Saddest Sights on the Railways (Trivia)

[Mat17]

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Closed relatively recently, sadly before I had the chance to travel on it.

James
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The derelict buildings on the disused platform at Dinting are a sad sight.

Penistone isn't much better. A lone single track running through what was once a busy junction.

 

[BeijingDave]

I had the pleasure of being on Crewe station during a torrential rainstorm last year and the rain pouring through parts of the roof near platforms 7 and 8. That said, while not what it was Crewe does not make me sad. It is as busy as ever. I find it much sadder to see stations which have seen their service eroded over decades, their purpose gone, one or two platforms of once great hubs now serving a train or two an hour. Crewe is not that. I find stations like March, Skegness, Holyhead, Blackpool North and South, Great Yarmouth far sadder.

I still love Crewe station for its atmosphere, character and history, not to mention sheer activity, and it will be a sad day when they rebuild it to be another soulless stainless steel and concrete monstrosity like Reading.

It's what a railway station should be, not something between a bus station, an airport and a brutalist industrial sculpture. At least HS2 isn't coming along any time soon to ruin it!

I agree

 

[martin butler]

For me it has to be the sight of a station, in semi derelict condition, with grass growing where the track once was, it's still largely complete, so giving sad clues about its past, second has to be the cut up remains of a Steam engine, just so much cold dead metal, on the ground, whilst others watch on, waiting for it to be their turn under the cutters torch .

 

[ExRes]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/saddest-sight-the-decline-of-stockton-station.302117/ inspired by this thread i was wondering what other people thought the saddest sight on the railway was personally.

I'll go first , Personally i think the line-up of class 60s at Toton new Bank is a very sad sight. Many perfectly good freight locomotives which were stored in a perfectly good condition , now have been stored for longer than they ever worked in their service lives , with only one of the Line-up being put out of its misery for scrap thus far and no further disposals in sight.

There are further disposals in sight, you have 60057 & 60075 at Colwick which have been stripped for spares and, now DB no longer own the locos at Toton, ESH as owners of two thirds of the entire Class 60 fleet may be far more likely to deal with the situation than DB have been particularly as DB have never had to fork out for storage charges. I'm sure the railway has played its part in the non use of the 60s but consecutive governments of this country are responsible for the fact there's very little work for them, certainly nowhere near 100 low speed heavy locos

 

[duffield]

For me it is the sight of once busy yards now weed-covered and empty, or worse, occupied by rows of rusting wagons which will never work again. Didcot and Southall/Hayes being two such examples.

On that theme, the rolling stock and locos rusting away to the North East of Burton-on-Trent are a very sad sight. Some of the small diesel shunting locos look like they might be ideal for something like off-season services on a short heritage railway.

 

[Carbean]

Seeing a siding with track rusted over and trees/bushes taking over. It must have been used at some point but will never be used again.

 

[John Luxton]

The forest of well establihed silver birch trees growing out of the tracks on the former GWR LMS Joint line north of Rock Ferry which once ran to Woodside Station and which continued to be used to access Birkenhead Docks until the 1990s. Why not cut the trees down, remove the track and do a general tidy up? Annoys me everytime I do a trip to Chester with Merseyrail!

 

[duffield]

...
Why not cut the trees down, remove the track and do a general tidy up?
...

I would imagine because NR needs every penny it has to spend on keeping the operational railway firstly safe, and secondly running. Particularly with large items of Victorian infrastructure reaching the end of their life, NR does not have any spare cash for something which does not further that aim. I think we've had examples here which illustrate how serious this is - cases where a bridge, embankment or cutting is effectively life expired and should be replaced/rebuilt, but as it's not in danger of imminent collapse, NR put monitoring in place instead - until it becomes dangerous and then the line is subject to unplanned closure until it is repaired. It's no way to run a railway and surely leaves nothing for "nice to have" tidy-ups; such things will almost certainly only happen if the land is sold or needed for operational purposes again.

 

[John Luxton]

I would imagine because NR needs every penny it has to spend on keeping the operational railway firstly safe, and secondly running. Particularly with large items of Victorian infrastructure reaching the end of their life, NR does not have any spare cash for something which does not further that aim. I think we've had examples here which illustrate how serious this is - cases where a bridge, embankment or cutting is effectively life expired and should be replaced/rebuilt, but as it's not in danger of imminent collapse, NR put monitoring in place instead - until it becomes dangerous and then the line is subject to unplanned closure until it is repaired. It's no way to run a railway and surely leaves nothing for "nice to have" tidy-ups; such things will almost certainly only happen if the land is sold or needed for operational purposes again.

