Indeed a pinch point just like they are at tube stations, especially so given the paper ticket delays of NR travel. Given they now staff the ramps most days I don't see the point, although the final scheme could be to have a single staffer to look after the gates and deploy the other one on trains to ensure people aren't buying short tickets to get around the station gates!

slimgym Wrote:especially so given the paper ticket delays of NR travel.

I've always thought PB would be a good place for the Oyster Card service to be extended to as it is so near to London. Does this mean they will be accepting them some date after 2009?

Smiler Wrote:Anyone else think the rooms on the platforms now resemeble those ship containers?

Missed this before but now you've said it, they do look exactly like shipping containers!

Renamed thread from "Train Station Canopy" to "Train Station Improvements"

> I've always thought PB would be a good place for the Oyster Card
Even better if they brought it into zone 6 ... but I doubt that'll happen

I swapped to Oyster Z1-4 and extenstion for the rest and it is miles easier when you can use the Oyster (unless it's for a manual check at KX when it's miles slower!).

I believe FCC intend to accept Oyster PAYG across all Z1-6 stations once readers are installed but not outside the zones sadly! There is a parallel project to introduce a different contactless card system on NR. The Oyster system is controlled by the suppliers, whereas the chosen NR system isn't, and TfL gates should be upgraded to accept the NR ITSO cards.

I see the Car Park is due to be resurfaced this weekend.

I don't park there but I'd like to know how people can afford it When I moved to PB in the 90's it was £1 a day

The signs say if you park after a certain time on Friday then your car will be removed.... no mention of a removal fee which means they can't charge one

I remember the "Temporary Car Park" which was free, where the flats now stand on Mutton Lane, near the Mazda/Ford dealer ... As soon as that closed, the cost of parking at the station rocketed!

nice resurfacing job in the car park...however anyone else notice they seemed to have sneaked in a few extra 'premier' car parking places in the process ?

The signs said they were resurfacing the car park:rolleyes:they didn't

What they did do is resurface the front part of the car park where all the premier spaces are, yes they did sneak some extra spaces in but hey if some people want to pay extra for a space at the front then so be it

Surely they're going to come back and do the other bit of the car park this weekend maybe? Unless there's more heavy gear they need which will tear it up.

I notice this morning the hoods are off the training barriers to reveal four normal and two wide access gates. I would assume (ha!) that in the morning both gates going up to 1/2 will be "in", with the gates on 3/4 being one in and one out, with a reversal in the evenings. Be interested to see how much of a bottleneck it creates and what hours they plan to operate them. The current ticket checking seems to start ~7am and finish at 7pm.

:#:The problem with the gates is that they will add at least 10 seconds to the journey to get to the train, and believe me that in the morning 10 seconds is a long time

Yep it will, the electric gates are slower than the pneumatic ones fitted at the older tube stations and for some reason don't like a stream of people putting tickets through such that the gate remains open continuously. Whenever I've tried to do this it's accepted my ticket and slammed the gates on me (generally push through now, it doesn't take much force if you're nearly through).

According to my source it's not FCC footing the bill for the works, but Network Rail (except for the ticket barriers and the new CCTV)

Gates were switched on tonight, the tailback to half way up the ramp, slow progress to get out They had both gates at the bottom of P3/4 set to "out" and were using the disabled gate as a manual. Shame given the room they didn't put more in - I guess they just cost more than FCC are willing to invest in the punter.