Bleakest UK Station (Trivia)

[Bletchleyite]

Never thought about trying the hotel, not sure if the bar is public or not.

Generally in Accor hotels it is, so I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

Though I note a TripAdvisor review from 2021 claiming a pint there was £9 (!), so goodness only knows how much it would be now!

Ouch! I've never paid more than a tenner and I don't want to start now

 

[Djgr]

Bidston has to be high on the list, a narrow island platform which feels like it is stuck in the middle of nowhere. Nothing to see except swamps and the motorway flyover to the north, and post-industrial desolation to the south. It is always windy there. It is staffed though, so it never feels unsafe.

although only 5 mins walk from a Tesco Extra with decent caff.

In fact, this Tesco was built on the site of Bidston Steel (essentially the industry to which you refer), which was connected to the railway here.

 

[bramling]

Clearly not *the* bleakest, but for stations with 1 million+ passengers a year, Cambridge North is pretty bleak.

Everything is drab gray, no colour or character at all, except for the Wolfram-inspired 'Life' patterns that really only serve to let wind and rain in. Almost no facilities, no ticket office, one side of the station blocked off with a huge fence that often has many unhappy-sounding dogs barking on the other side. Vast quantities of CCTV cameras for some reason (there are at least 12 (!) cameras on the short overbridge alone, goodness only knows who thought that many cameras were 'necessary'). Once you leave the station you're in a large open windswept concrete square with almost no civilization to be found within a five minute walk in any direction, bar an isolated hotel, an isolated office building, a fairly rubbish Co-op that opened recently, and the occasional speeding cyclist trying to run you down. Oh, and more recently 2 (!) overpriced kebab vans which appeared within weeks of each other.

Could the overkill CCTV have something to do with the illustrious residents of nearby Fen Road?

 

[Boilinthebag]

St Andrew's Road, especially now the coal's gone. Something about the silence of the big machines with nothing but the distant roar of the M4.

I'd agree with this, it was bleak when the coal was there and you had to travel home pass. Would also have a decent chance of a win at bleakest Portakabin

 

[Omnidekkalover]

Sutton Parkway is quite dull

 

[NSEWonderer]

Elephant and Castle. Grim, creeky station, surrounded by stories high progression yet still stuck in regression itself.

 

[35B]

Crewe on a sub-zero 30th December

 

[MikeWM]

Could the overkill CCTV have something to do with the illustrious residents of nearby Fen Road?

The barking dogs are Not sure about the CCTV, there are ticket gates (usually, though not always, in operation), and the station is also staffed full-time (I assume) though the staff aren't always especially visible. I've never encountered any behaviour issues on the station, though a few times I've had to get out of the way of some 'interesting' vehicles being driven at speed on the path along the guided busway.

 

[Western 52]

Corrour will be quite bleak in winter I imagine! I went there in summer and it was pretty bleak even then.

 

[RetroCrowe]

Nethertown on the Cumbrian Coast has to be up there on a winter's day. A lonely, remote, windswept single platform exposed to the elements right by the sea. I imagine it's reasonably pleasant on a warm summer's day however.

St. Andrews Road in Bristol is also a contender. A basic single platform surrounded by heavy industry on all sides.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ardwick. The very definition of post industrial Northern bleak.

I remain amazed Ardwick got a new footbridge when the old one finally rotted to nothing. It serves basically no purpose - arguably Polesworth was far more useful and that is in effect closed (well, one way) due to its bridge issues, as is Pilning. That said, with the city centre extending outwards all the time it's likely to gain a purpose within 20 years or so, so maybe it was easier to keep it open on that basis than close it and reopen with the new station having to fulfil all modern safety requirements.

A couple of Merseyrail ones, Kirkdale used to feel pretty bleak when it had a scrapyard in the background. Sandhills still is!

Have we had Altnabreac yet?

 

[apbj]

I recall Pitsea being really bleak when visiting back in the 80s. It may have changed since

It has not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Berney Arms now the pub has shut? Still need to go there, but every weekend I think about it there's always engineering works going on.

 

[Russel]

Bristol Parkway, always a cold place to wait in winter.

