Tatty stations

[urbophile]

Digression from the Mersyerail 777 thread:

I did not notice any particularly tired looking Merseyrail staions. But then I frequent stations in South London, some of which could be "improved".

Like everywhere I suppose they are a mixed bag. At platform level the city centre stations are fine (apart from the drip buckets at Liverpool Central.) At street level they are innocuous apart from Moorields which is a disgrace. A few have had fairly recent makeovers such as Ormskirk, St Michaels, Hunts Cross. Others look scruffy and uncared for, needing a lick of paint at the very least: the attractive modern construction of Brunswick is let down by rusty metal everywhere including a staircase indefinitely closed. On the same line, and architecturally even better, the 19th century station at Cressington desperately needs a good clean as well as new paint. Blundellsands and Crosby is a bit of a mess design-wise but some cosmetic improvements might help.

I suppose south London is very similar. Those stations I've had cause to use recently seem OK, but I remember ones like South Bermondsey and Peckham Rye which are not the sort of place one wants to linger on a dark night.

There's no reason why this thread needs to be confined to those two networks.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Digression from the Mersyerail 777 thread:


Like everywhere I suppose they are a mixed bag. At platform level the city centre stations are fine (apart from the drip buckets at Liverpool Central.) At street level they are innocuous apart from Moorields which is a disgrace. A few have had fairly recent makeovers such as Ormskirk, St Michaels, Hunts Cross. Others look scruffy and uncared for, needing a lick of aint at the very least: the attractive modern construction of Brunswick is let down by rusty metal everywhere including a staircase indefinitely closed. On the same line, and architecturally even better, the 19th century station at Cressington desperately needs a good clean as well as new paint. Blundellsands and Crosby is a bit of a mess design-wise but some cosmetic improvements might help.

I suppose south London is very similar. Those stations I've had cause to use recently seem OK, but I remember ones like South Bermondsey and Peckham Rye which are not the sort of place one wants to linger on a dark night.

There's no reason why this thread needs to be confined to those two networks.

I suppose all stations go through stages in their life where they are tatty. Simply because maintenance etc is something done very infrequently on the railways.

I recon older station buildings age better but can end up looking very tragic if dereliction creeps in.

Modern buildings seem to quickly get tatty. They start of looking very flash BUT then the cladding comes off.

I saw at Sandhills someone cleaning the legs and floor bases of the platform seats. Light grey with the streaks of rust on them refusing to budge !. Talk about polishing a T**d.

 

[The exile]

I saw at Sandhills someone cleaning the legs and floor bases of the platform seats. Light grey with the streaks of rust on them refusing to budge !. Talk about polishing a T**d.

Ironically - it could be that the "cleaning" is partly to blame!

 

[matchmaker]

I had the misfortune to travel from Broughty Ferry last week. Dear Lord, what a depressing station in what is still a fairly prosperous area! Facilities consist of one bench on each platform, a cycle rack on the northbound platform, and a covered cycle rack on the southbound platform. Apart from call points, that's it. If it rains, you get wet. The station buildings are empty and locked up and there's a manky underpass for when the level crossing is closed.

It must have been lovely back in the day when the Dundee merchants had their mansions there, but now it's just tatty and run down.

 

[NeilCr]

Dumpton Park is quite grim

Entrance on a housing estate. You have to know where it is.

You get to the platforms from a footbridge. No station buildings - ticket machine and help point.

There is a roof over the mono platform and seats at least. Not nice at night at all. Decent pub not far away though

 

[daccer]

