How to publicise railway works

Once upon a time "Operation London Bridge" referred to, well, London Bridge station.

In the 1970s a major project was undertaken to rearrange the railway tracks not just at London Bridge itself but right across south east London to avoid conflict on the different routes to Charing Cross and Canon Street and at the same time to rebuild the railway station to better serve customers.

What's interesting from the modern perspective is the way in which passengers were taken with the project. There was a concerted publicity effort not only to make sure passengers were aware that there was going to be disruption, but also to explain the aim of the improvements and get them on board.

A collection of leaflets and posters can be seen at Southern Railway Publicity, specifically at Station Improvements. Some of the design and level of information may seem odd from a modern perspective but the key message is clear throughout - this was a project to untangle a major blockage in the system and improve reliability.

There was even a special film made by British Transport Films:

Note how often signs would include the words "Operation London Bridge", again making it clear to passengers that this was all part of the major project. This was especially useful at stations some way out from London Bridge itself.

All in all the publicity side can be considered a great success. Today's railway managers could do well to look back at this and remember that just stating "engineering works" does nothing for customer satisfaction.

(What of the changes themselves? Well they made the station more efficient for Charing Cross and Canon Street but note there have so far been no references to Blackfriars and beyond. This is because at the time there was no regular service to there from London Bridge. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the old Snow Hill tunnel was re-opened to passenger services, thus creating Thameslink and massively transforming the needs of London Bridge, with the added problem that the route to Blackfriars brought its own complications. Hence the more recent Thameslink Programme upgrade.

Operation London Bridge may have improved operations around London Bridge itself, but one consequence was a segregation of tracks right out across south east London which could affect the available services as network-wide efficiency took precedence over local through connections. One notable long term casualty has been the Bromley North branch, as explained in detail at London Reconnections: The Past and Future of the Bromley North Branch.)

Lies, damn lies and statistics

I've just been sent a copy of the absolutely fascinating railway station usage statistics that try to work out how many people use each railway station each year - not as easy to calculate as you may think once season tickets, travelcards and the like are factored in. But they show some interesting results.

First off the bit most people are interested in - the ten busiest stations. And no surprises for guessing where most of these are:

1. London Waterloo 83,993,314
   
2. London Victoria 66,749,335
   
3. London Liverpool Street 55,265,748
   
4. London Bridge 47,576,684
   
5. London Charing Cross 34,779,287
   
6. London Paddington 27,258,741
   
7. London Euston 25,585,113
   
8. London Kings Cross 22,503,777
   
9. London Cannon Street 21,106,127
   
10. Glasgow Central 21,002,296

These should be treated with some caution because most tickets are sold for "London stations" and can be used for other stations on a direct or reasonable route. For instance tickets allocated to London Bridge may actually have been used for Blackfriars or City Thameslink.

So if we can't trust the most used statistics, how about the least used? Here are the ten least busiest stations (with the area added):

1. Tyndrum Lower (Stirling) 17
   
2. Buckenham (Norfolk) 22
   
3. Coombe Halt (Cornwall And Isles Of Scilly) 32
   
4. Golf Street (Angus) 38
   
5. Barry Links (Angus) 44
   
6. Denton (Greater Manchester) 65
   
7. Sugar Loaf (Powys - Powys) 67
   
8. Breich (West Lothian) 75
   
9. Dorking West (Surrey) 79
   
10. Thorne South (South Yorkshire) 79M

Yes a railway station in the London commuter belt is officially the 9th least used station in the country! Some of these are again distorted because most tickets for these stations are actually for "station groups" that are allocated to the main station for a town and this hits Tyndrum Lower, Dorking West and Thorne South. So once again never trust the statistics.

The other seven stations all have microscopic services. Golf Street and Barry Links are tiny little stations that are little more than bus shelters with one train a day each way that are only kept this way for special occasions and to avoid the hassle of the closure procedure so again not likely to attract huge tickets being allocated to them. Buckenham has no trains stopping during the week and just four at the weekends to cater for bird watching huts! Coombe Halt serves a tiny settlement and is located at a reversing point on the line (although most trains don't go the final distance to the platform), whilst Sugar Loaf serves mountains and is a request stop mainly used by trekkers. Denton, in Greater Manchester, has just one train a week and is another station given artificial life presumably for planning reasons. Breich has three trains a day and, presumably like some of the others, suffers from being on a low frequency line that cannot accommodate extra stops without knock-on effects to the wider network.

Even so the ludicrously tiny numbers for all these stations are too low to be believable. But then does anyone ever believe any figures from Network Rail?

Why I hate first class compartments

It'll be a few days before I can catch up with everything, but I can't let one story from the last few days go without comment and that is the case of a commuter who was fined for standing in the only space available on a train. It's not well documented online apart from Evening Star: 'I was fined for standing in 1st class'.

Despite all the doom and gloom stories, rail use has been increasing in recent years. But rail companies are doing very little to tackle the capacity problems that this brings. First class compartments on a commuter service are a joke. It's wasting space that could be used to ease the crush of what often feels like little more than a mobile cattle truck. And it speaks volumes that the rail companies are more concerned with enforcing the class compartments than actually finding ways to relieve the pressure.

Now I'm enough of a rail geek to know that you can't easily just add carriages to existing services. Quite apart from where you get the rolling stock from, the rail timetables would need to be heavily altered to incorporate longer crossings and numerous railway stations would need to be extended to take longer trains. Double decker carriages could also be difficult to implement on existing lines, although if there are any possibilities there then they'd be worth exploring.

What train companies can do, however, is make much better use of the space within existing carriages. Wisely many ditched first class compartments at least as recently as the 1980s when many slam door carriages were replaced on the London commuter lines. First class compartments are a total waste of much needed space. They don't bring any special luxuries that make the ticket price worth it beyond having a different group of people to fight for seats with, and slightly more space. This is at the expense of the bulk of travellers who get treated like cattle.

It's not just out of date class compartments that cause problems. A lot of the carriages used for metropolitan suburban services are frankly designed for county services, and consequently are badly laid out for the scrum you get at peak hours each day. A more rational approach to design and allocations is needed.