NR have been doing some serious tidying up of the trackside between Wellington Road and Penny Lane in Liverpool - so much so that some local residents have complained that the trees which have grown up on the railway embankment have been felled in recent months. These trees and bushes certainly were not there when I was a youngster but had become a virtual forest in the past 20 years or so.I must admit it all looks better but try and tell some of the locals who are complaining people can now see into their houses and the trains now sound louder.

Fact is it always used to be possible to see into houses. My grandmother and great aunt used have a house which backed on to the railway in this location and it was a family tradition for them to wave as one went past on the train if they knew I or another family member was passing.

Given that the forest at Rock Ferry is adjacent to running lines one might think it would warrant some tidying up as well?

 

[bramling]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/saddest-sight-the-decline-of-stockton-station.302117/ inspired by this thread i was wondering what other people thought the saddest sight on the railway was personally.

I find scenes of rolling stock in scrap yards somewhat depressing, especially decent rolling stock that has gone early due to external factors. Class 365 in particular.

It will also be saddening to see the Piccadilly Line's 1973 stock go for scrap over the next few years. These have always been decent trains, and externally the designers managed to create a very pleasing look with attention to small details, the refurbished look managing to build on this to make the trains seem quite modern even at their now age of over 50 years. They also seem to blend in well with the 1930s architecture found across parts of the line, including the two depots.

 

[Trackman]

I have to say the APT is always a highlight of any Glasgow to London journey on the train for me- the opposite of sad!.

Defintley and celebrity status. Wow factor.

A 47 coming round the corner when you were expecting a 37.

x2 if it was 555.

It is a dump and while busy it is boring. Not like the olden days! Barely a 37 to be seen!

In my day a 37 would be a huge event!

Closed relatively recently, sadly before I had the chance to travel on it.

James
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I wonder if that signal still exists?, suppose we could have to wait until autumn

 

[duffield]

NR have been doing some serious tidying up of the trackside between Wellington Road and Penny Lane in Liverpool - so much so that some local residents have complained that the trees which have grown up on the railway embankment have been felled in recent months. These trees and bushes certainly were not there when I was a youngster but had become a virtual forest in the past 20 years or so.I must admit it all looks better but try and tell some of the locals who are complaining people can now see into their houses and the trains now sound louder.

Fact is it always used to be possible to see into houses. My grandmother and great aunt used have a house which backed on to the railway in this location and it was a family tradition for them to wave as one went past on the train if they knew I or another family member was passing.

Given that the forest at Rock Ferry is adjacent to running lines one might think it would warrant some tidying up as well?

I guess there's an assessment of how likely it is to interfere with operations and maybe at Rock Ferry it's not bad enough/close enough to be likely to cause an obstruction or other hazard. But I'm not familiar with the area.

 

[Jimini]

[Image of Swindon station]

 

[Oxfordblues]

A sad sight at Didcot is the collection of stored WIAs (the blue 5-unit car transporters) which are in a woebegone state after many years rusting away in the yard. DB Cargo seem to have no impetus to put them out of heir misery and they present a very negative image to passing passengers.

 

[The Planner]

The forest of well establihed silver birch trees growing out of the tracks on the former GWR LMS Joint line north of Rock Ferry which once ran to Woodside Station and which continued to be used to access Birkenhead Docks until the 1990s. Why not cut the trees down, remove the track and do a general tidy up? Annoys me everytime I do a trip to Chester with Merseyrail!

I thought the plan was to make that old route into some sort of urban greenway?

 

[dgl]

The long since disused Seaton Junction Station, it's really looking derelict.

 

[John Luxton]

I thought the plan was to make that old route into some sort of urban greenway?

There is but I I think that is the dock end don't think that extends from Green Lane back towards Rock Ferry.

 

[Recessio]

Newhaven Harbour has what once would have been a lovely little old station building like Seaford, but is now a boarded up derelict shell with some fairly sizeable trees growing out of it. Always makes me sad to see it, but the station doesn't need a station building (the station needs permanent closure, if anything), and nobody would want to pay to renovate it to live next to an active railway line in the middle of a busy dockyard on the wrong side of town.

 

[weepingwillowb]

Going to live events at The Platform, Morecambe, and remembering how Morecambe Station used to be.

 

[duffield]

Going to live events at The Platform, Morecambe, and remembering how Morecambe Station used to be.

I suppose at Morecambe I take some comfort that it still has a train service at all as opposed to the many seaside resorts whose branch lines were completely closed!

 

[Acathater]

the scrapyard at Carnforth that's claimed to be a railway preservation centre

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 May 2026 ==

Going to live events at The Platform, Morecambe, and remembering how Morecambe Station used to be.

