this issue arises outside in general periodically on Station Road / Hitchcock Way as well in the area in heavy rain.

Many years ago the Platform 2&3 lift was out of action for months with the offered solution for those who needed it being travelling via Swindon.

[TonyN]

Add Worcestershire Parkway and Bromsgrove to the list bouth are fairly new stations.

I was at Bromsgrove on Tuesday all lifts out of order but West Midland trains had canceled 2 trains to Hereford. Passengers with heavy luggage where being sent from New Street to Bromsgrove on cross city trains and then expected to carry their luggage over the footbridge before boarding a Rail replacment coach for Hereford where they would arrive later than if they had been sent via Shrewsbury.

[Worcester_Passenger]

Here, the lift at Foregate Street to platform 2 (the Birmingham side) was out of action for the best part of a month.

And the lifts at Shrub Hill to give access to platform 2 have been promised for many years, but there's nothing to show for the work that has been undertaken. Instead, anyone in a wheelchair has to be taken across the barrow crossing by a member of staff.

At Birmingham New St (OK, outside GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)-land), the down escalator from the 'red lounge' to platforms 10b and 11b (usually the ones for Worcester and Hereford trains) has been out of action for several months. This is particularly annoying given that there are no alternative stairs (short of going out through one lot of gates, in through another, and accessing platforms 10a and 11a), though there is a (currently working) lift.

Lifts and escalators are of course examples of PBT^▸ (Post Brunel Technology. The railway always finds this tricky) (Post Brunel Technology), which always seems rather difficult on the railways.