 

[sad1e]

Another one i have to add , Sudbury and Harrow Road. Out of all the stations on the lines out of Marylebone it's the only one that keeps the feeling of managed rundown that it did in the BR days. The station has incredibly narrow platforms to the extent you feel like you'll get blown off when a fast train passes (which is almost all of them ) , is accessed by a dingy and damp underpass that i definitely wouldn't want to hang around at night and receives an incredibly meagre 8 TPD service (Up trains in morning peaks only , Down trains in evening peaks only ) and in my opinion easily wins the award of the most bleak station in London at the minimum. (Attathed are photos of 68015 passing the station , The station underpass and the station entrance)

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Although the station now does look a lot better than it did in 1986 from this photo i've found on Flickr.

Sudbury & Harrow Road 2 November 1986

Explore Southern Reg's 4841 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[THC]

South Bermondsey for me. Not a place to hang around at any time of day or night.

THC

 

[aron2smith]

It's replaced now, but Angel Road (Edmonton) was bleak. It was my nearest station growing up in the late 90s and 00s. Surrounded by the Northern Circular and Meridian Way, 2 very busy and noisy congested roads in the area, gas works (long gone now), several big box stores and a metal scrap yard. Entrance was along a narrow poorly lit and overgrown alley way which was very hard to find in the first place. Unsurprisingly we never used it and instead took the bus to Seven Sisters tube or Silver Street instead for days out.

Train service was very poor, usually peak only due to its location on the busy 2 track West Anglia Mainline.

In 2019 it closed and the station was moved a few 100 metres south to a much more accessible location with a 3rd track laid and called Meridian Water. The Platforms at the old station are getting fairly overgrown now.

When I travelled around the country and saw Ardwick, Denton and Reddish South in Greater Manchester and Bordesley in Birmingham, they immediately reminded me of Angel Road!

Special mention for a rural station that is bleak has to be Pilning near Bristol for sure!

 

[steamybrian]

I will also mention Dovey Junction which must be bleak on a cold winters day with heavy rain.
More local to me is Doleham situated in a cutting with only a few houses nearby.

 

[JD2168]

I’d nominate Worksop - feels a bit run down & not in the best looking part of town & quite a walk from the Bus Station. Only place I have known put a new bus station further away from the train station than the previous one was

 

[mm333]

I haven’t been since 2019, but the last time I used Sellafield station everything was rusting away and definitely had the look of post-explosion at a nuclear waste reprocessing site.

 

[exile]

Anderston Station in Glasgow is reasonably busy (and even has staff), but seems somewhat eerie after dark, being as it is in a gloomy underground location beneath a dual carriageway.

 

[Omnidekkalover]

I’d nominate Worksop

The station itself is quite nice. But yes the town itself isn’t as nice to put it mildly

 

[Cach17]

Dumpton Park.

Barren island platform in the middle of a cutting with a pathetic excuse of a shelter and only accessible by an uncovered footbridge. No facilities aside from a TVM. Certainly a strong contender for bleakest station in Kent, alongside Swale.

 

[NeilCr]

Dumpton Park.

Barren island platform in the middle of a cutting with a pathetic excuse of a shelter and only accessible by an uncovered footbridge. No facilities aside from a TVM. Certainly a strong contender for bleakest station in Kent, alongside Swale.

Yes

One of my local stations and pretty grim. Alleviated somewhat by a decent pub/restaurant very close by

 

[johntea]

Scarborough is pretty bleak at the moment with building works all over whilst they're renovating the roof, makes everything very dark and gloomy

 

[Elecman]

Nethertown on the Cumbrian Coast has to be up there on a winter's day. A lonely, remote, windswept single platform exposed to the elements right by the sea. I imagine it's reasonably pleasant on a warm summer's day however.

it isn’t nothing nearby and one heck of a steep hike upto the nearest road

 

[Bungle73]

/Swale Station has entered the chat

.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Riccarton Junction, on the long-closed Waverley route.
A community of only 37 houses, school and shop, built solely for railway workers and their families.
Inaccessible by road, electricity connected as late as 1955.

Disused Stations: Riccarton Junction

 

[Bletchleyite]

Reston can't surely be up to much...

 

[W-on-Sea]

I’d nominate Worksop - feels a bit run down & not in the best looking part of town & quite a walk from the Bus Station. Only place I have known put a new bus station further away from the train station than the previous one was

Newbury did that a few years ago, and Swindon has only just done so. To be sure both bus stations were in great need of renovation, but the distance from the station of the new one at Newbury (maybe a 10 minute walk that isn't particularly obvious) says all that needs to be said about integrated public transport in England today....

Swindon station as viewed from the street has to be in a contest for bleakness. A disused office block over the entrance area with many boarded up windows. Less ugly a building that the street side part of Crawley station though, which is modernity done wrong