UK's worst stations.

[Busaholic]

I've used South Bermondsey at midnight plenty of times and never been as scared as at Angel Road during the day

Or Brixton (S.Eastern) Down platform in the evening, once the train you've just got off has departed.

 

[Hornet]

I take it nobody in this thread, or taking part in the survey, has ever been to South Bermondsey.

It's better than it was. Mind you the Millwall supporters were a bit scary in 1985! (pic 1)

 

[Julia]

I've only had one bad travelling experience that concerned the station.

It was at St Neots. The ticket machine was facing the street outside and the rain poured down like you wouldn't believe with high winds. I got drenched.

I can't remember but I put that on here previously and someone said another machine resides in the stair well. But thats news to me.

Was that before the stairs were replaced with the new overbridge to the estate on the far side of the line? Back then, once the small building was locked up there was next to nothing there in the way of shelter, but it's rather improved now.

 

[yorksrob]

It's better than it was.

Sadly, the rolling stock isn't !

 

[Scouseinmanc]

Here's my list (plenty in Gtr Mcr..):

Hattersley
Ardwick
Levenshulme
Guide Bridge
Humphrey Park

Some national ones:

Coventry
Sunderland
South Bank
Bordesley
Barton on Humber

 

[backontrack]

I am struggling to think of a 'worst' station. I've had uncomfortable feelings but they've been external (type of area/time of day/nearby people). Coming from Northern Rail-land, my benchmark is a bench/shelter and a timetable poster. Even South Bank has that.

Even Teesside Airport has that!

Strood is not a nice station. Neither are Ramsgate and Ashford International.

 

[Mikey C]

On a slightly different track, the 2 remaining underground island platform stations on the Northern Line (Clapham Common and Clapham North) are most unpleasant and dangerous.

I used to use Angel regularly (the second photo) before it was rebuilt, and walking along that narrow platform with trains passing on both sides wasn't good. The rest of the station was horrible too, inadequate lifts, incredibly shabby passages and a tiny entrance building.

 

[Scotrail84]

Carfin and Holytown are howling stations, Holytown being a magnet for vandalism, trespassing and objects being flung at trains.

 

[CentralTrainer]

That's a bit "chrome and dresscode" for my taste. Surely Birmingham NS deserves something more akin to the Euston Tap ?

The Post Office Vaults (which is within sight of one of the station entrances) would fulfil that nicely.

Personally I agree with the view that it's nothing more than a grandiose shopping centre with the afterthought of a railway station shoved underneath it.

The incomprehensible and abysmal barrier system at the A end of the platforms (with no real signage pointing people connecting to go to the B end for ease of use) and its related obnoxious (thankfully getting fewer and fewer) staff put the cherry on top of the cake.

 

[Crun]

Peterborough, my local station, is just non-descript, not bad. More platforms, some lengthened since the re-build and lifts to them all have increased accessibility no end.

 

[urbophile]

Chester is not the worst station by a long way, but for a reasonably sized city and tourist attraction it leaves a lot to be desired. Very confusing platform layout and a long trek over the footbridge to get to the Merseyrail platform. The external architecture is quite impressive but it just looks a mess from the rail side. The posh concourse area with its cafes just adds to the visual confusion, pleasant enough as it is in itself.

 

[Mordac]

This isn't really "bad" from the passenger point of view, but I was very amused by this sign at Antrim station:



I've never seen such a bad energy efficiency rating on anything.

 

[387star]

Gatwick is being nominated for train station of the year I forget which category

Luton has been improved with new waiting shelters and I believe a new footbridge with step free access is in the pipeline..

.as for the tower blocks and shopping centre area that needs demolishing and starting again. Luton has been voted as one of the grimmest towns in the whole country!

 

[InOban]

Of the limited number of stations I've used recently, Dumbarton is the most depressing with the overgrown disused eastbound loop.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Birmingham New Street is without question the worst station in Britain

To be fair though, BHM was vile beforehand, but the refurb is great. The Grand Central complex is very nice, although having just one set of escalators is a bit useless as you have to walk right the way around.

The platforms are dark and gloomy but with a city of its size where else are you going to position 13 through platforms? It's an enclosed station with buildings over its span for that reason.

 

[yorksrob]

All I can say is that the passengers of Nottingham must have led very sheltered lives if they think that Nottingham station is the worst in the country.

 

[Mr Fizz]

I commute through New St to Coventry 4 or 5 days a week. New St is fine up top but a health hazard down below (try standing on P5 with a turbostar ticking over, a Voyager ticking over in the middle siding and another revving away from P6).

Coventry is fine. Access good, staff pleasant. Could do with new platform surfaces and the concourse surfaces are lethal when they're wet. However i believe it is Listed so i'm not sure how much they can do.

 

[Mordac]

I commute through New St to Coventry 4 or 5 days a week. New St is fine up top but a health hazard down below (try standing on P5 with a turbostar ticking over, a Voyager ticking over in the middle siding and another revving away from P6).

