An English rail enthusiast described Edinburgh’s Waverley Station as the most “confusing and unintuitive” of the three mainland UK capital’s after a grand rail experiment took him nearly 1,000 miles for a few cups of tea.
Daniel Hill, a 37-year-old software engineer from Banbury, Oxfordshire arrived at Edinburgh Waverley on Thursday as part of a personal railway experiment, and he described the capital’s main station as disappointing.
“The station’s architecture is lovely, but the installation of ticket gates seems to have made the station rather confusing and unintuitive to get around, with lots of barriers restricting the free flow of passengers around the station,” said Hill.
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“Several times I found myself doubling back because there was an unnecessary barrier blocking my path. It also doesn’t help that some platforms are inside the ticket gates, whilst others are outside.”
A Network Rail spokesman said the current Waverley layout is the result of three originally separate stations coming together in 1868. The station’s history plays a large role in why the platforms are laid out in the way that they are.
“Edinburgh Waverley is a critical part of Scotland’s rail network and plays a key role in the life of the city,” a Network Rail spokesman said.
“We’re continuing to invest in improving the station for passengers, having recently installed a new Changing Places facility designed to give everyone, particularly those with the most complex of needs, the confidence to travel through Waverley. A new public corridor, connecting the east concourse with the ticket hall, will be completed this year to make navigating the station easier.”
Hill set out on his “Tea Capital’s Tour” to see everything the UK rail network had to offer as well as to prove that it is overall a reliable system for many vision impaired people like himself.
“I’m a big fan of trains, and I’ve been a rail enthusiast for most of my life. I’m vision impaired due to a rare genetic condition called albinism which affects my vision as well as the pigment in my hair, skin and eyes, so I cannot drive. The railway has always been a lifeline for me,” said Hill.
Hill’s 981 mile journey began in Banbury at 6am on Thursday and he arrived back at his home station just after 11pm on the same day. The trip involved eight trains and three cups of tea at Cardiff, Edinburgh and London.
Although Hill eventually accomplished his cross-country goal, his first attempt last Tuesday was cancelled due to trespasser related train delays at one of his key-interchanges.
“Due to the West Coast Main Line being blocked north of Crewe, there is little chance of getting to Edinburgh in time for the last train that'll get me home, so I'm having to abort the tour and make my way back south,” Hill said on Twitter last week.
“It was disappointing that I had to abandon my first attempt, but it was completely out of the railway’s control. I just hope that if the trespasser was having a mental health crisis, they get the support that they need.”
On Thursday, there were only minor delays to impede his journey. He narrowly made his connection in Cardiff due to a delayed train, and he had to purchase his Cardiff tea from the train trolley after sprinting across the station to board.
Hill said his tour was both a personal sightseeing experience as well as an experiment to prove how reliable the UK rail network can be.
“I wanted to prove that the train and rail network is actually pretty good. I decided on a cup of tea in each city because I wanted to try to achieve a goal in each place,” Hill said.
“Obviously the pandemic caused a lot of rail service cutbacks, and they are slowly being reinstated, but especially for cross country journeys, they are still only running about half the time tables and services they were previously.”
He said there are trains leaving hourly where there used to be trains every thirty minutes before the pandemic.
“I wanted to visit the three capitals in one go; I wanted to see the different types of railways and rail services in operation around the UK; and I wanted to see how far I could go in a day,” he said.
“I think my favourite parts of the journey were speeding through the dramatic mountainous scenery between Oxenholme and Penrith on the West Coast Main Line and the fantastic views of the beautiful blue sea from the East Coast Main Line between Edinburgh and Alnwick.”
Despite the confusion and barriers at Waverley, Hill said he is keen to visit Edinburgh properly in the future.
“It’d be lovely to come back for more than a cup of tea next time,” Hill said.
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