Most of the events at the platform would make you feel sad anyway....

 

[Sad Sprinter]

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/saddest-sight-the-decline-of-stockton-station.302117/ inspired by this thread i was wondering what other people thought the saddest sight on the railway was personally.

I'll go first , Personally i think the line-up of class 60s at Toton new Bank is a very sad sight. Many perfectly good freight locomotives which were stored in a perfectly good condition , now have been stored for longer than they ever worked in their service lives , with only one of the Line-up being put out of its misery for scrap thus far and no further disposals in sight.

What on Earth did they buy all those class 66s for? Same with the class 92s, if I'm correct there are some that were simply never used.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 May 2026 ==

The enormous amount of foreign ownership on our railways. Seeing the Royal Train hauled by a diesel of the German State Railways. Network SouthEast branding that was needlessly done away with thanks to pointless privatisation...

 

[Uncle Buck]

Network SouthEast branding that was needlessly done away with thanks to pointless privatisation...

All the tacky names and branding on the current network compared to the elegance of older trains is sad, although there are some exceptions and this has IMO got slightly better in the last decade.

I’d add the ridiculous lecturing and hectoring that goes on across the network- a major manifestation of a timid, conformist culture- juxtaposed at times with outright, blatant criminality, which is ignored by everyone in authority as too difficult to do anything about. How sadly representative of this country in this dismal decade!

 

[Sad Sprinter]

All the tacky names and branding on the current network compared to the elegance of older trains is sad, although there are some exceptions and this has IMO got slightly better in the last decade.

I’d add the ridiculous lecturing and hectoring that goes on across the network- a major manifestation of a timid, conformist culture- juxtaposed at times with outright, blatant criminality, which is ignored by everyone in authority as too difficult to do anything about. How sadly representative of this country in this dismal decade!

Yes the stupid branding of the 2000s I'm glad to see the back of. First Great Whatever, National Express bla bla. "One" was an infuriatingly stupid brand too. I think the only recent brand I don't like is SWR and Thameslink, but otherwise its been pretty good.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Yes the stupid branding of the 2000s I'm glad to see the back of. First Great Whatever, National Express bla bla. "One" was an infuriatingly stupid brand too. I think the only recent brand I don't like is SWR and Thameslink, but otherwise it’s been pretty good.

SWR and Thameslink are bland, not tacky, IMO, as is Avanti. I am in a minority by disliking LNER- I think it’s livery is dull and I think it’s naff trying to name yourself after a defunct company. (“Great Western” is geographically descriptive).

 

[Harpo]

SWR and Thameslink are bland, not tacky, IMO, as is Avanti. I am in a minority by disliking LNER- I think it’s livery is dull and I think it’s naff trying to name yourself after a defunct company. (“Great Western” is geographically descriptive).

GWR’s all-over dark vegetable green has to be the most depressing livery in use. I remember the feeling of utter gloom it gave me when I first saw it and thinking how it made IETs look like cucumbers

Whichever playschool won the GBR livery design competition will have been delighted, but let’s hope that sad mess is quietly forgotten.

 

[Falcon1200]

As shown by the comments above, personal views on train liveries do vary! But I do remember how unliked BR blue was in its 'heyday' and would not want a return to a single livery throughout the network.

Back to saddest sights, another is once-grand stations which have fallen, the Highland line part of Perth being one such example. Also, the general lack of bustle and busyness, even at places with more frequent passenger trains than ever before, thanks to the lack of loco movements, station pilots, attachments and detachments, parcels vans being loaded and unloaded, and Post Office activity. The previously-mentioned Crewe being an example.

 

[Cowley]

Unused sidings, at Exeter Riverside for example. Just a row of rusty abandoned wagons and nothing else.

Or even worse, an area that had sidings previously but is now full of blue containers for people to pay to store things in.

 

[DarloRich]

Unused sidings, at Exeter Riverside for example. Just a row of rusty abandoned wagons and nothing else.

there has got to be some traffic to put in them though - Is there enough clotted cream produced to justify retention

 

[JKF]

there has got to be some traffic to put in them though - Is there enough clotted cream produced to justify retention

I remember the olden days when the clotted cream got moved around in wagons with tent-like hoods on to keep the flies off. All goes in bogie hoppers now, what little traffic there is. And all the jam traffic was lost to road decades ago.

For me a sad sight is the remnant bridge abutments for once great bridges that were demolished as soon as the lines closed in the 50s and 60s, all that effort and engineering just ripped down leaving an orphaned stump of masonry behind. Crumlin, Belah, Severn. What great monuments they were, scrapped in haste.