I have two local stations depending on whether I’m at home (Theale) or uni (Moulsecoomb), so I’ll do both.
Theale
Setting: for me personally, it is an annoying 15 minute drive away, but for the town, it is probably an average of 5-10 minutes walk for the houses. The surrounding area itself isn’t very nice though, mainly industrial warehouses etc. 7/10
Architecture: Fits in with the surrounding industrial warehouses, i.e. not very nice. Grey platforms with cheap, plasticky shelters, although some of these have recently been replaced by slightly better ones. 3/10
Services: Hourly Bedwyn to Paddington semifast, hourly Newbury to Reading stopper to make up a half hourly service overall. Could benefit from half hourly stopper between Reading and Newbury to match other stoppers out of Reading (Didcot, Basingstoke) but very useful fast link to London. 7/10
Rolling stock: new electric 387s and IETs, which are a vast improvement over the turbos that ran before. Much faster and quieter, although I do miss the peak time HSTs. 9/10
Facilities: has the basics (information system, benches, shelters, bins, tickets machines, platforms, a railway line) but nothing more than that (no food shops, toilets, helicopter landing patch, etc). 5/10
Overall: Very much a functional station. Has the necessities (provided you aren’t disabled) but makes no effort to go beyond them. I believe there are plans to improve it in the future. For the place it serves, though, it provides a very useful link into Newbury, Reading and London. 31/50
Moulsecoomb
Setting: Exactly 6 minutes from where I live, and I’m certainly not the only one so close. It is very close to a large housing estate, and to a University of Brighton campus. 9/10
Architecture: Nothing to write home about. Fairly basic shelter and small ticket office, although certainly prettier than Theale. The cream and green Southern colour scheme works wells 5/10
Services: a clockface service every 10 minutes with one 20 minute gap each off peak hour. These comprise of local services from Brighton to Lewes and Seaford, and semifasts to Hastings. Although they don’t go to London or beyond Brighton, they link Sussex and Brighton university campuses to housing and the city centre very well, which is where most of the demand seems to be. I’ve travelled between Moulsecoomb and Falmer almost everyday for a year, and don’t think I’ve ever had a train more than 4 late (other than one signalling failure), and very few cancellations. 9/10
Rolling stock: 313 and 377. Nothing really exciting although both classes seem very well suited to their roles. I wouldn’t want to spend all day on a 313, but for a short journey they work just fine. 7/10
Facilities: could do with a few more benches, and there seems to be an issue with the information systems (both the announcements and dot matrix) on the eastbound platform in that everything is delayed by about two minutes (which seems a lot longer when you’re there). Has shelters, ticket machines, etc though. 4/10
Overall: again, nothing too fancy, but then the place it serves is no great city. It’s main redeeming feature is it’s service: very frequent trains taking people to exactly where they want to go, so it’s easy to see why it’s well used. 34/50