Great Western Coffee Shop

Read more: http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/platform-14-Bristol-Temple-Meads/story-28584518-detail/story.html

So where is platform 2  ;D

The old Motorail platform west of the station past the bike racks. DMUs often stable there when not in use.

Must be something about platform 2s. The one at Plymouth isn't used for passenger services (nor platform 1).

How often is platform 2 used at Exeter St David's?

Ah but......if the Plymouth and Cornwall resignalling goes ahead it is proposed to bring Platform No.2 at Plymouth back into operational passenger use (its a siding at the moment; previously used for Royal Mail services) ;)

EXD platform 2 generally has 2 departures (Barnstaple and Bristol TM) and 1 arrival.

Nothing new in passenger stations having platforms numbered that are not for public use, Paddington's platform 12 was for parcels use only not being brought into passenger use until the late 1990's

There are many examples on the Southern where fast line platforms that were 1 & 2 have been demolished however passengers still use platforms 3 & 4

The Bath Chronicle seems to have got itself confused. Yes, a Platform 14 at Temple Meads disappeared in the sixties, but at the same time the platform numbers were reversed - so the current Platform 15 was the old Platform 1, etc. This means we're still no closer to understanding why the old Platform 2 became the new Platform 13 - maybe someone was superstitious about the number 14?

Edit: Fixed quote tags

It was to have the east end of Temple Meads as having odd numbered platforms only. 13 and 15 were not long enough to be split in two like platforms 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10 and 11/12. 13 and 15 are regarded as east end platforms. Even numbered platforms are regarded as west end.

With 13 being east bound only it made sense for it, and 15 (predominantly used for east bound London services), both too short to be split, to conform to a numbering system that kept one end of the station odd and the other even.

That's the explanation given to me by a DSM who showed me the ropes when I did some agency Customer Service work for FGW at Bristol TM. Confirmed in a chat with a signaller on Bristol Panel.

The simpler explanation is that all the other railway regions got together and decided that 13 might be an unlucky number, so the Western Region had to come up with something different...

Paul

Now that is a brilliant reason! 

;D ;D ;D

I thought most stations didn't have a 13 because the hadn't used up the lower numbers  :D

13 00 Cardiff to Exeter and 13 19 ex Bristol TM arrive there.

On the subject of missing platforms, why is platform 5 missing at Cardiff Central? I believe the missing platform was between the current platforms 3 and 4, so surely the current platform 4 should really be platform 5 and platform 4 should be the missing one?

The listed? tiles in the underpass presumably make it even more difficult to renumber platforms

Yes, that's why Cardiff has a platform 0, but they don't effect whether 3, 4 or 5 is the missing one as the same set of steps is marked platforms 3, 4 & 5.

I'm half inclined to try spreading a story about missing platform 14 to gullible Harry Potter fans.

Perhaps they were standing at the East end when they started counting and numbering and discovered it afterwards !!!   

Interesting. I've always thought of Temple Meads as having south and north ends rather than east and west. Or in practice, south and all other directions!

With the curve its actually a north east end and a south end. So I suppose north and south is closer to actuality. I used east and west as London is east from Bristol and the other way is to the rest of the west country!

East/West designations are common designations on the GWML.
Exeter St David's is also referred to as East/West when it's more aligned North/South.
It's for commonality across the whole line as the general direction of the GWML is from East (London) to West (Penzance); a bit like the Piccadilly line is designated East/Westbound when the ends of it run North/South.

That's fairly sensible. Thanks.

Yes, but when you go North of the GWML it generally changes to North/South even when the line is heading generally East/West ;)

Also when in ran out of possible designations it used Middle :P

What about 'Up' end and 'Down' end?  ;)

Downed is where W.G. Grace was born and Upend is something to do with ducks.  :D

The railways have always been unwilling to use Up and Down in public, regarding it as railway jargon.  I think that's because, while it is known by quite a lot of passengers, it is only understood for lines that obviously go to London. Explaining the arbitrary meaning of Up and Down elsewhere could be tricky.

"Eastbound" does suggest where the train is trying to get to, rather than the direction it is pointing while at a particular platform. Mind you, there are loads of people who haven't a clue where east is.

Indeed. Dis-oriented, you might say.

While poking around in those really large-scale OS maps of London, of ca. 1893, I noticed that they showed platform numbers. And, for Paddington, these were being used a la Francaise - each number applying to a single raised structure, whether it had one or two faces and tracks.

Looking further, this arrangement was also used in Waterloo (LSWR) and in the southern, terminus, half of London Bridge (LB&SCR), and the eastern half of Victoria (LC&DR). The rest were as we see now, though both Kings Cross and Euston had some parts done the older way: with several tracks together having no or only a low and narrow platform between them, and no numbers shown.

So was this standard for all the railways earlier, and 1893 was part-way through a change-over? Or was it only ever used by some railways, and then died out? It's not an illogical use of the word "platform", but it does mean that you need a second identifier for tracks as well (as the French of course do).

And having some stations done one way and some the other would have been confusing, suggesting that the change-over should have been quite quick, On the other hand, not confusing passengers has never been the top priority of the railways.

I can't answer your question but I can say that it's still like that in Poland, where a train will be describe as eg "On track 5 by platform 3".

And in many other places - perhaps most countries. Don't Americans use track rather than platform numbers?

They certainly do n the New York area!

Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo?

Yes, yes, Track 29.

Platform 14...