[Closed] Worst Train Stations in Britain

Interestingly enough, although our railway system is privately owned, the Transport Secretary has promised £50 million to improve the worst ten stations.

I bet that will give them an incentive to spend their own money in the future.

Sit back and wait for the government to bail you out. Because as everybody knows, it's a case of ....... privatise the profit, nationalise the loss !

Stockport is my local station and never found it a problem. Clean and tidy and plenty of trains! And if you like there's a WH Smith!

I cant believe peterboroughs not on there, more sodding "regeneration" money for the north.

I live over the road from Stockport station and it is a bit crap, but not really that bad. Mind you, I'm full of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, my eyesight is fairly crap and I have pretty much no sense of smell.

agreed to 100% about Skank Vic. Absolute dive, that place. Even Mirfield is nicer.

Well as far as I'm aware the TOCs opperate the stations and are responsible for makin sure they meet with DoT and legislative requirements for the length of their franchise. To be honest £50m doesn't really go that far when you start looking at comms/ pa/ cctv and definately not when you mention step-free.

I used to get questionnaired occasionally, while waiting at Man Victoria, as to how much extra I would pay on my ticket for x station improvement - "nice shops", "more seating". NOTHING! FFS it wouldn't matter what the f**g station looked like if the f**g trains were on time. How much extra would I be prepared to pay for a service that approached competent? How much extra, cheeky b*stards.

a roof which didn't leak would be a good start though...

I want to walk into the train station and get on a train within a few minutes. I don't give a sh*t if the roof leaks. It's perverse that people even think about spending money on stations when the train service (remember, that's the reason why we have stations) is so abominable. Yes, it would definitely be preferable to while away the hour+ between cancelled Northern Rail services to Huddersfield in a less horrible environment, but that's not really the point.

hey, you only live in Mossley. get on your bike and quit whining about the train service. I gave up on that one years ago 😉
Agree though - services should be the thing to be improved rather than the stations. Greenfield station is an absolute joke. Just been 'revamped' = it now has a larger ticket office (wtf) and a 'shelter' (read - 2 back to back benches with a roof and a partition between them, nothing protecting the train user from the wind and the usual horizontal rain. It smells a little less of p1ss than the previous shelter, which actually had walls.
And it still has a decrepit footbridge which is the only access to platform 2. You're screwed if you're old, injured, in a wheelchair, pushing a pram...etc etc. Shocking waste of cash.

I'm gutted Dovey Junction didn't make the list 😉

Wigan north western is perfectly functional. They should see Bryn...this is all you get!
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I just wish they'd improve the trains, not the stations!

You've got me bang to rights there. I used to cycle in when I worked in town long term, took 35 mins in, far, far better than driving or train. For the past few years I've worked mainly from home, though, and tried whenever I could to get the train rather than driving for meetings etc, but it was just such a pain, For a 1 hour meeting it could take 4 hours+. It was my girlfriend who suffered really though, she was writing up her PhD last year and would phone me at least once a week virtually in tears, having finished work at 7 and knowing when she got home she'd have to spend all night writing, to tell me the train was cancelled and she'd have to wait in Victoria for an hour. I could drive to pick her up but that would take almost as long, and by the time the train's due from Vic, you've missed the Picc-Stalybridge one.

I saw greenfield station revamp, and stalybridge which now sports a huge glass and sandstone prosthetic ticket office! The station is still the same though. What's the point? It really makes my blood boil.

I live in Cologne, Germany now though. The trains/trams are excellent. I haven't been mountain biking in 4 months though 🙁

What's wrong with Bank Quay?

It says "Welcome to Warrington":
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Manchester Victoria does the job and has some interesting features:

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Wigan North Western is ok apart from the toilet which is sometimes interesting to say the least 😆 Bryn station is more similar to a bus stop 😆 Same as Garswood etc

I think Victoria has a certain dog-eared charm. The frontage and the glass dome in the bar are beautiful.