Standards on the railways are always variable and stations are no different. My experiences are that unmanned or manned isnt necessarily a determining factor when it comes to station presentation. Many unmanned stations have been adopted by stations groups and look a treat. Victorian and Edwardian era stations buildings always seem to age better than the BR era stuff. This will undoubtedly be due to the materials favoured by the architects of the time. My biggest gripe is the low hanging fruit that is missed when it comes to creating a welcoming environment at a station. A lick of paint and a few planters go a long way. Opening up natural light in canopies by using modern clear materials instead of dull plastic sheeting also helps (Durham). If you look at unmanned stations such as Whittlesea which now have much more attractive shelters than the old bus type metal eyesores a lot can be done with limited budgets. If you consider a revamp such as New St or Kings Cross can come in north of 500m finding a little cash for a lick of paint at a smaller halt should be possible. Stuff like Ulverston and the gutters there is simply neglect and someone should be ashamed of allowing that to happen. My local stations is Bath Spa which is nicely looked after and has had some cash spent on it recently. I wonder if the station was located in SE London or on the Merseyrail system if it would be looked after quite as well.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Winnersh Triangle is very uninviting at all hours - the location on top of a big embankment near a motorway doesn't help, but the general construction of the station and lack of facilities at platform level makes it worse. Earley and Winnersh, the stations on either side, are much better, as well as Martins Heron of a similar vintage. I'd say the latter benefited significantly from a large contribution as part of a planning application, while Winnersh Triangle seems that it was built on the cheap.

 

[sad1e]

Crewe is one of the worst I've personally experienced just due to the sense of faded grandeur , unkempt dirty walls with plants sprouting out of them on platform 11 , platform 12 with nothing but basic bus shelters and overgrown disused bay and through platforms connected to it with what seems to be mk1's or 2's rotting in the sidings there. The canopy's over plats 3,4,7 and 8 also seem to be missing a lot of glass panels and leak heavily during rain , the areas around the station aren't the best either not exactly the place you want to be hanging around about. Crewe overall needs some major t&c and redevelopment

I personally think Crewe has to be one of the worst maintained stations on the whole network given its position as a massively important junction station , to add to my points in the quote the main station frontage is quite rusty and weather stained and when I last went there in September of last year there was what appeared to be a water leak in one of the passageways between platform 11 and 6 , to be honest the only saving grace of the whole town is the heritage centre considering the dire state of the shopping centre and most buildings in the town.

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I'll also add Cricklewood on the MML to the list, it's station facilities are pretty bare minimum as it only has a bus shelter style platform shelter and a few basic benches on both of its used platforms.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Feb 2025 ==

This is compounded by it only getting the St Alban's Thameslink's. While the new Brent cross west one stop down gets the Luton's and Suttons and west Hampstead one stop up the line gets the Bedford's , The Suttons and The Luton's

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Feb 2025 ==

B

 

[DM352]

Rugeley Trent Valley

Not used it since the 153 days on the Stafford - Coventry run (when the unit actually did turn up) but heard it has not changed much in terms of appearance. Is more industrial estate from street view with the pub having closed a few years ago.

 

[duffield]

Rugeley Trent Valley

Not used it since the 153 days on the Stafford - Coventry run (when the unit actually did turn up) but heard it has not changed much in terms of appearance. Is more industrial estate from street view with the pub having closed a few years ago.

I was there recently, I didn't inspect it closely but it seemed more like a good candidate for the "bleak stations" thread** than this "tatty stations" thread. Just very bare but I don't remember any signs of decay or dereliction which would make it tatty.

** Except that's for bleak *terminal* stations only.

 

[Class15]

Brixton Southeastern platforms are a bit depressing to be honest

Also wasn’t particularly impressed by Crewe at all, which has already been mentioned upthread. For such a major junction it is not in a good state

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would agree that basically all of Merseyrail is a bit tatty. They do seem to suffer that classic British disease of doing something up nicely then not maintaining it properly so it slowly deteriorates, with rusty footbridges needing a coat of paint to stop them deteriorating (requiring costly replacement later) being a major issue.

Unfortunately the bright yellow colour scheme doesn't help as it does tend to fade a bit, I wonder if they'd be better off using that just for highlights/accentuation and sticking to duller colours like the grey and black for large areas of paint like doors and boarded up windows on unused bits of building. The units stay looking good, presumably because the paint you put on a train is more expensive and technical, but the regular gloss on buildings and the likes just fades very quickly, very similar to the way Virgin Trains red did.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I would agree that basically all of Merseyrail is a bit tatty. They do seem to suffer that classic British disease of doing something up nicely then not maintaining it properly so it slowly deteriorates, with rusty footbridges needing a coat of paint to stop them deteriorating (requiring costly replacement later) being a major issue.

