Missing platforms?

On the train this morning one of the regulars mentioned her frustration that London Midland and National Rail Enquiries have stopped posting up platform information for the departures of our trains from London Euston. 

This fellow traveller rarely gets the same train home two nights in a row.  She arrives at Euston via the Euston Square tube station which means there's a choice of entrances.  When there's only a minute or two to spare, picking the right one can make the difference between catching or missing a train, so it's really useful to be able to see in advance where the 17:24, 17:34, 17:51 or whatever is leaving from.

I'm a regular user of the online arrivals and departure boards but hadn't noticed this anomaly so I decided to see what platform information I could get for my own journey home.

What I found was as follows:

At 17:27 I check the National Rail Enquiries' 'Train Times' app on my iPhone.  The 17:51 departure is there, but no platform is shown.  Fair enough, the train isn't in yet.  However, as a regular I know that the 17:51 uses the same rail stock as the inbound arrival from Tring that gets in at 17:38.  

The online arrivals shows board shows platforms and it looks like everyone knows that the 17:38 is coming in on Euston platform 8.   There again, it's still 25 minutes before the 17:51 is due to leave so maybe too early to confirm? 

I get to Euston and cross the station concourse at 17:30.  Looking up I can see that the 17:51 shows as departing from platform 8.

Surely the online boards must now show the 17:51 departure platform?

I check and find the platform detail is still blank.  

The 17:34 is currently on platform 8.  Could it be that the people who run the online site don't want to send people on the wrong train? 

Once the 17:34 has pulled out, the VDU for the platform shows the 17:51. 

I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check London Midland's own site.  No platform shown.

Could there be a reason for this?  Maybe the online people are more cautious than those who post up the information on the station VDUs and display boards.  Are they waiting for the rolling stock to arrive?

I walk to the end of platform 8.  The inbound Tring train arrives on time at 17:38.  So now we have the 17:51.

Surely the online departure board must now show the departure platform for the 17:51?

 

It's 17:41.  I check the iPhone app again.  No platform shown.

I check the London Midland site.  No platform shown there either.

What's going on?  Surely by now whatever system feeds the online boards must know that the 17:51 is leaving from platform 8? 

Maybe it's 'policy'?  What possible reason could there be for withholding this information though?

(I notice that the National Rail Enquiries site shows the departure platform for the 17:40 to Manchester)


By now I figure that the departure platform is unlikely to ever appear online, but I take one last look...

At 17:48 we are three minutes from departure, there's still no platform showing online for the 17:51.  This is exactly the time when this information would be of most use for a passenger in a hurry.

The evidence looks fairly conclusive.  No platform information for London Euston departures is being made available online.

If we can have arrival platforms then why can't we have the same information for the trains home?