Coventry is fine. Access good, staff pleasant. Could do with new platform surfaces and the concourse surfaces are lethal when they're wet. However i believe it is Listed so i'm not sure how much they can do.

I'll soon start commuting to Coventry from Northampton, so thanks for the tip about the concourse surfaces. There's a masterplan for further improvements to the station, I think linked with the construction of a new bay platform for NUCKLE.

The best thing they could do in the short term is to replace the hideous public swimming pool cladding on the platforms for something not as horrid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I genuinely don't mind Cov and the likes, they're not the most ugly examples of brutalism, and they genuinely do hark back to the 1960s as a bit of history. Those stations are also in a way "mini-Eustons", and it's well documented in here that other than the method of operations resulting in the "Euston scrum" I do quite like Euston. (The method of operation leading to that is not required by the building; it could easily be changed in a number of different ways).

I particularly like the BR-era murals in the old footbridge at Wolves, I've never noticed those before as I've always used the new bridge recently!

 

[mallard]

Any major city station that's not served by a modern railway (e.g. Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol TM, Birmingham MS/SN etc.) is clearly among the worst and an embarrassment to the country.

No commuter or intercity journey should be made using obsolete, environmentally disastrous fossil-fuel based "technology" in this day and age, except possibly where extenuating circumstances require it (e.g. the impracticality of modernising the Dawlish sea wall).

Apart from that, Birmingham New Street is still awful. The refurbished shopping centre above it is nice, but hardly relevant to a rail traveller. The new "spread out" layout of station facilities is unnecessarily confusing and maze-like (obviously for "retail psychology" reasons) and the signage is woeful. Anyone spending more than a minute or two at platform level may as well be smoking 20 a day, with all the choking diesel fumes (which have no sane reason to be there; see above).

 

[birchesgreen]

You think Birmingham Moor Street is among the worst in the country? Seriously?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I really like Moor St. Classic style and modern facilities - kind of like Marylebone, the gentleman's London terminus, as they say.

New St is also OK these days. Don't hang around on the platforms - problem solved. They are no more or less grim than Euston, really.

 

[DarloRich]

New St is also OK these days. Don't hang around on the platforms - problem solved. They are no more or less grim than Euston, really.

exactly - i will be through New Street tomorrow night and will have an hour to kill. I wont sit on the platform. I will sit upstairs and get a brew. Just like most sensible people do.

 

[mallard]

You think Birmingham Moor Street is among the worst in the country? Seriously?

Every station on the Snow Hill and Chiltern routes is "among the worst in the country". A commuter/metro style service run with disgusting diesels? Utterly ridiculous and a disgrace.

Sure, Moor Street is nicely done up (as are several other stations on those routes) that's not the problem.

New St is also OK these days. Don't hang around on the platforms - problem solved.

You have to be on the platform several minutes before the train arrives in order to have a chance of getting a seat. When a busy train arrives, it can take a little while to get out of the "train dungeon" with the totally inadequate access.

They are no more or less grim than Euston, really.

Except that Euston has better ventilation and a far smaller number of services operated by fossil-burners.

 

[DarloRich]

this fumes stuff at new street is such over blown nonsense. Exposure for a normal person is limited.

 

[DarloRich]

Every station on the Snow Hill and Chiltern routes is "among the worst in the country". A commuter/metro style service run with disgusting diesels? Utterly ridiculous and a disgrace.

You are being silly now. Perhaps we should just close them all down.
:roll:

 

[Bletchleyite]

Every station on the Snow Hill and Chiltern routes is "among the worst in the country". A commuter/metro style service run with disgusting diesels?

Have you actually been on a Class 172? I agree it needs wiring, but they really are very good so far as DMUs go.

 

[AlterEgo]

Every station on the Snow Hill and Chiltern routes is "among the worst in the country". A commuter/metro style service run with disgusting diesels? Utterly ridiculous and a disgrace.

I don't understand what the rolling stock allocation, or its carbon footprint, as to do with whether a station is good or not.

 

[mallard]

this fumes stuff at new street is such over blown nonsense. Exposure for a normal person is limited.

"Limited" exposure to poisonous fumes that have no sane reason to be there is still far in excess of what anybody should be exposed to on a daily basis.

Tests have shown that the particulate levels across the whole of BHM (not just the platforms!) is far in excess of safe levels. I feel sorry for the staff who have to work down there every day and the commuters who pass through regularly.

The whole of Birmingham has been in "special measures" for air quality since 2005 and has continually missed its targets. While most of the toxic air is, of course, caused by road traffic, rail clearly plays a part. Rail won't win the "green" argument until it gets rid of the vast majority of its fossil burners.

I don't understand what the rolling stock allocation, or its carbon footprint, as to do with whether a station is good or not.

So you're happy to be slowly poisoned to death as long as the place it happens looks nice?

 

[FOH]

Nottingham is quite a lovely station but does indeed lack businesses. London Bridge is becoming a jewel.

Yes, I'd call it the Cubic Zirconia of the London stations