Unfortunately the bright yellow colour scheme doesn't help as it does tend to fade a bit, I wonder if they'd be better off using that just for highlights/accentuation and sticking to duller colours like the grey and black for large areas of paint like doors and boarded up windows on unused bits of building. The units stay looking good, presumably because the paint you put on a train is more expensive and technical, but the regular gloss on buildings and the likes just fades very quickly, very similar to the way Virgin Trains red did.

Buddlea, everywhere Buddlea. Really screams we do not care.

 

[Recessio]

Vauxhall you can really notice the state of disrepair the whole viaduct is starting to get in. Buddleia everywhere and peeling paint on all the ironwork.

Elephant and Castle Thameslink also looking pretty tatty and desperately in need of some paint when I last used it a few years back.

Euston Square is continually filthy with water ingress everywhere, even in the newer south entrance that, while built to similar design and at similar time to Jubilee Line Extension stations, is aging far worse due to poor maintenance.

 

[bramling]

Digression from the Mersyerail 777 thread:


Like everywhere I suppose they are a mixed bag. At platform level the city centre stations are fine (apart from the drip buckets at Liverpool Central.) At street level they are innocuous apart from Moorields which is a disgrace. A few have had fairly recent makeovers such as Ormskirk, St Michaels, Hunts Cross. Others look scruffy and uncared for, needing a lick of paint at the very least: the attractive modern construction of Brunswick is let down by rusty metal everywhere including a staircase indefinitely closed. On the same line, and architecturally even better, the 19th century station at Cressington desperately needs a good clean as well as new paint. Blundellsands and Crosby is a bit of a mess design-wise but some cosmetic improvements might help.

I suppose south London is very similar. Those stations I've had cause to use recently seem OK, but I remember ones like South Bermondsey and Peckham Rye which are not the sort of place one wants to linger on a dark night.

There's no reason why this thread needs to be confined to those two networks.

GN out of King’s Cross is a mixed bag.

Stevenage is really tatty, which goes with the theme that it’s often the newer stations which come off worse. Hard to think of anything good about the station really, but then that fits with the town in general. The station has always been tatty ever since I’ve known it, despite initially being very new. However time hasn’t been kind to it, and it’s quite an eyesore now.

By contrast neighbouring Hitchin is fairly smartly presented, the only spoiler there being that it serves what seems to be the oddest town in Britain in terms of clientele.

Then one station further down, Letchworth is very smart indeed, and always seems to have been ever since I’ve known it.

The rest of the GN stations are fairly average. Those north of Hitchin heading towards Peterborough are rather bleak, but generally in reasonable repair. Likewise those between Stevenage and London. Of those, Hatfield is probably the tattiest. Generally the Hertford line stations are okay, though nothing special.

North of Cambridge, Ely is very smart. The rest pretty average, though Waterbeach is very basic and always feels a little neglected.

 

[Welly]

Winnersh Triangle is very uninviting at all hours - the location on top of a big embankment near a motorway doesn't help, but the general construction of the station and lack of facilities at platform level makes it worse.

I've been there the other year when I had to stay in the nearby hotel for work training, at least it wasn't covered in graffiti!

 

[J-2739]

North of Cambridge, Ely is very smart. The rest pretty average, though Waterbeach is very basic and always feels a little neglected.

To be fair, there is not much there in the first place to be neglected!

 

[AlastairFraser]

I've been there the other year when I had to stay in the nearby hotel for work training, at least it wasn't covered in graffiti!

Haha it's funny because it's not really near any actually sketchy residential areas (by Reading standards!)

 

[Deepgreen]

Not really sure of the thrust of this thread - is it pointing out that not all stations can be/are of equal smartness/attractiveness? If so, that theme could run and run...

