It may be old news, but now I've taken a train to Norfolk I have finally seen The Stratford Diagram.
I found six of them, four along the walls of the same broad passage, but there may be more.
It's a mighty complicated diagram, but then Stratford is a mighty complicated station.
It is perhaps a mighty over-complicated diagram. Click to embiggen.
I don't think I've ever seen a diagram like it, with passageways as black lines and entrances to every single platform shown with a blob.
It doesn't help that platforms 1 and 2 are nowhere near platform 3, that platform 7 doesn't exist, that most (but not all) platforms can be accessed from at least two different subways, that the Crossrail platforms aren't consecutively numbered, that the Central line platforms aren't next to each other, that there are two exits to the south and one to the north, that some platforms are high level and others low level, that some passageways go under and others go over, that the westbound Central line has platforms on both sides, that there are three 'A' platforms but only one 'B' platform, that platform 10A is hardly ever used, that at rush hour a one-way system is sometimes introduced, that a handful of platform entrances aren't step-free, that if you go down the wrong passageway you might not be able to reach your platform, that the passageways form a giant loop and a dead end, that platforms rather than passageways are sometimes the fastest way to go, that platform 2 is next to platform 12, none of it helps.
The Stratford Diagram is designed to aid people who have little or no understanding of how the station works. Whether any of them would stop and try to use it is another matter.
Suppose you've just arrived from Norwich and are trying to get to Greenford. If you know which line it's on you can use the list of lines down the left hand side of the diagram, and if you don't you can use the index on the right hand side instead. The index tells you to catch the Central line from platforms 3 or 3A, so then you find those on the diagram and try to find a route through to one of them. Good luck with that.
The index is enormous and includes the vast majority of stations you can reach direct from Stratford. This includes backwaters like Battlesbridge, Brimsdown and Grange Hill as well as major destinations like Bond Street and Cambridge. It generally doesn't include anywhere you can only reach by changing trains, so King's Cross St Pancras, Victoria and Margate are not mentioned. The fact that Stratford International might be a useful nearby connection remains a secret.
If you already understand Stratford station you are not target audience, so you can stop tutting that it doesn't contain that useful shortcut you know, nor show the quickest way to get around, because it's not designed to show that.
What it does do is present a diagrammatic representation of how the station is laid out, which if you've never thought of Stratford as three subways and three connectors might be very useful for updating your mental map. But overall I suspect it's too complex, too mind-blowing, to be of much use to the majority.
Stratford station could be much simpler if a DLR line didn't carve underneath all the central platforms, forcing several passenger interchanges to involve a lot of up and down. A significant revamp of the station has been proposed to remove the bottlenecks and improve circulation, but that's a very long way off (and paid for by money nobody has). In the meantime what's currently London's busiest station continues to be stubbornly complex to negotiate. The Stratford Diagram probably hasn't helped.