Its a metaphor for the country really though. Must have been glorious and majestic at one point, but years of under (none) investment have left it looking shabby, and some of the stuff doesn't work.

And the facilities have been closed due to unsavoury types everyone using it to shaft each other up the arse

Worst at/for What?

Liverpool central is only for the local rail network, so quite small, So quite surprised at this!

Severn Tunnel Junction. What the word 'Godforsaken' was invented for. I always expect to see tumbleweeds blowing through followed by a pack of wild dogs ravaging some bloke with a Brompton.

Edit: That's the bloke with the Brompton, not the dogs.

[i]And the facilities have been closed due to unsavoury types everyone using it to shaft each other up the arse [/i]
I have to admit that I found this particularly annoying on my Manchester 'practice stag' night. The only other alternative was the wee photo booth. Sorry to anyone who had to use that afterwards.

So you had to do cottaging in the photo booth rather than the closed toilets?

Yuck.

I've always been puzzled by the attraction to cottagers of that particularly manky, p*iss-smelling, decrepit and very busy Victorian toilet.

Not the classical place for seduction.

Victoria is looking better than the Old Exchange station though:
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This contained platform 11 which was the longest platform in the UK(2,194 feet)
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and is now that large raised area of waste-ground, car parking and urban decay on the approach to Victoria.

[i]Wigan north western is perfectly functional. They should see Bryn...this is all you get![/i]

You lucky get! Here in Leigh we don't even have a train station.

Thats because Leigh is classed as the 3rd world. They don't have indoor plumbing or electricity yet, do they?

😉

You used to have more than 1:
[url= http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/ ]Disused Stations Website[/url]

Pennington is arguably not Leigh though.

I didn't think Man Vic was that bad either, I think if your station hasn't got some w@nky glass and chrome boutique selling coffee at £3.50 a cup it's classed as a deprived area.

I regularly use Preston and I prefer it to Manchester Piccadilly. At least I can use the toilets without having to spend any money. That is if I have the right amount of change to throw away.

Mmmm Manchester Victoria and charm. Yeah it's great at 9.00pm when your train is cancelled an you have to wait an hour for the next one. This is not the best as a lone female I can tell you. The waiting room is not exactly safe and secure.

But don't you just love the charm of dirty toilets with no seats, no toilet roll, no soap and no locks on doors. And how I laugh when I get wet from the leaky roof on platform 1. 🙁

As a welcome to Manchester for tourists it is an embarrassment.

[i]As a welcome to Manchester for tourists it is an embarrassment. [/i]

I remember arriving in Manchester by train to look round the university on their open day (this was about 1995-96), it was winter, I was in a suit which was definitely the wrong clothing for horizontal sleet, it was cold, grey and thoroughly miserable and the train was creaking and rattling through the wastelands of Manchester suburbs before arriving at the station and oh God it was grim. 🙁 I was put off it straight away.

Most stations, especially in London, were never designed to carry the number of people they do now - I've used London Victoria at rush hour before and, while the main station isn't *that* bad, the Underground is atrocious - no space at all getting down onto the platforms.

Most stations have problems, depends how you take them. I'd go with the earlier comment about improving trains (and tracks) to avoid the delays that way I can spend as little time there as possible, latte or no latte.

Oh, and if I could get a train the 17 miles home from central London any later than just after midnight that'd be awesome. I've never been to another capital city where public transport inside the ringroad is basically unusable in the wee hours.

Stockport is my local station and never found it a problem. Clean and tidy and plenty of trains! And if you like there's a WH Smith!

Costa Coffee or GTFO!

Barking is a crap station also seen quite a few coming back from
Manchester to London. Euston is crap too. Its disgusting really.
Manchester Piccadily is a nice station.

aldrington, brighton and hove. don't know if you can even call it a station. it is a platform and a chainlink fence!!

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Don't lknow about the worst, but I love Glasgow Central

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