 

[D6130]

Perth (Highland side)....an absolutely disgraceful dereliction and neglect of a fine historic listed building.

 

[CornishDave]

Pilning.

I visited the other week and the station approach was littered with fly tipped rubbish. The platform in use has a worn out bus shelter and fencing. And that's before you look over to the now disused platform which is crawling with weeds after 8 years of closure.

The whole place needs knocking down!

 

[Mikey C]

Stevenage is really tatty, which goes with the theme that it’s often the newer stations which come off worse. Hard to think of anything good about the station really, but then that fits with the town in general. The station has always been tatty ever since I’ve known it, despite initially being very new. However time hasn’t been kind to it, and it’s quite an eyesore now.

I've never though Stevenage a "tatty" station. It's off its era of course, hence now rather unattractive and too small, but it doesn't look rundown or neglected.

Luton is similar, another inadequate 60s? station.

 

[BeijingDave]

GN out of King’s Cross is a mixed bag.

By contrast neighbouring Hitchin is fairly smartly presented, the only spoiler there being that it serves what seems to be the oddest town in Britain in terms of clientele.

Coincidentally, I visited Hitchin for the first time recently.

I don't really understand this observation - to me (a Northerner), it seemed a very average home counties town. Mostly a dormitory town, with some old, nice bits and a smattering of chavs (not a lot different to many other places).

 

[mike57]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Peterborough, as a major junction and railhead and a significant city in its own right, the entrance area is very congested, with a short stay car park/pick up area that again is too small and seems to be populated by failed F1 racing drivers. We use it maybe 3 or 4 times a year, and its not pleasant, and when theres a cold NE wind blowing off the fens there is no shelter on the platforms.

 

[John Griffiths]

Stockton, when I last visited it some year as ago (it might have been improved since) was a disgrace for a fairly significant town. Barely any facilities beyond rails and platforms.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I always understood tatty to mean sort of scruffy and unloved and poorly maintained. Most of the stations mentioned so far seem to be mentioned due to lack of facilities or inadequate facilities rather than for being what I would consider tatty.

+1 for Crewe though

 

[bramling]

I've never though Stevenage a "tatty" station. It's off its era of course, hence now rather unattractive and too small, but it doesn't look rundown or neglected.

It’s functional (albeit too small) and maintained, but to me the finishes look very messy nowadays.

Luton is similar, another inadequate 60s? station.

Absolutely. In fact same could apply to many of the stations between Bedford and London. The only ones which are near and tidy being Fliwick, Harlington and Harpenden. Bedford station is almost as much of a dump as Luton.

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Coincidentally, I visited Hitchin for the first time recently.

I don't really understand this observation - to me (a Northerner), it seemed a very average home counties town. Mostly a dormitory town, with some old, nice bits and a smattering of chavs (not a lot different to many other places).

There’s stuff on websites like I Live Here which will elaborate more. However the point is exactly as you make - the town is extremely average, yet commands very high property prices because of being a London dormitory with the half-hour rail connection to London. In my experience this has brought some rather odd, often obnoxious, behaviours to the town.

Stuff like the propensity for Range Rovers with personalised number plates driven by red-faced baby boomers is out of scope for here, but Hitchin is the only place where I’ve encountered someone trying to elbow their way on to a particular door on a 12-car train at 0455 on a Saturday morning, or have someone join an almost-empty off-peak train and want to sit directly opposite me.

 

[Rail Quest]

There's quite a few stations across the north west of the Northern network that are not maintained much at all. The worst I've visited was Humphrey Park on the CLC which was in a sorry state last time I saw it. In the same area on the same line, Chassen Road and Flixton were both not great either.

 

[yorksrob]

I've never though Stevenage a "tatty" station. It's off its era of course, hence now rather unattractive and too small, but it doesn't look rundown or neglected.

Luton is similar, another inadequate 60s? station.

Agree - it always seems fairly tidy and well kept to me !

 

[wnr1990]

Elephant & Castle thameslink, for the rubbish interchange with the Bakerloo