Stations you don't want to go to/be at

[61653 HTAFC]

Leeds is getting a bit of a kicking.

I quite like it - much better than it was back in the 80s. The bridge is so much better than the old stinky subway.

I've had a meal and a pint in the 'spoons there a few times when doing a NE or NW rover and a few bacon rolls and coffees from the McDs when passing through there on a morning with a tight connection.

Getting from 1A to 17A is a bit of a trek though.

Leeds in real terms isn't terrible, and it's definitely an improvement on what it was!
However if you compare it to Manchester Piccadilly which was refurbished around the same time it suffers, and I think that's the comparison most people would make. There's also the issue that the rebuild didn't really solve many of the issues for passengers: the congestion around the ticket barriers and the rather down-at-heel 1960s concourse that only really got a bit of a spruce-up.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

Take it you mean S.Wales? If so, that was a cock-up & disappointing station refurbishment & upgrade if ever i saw one. Wouldn't wan't my name associated with that effort.

Aye, and it allegedly cost £22 million as well!

 

[yorksrob]

Leeds in real terms isn't terrible, and it's definitely an improvement on what it was!
However if you compare it to Manchester Piccadilly which was refurbished around the same time it suffers, and I think that's the comparison most people would make. There's also the issue that the rebuild didn't really solve many of the issues for passengers: the congestion around the ticket barriers and the rather down-at-heel 1960s concourse that only really got a bit of a spruce-up.

I think there are plenty of shops and eateries in Leeds station to be going on with (although it would be better if one did Spitfire in cans !).

I think the layout doesn't help with so many island platforms relying on narrow staircases and escellators etc, but apart from that (and the issues with the booking hall that I mentioned in another thread), not too bad.

 

[nowananorack]

Having to wait for over an hour at Machynlleth for a Harlech bound train having come from Aberystwyth. Hopefully the new timetable will make this better.

 

[Merseysider]

Having to wait for over an hour at Machynlleth for a Harlech bound train having come from Aberystwyth. Hopefully the new timetable will make this better.

Having just spent a week in Barmouth I have to agree the connection times are pretty crappy

 

[nowananorack]

Having just spent a week in Barmouth I have to agree the connection times are pretty crappy

Harlech to Aberystwyth connection, at the time I last travelled, was just a quick sprint over the bridge. Driver transferred also so no chance of missing the connection.
But coming back, if you missed the 15.30 from Aberystwyth, to get the 1705(?) north, you had a long wait for the next, and last for the day!!

 

[Deerfold]

Harlech to Aberystwyth connection, at the time I last travelled, was just a quick sprint over the bridge. Driver transferred also so no chance of missing the connection.
But coming back, if you missed the 15.30 from Aberystwyth, to get the 1705(?) north, you had a long wait for the next, and last for the day!!

Seems now to be over an hour connection in each direction (though there's now a later connection from Aberystwyth, leaving at 1930 with just 1h17 at at Machynlleth until the 2120 to Hatlech and Pwllheli (or a bit longer at Dovey Junction)).

 

[Merseysider]

There's a bus replacing trains between Pwllheli and Barmouth (until tomorrow I think?) so connection times are even more hideous. Travelling with the train BRM - Aberystwyth takes twice as long as driving and involves an hour wait at Machynlleth.

I do hope this situation improves soon.

 

[rogger13]

Ardwick, remember a couple of people off here paying a visit and saying the approach was as grim and unwelcoming as the platform looks from the train.

Never been, don't want to.

The station is interesting.The area surrounding it is well grim...........worst in Manchester I'd say......

 

[johntea]

What I like about P13 and P14 at Piccadilly is the airport style 'departure lounge' (and the airport style walkway to get to that!)

Talking of Leeds (and in general) hasn't lift technology made any advances in the past 10 years? You call a lift at Leeds and literally stand there for several minutes waiting for it to move up or down! Surely you can get faster lifts these days?

 

[Merseysider]

The station is interesting.The area surrounding it is well grim...........worst in Manchester I'd say......

If you think Ardwick is bad, take a walk around the suburban regions of Salford. The 'wildlife' makes it a pretty unwelcoming place, to say the least.

 

[Quakers Yard]

Aye, and it allegedly cost £22 million as well!

Yes I did.

Also often rough as the proverbial...

 

[sprinterguy]

Leeds in real terms isn't terrible, and it's definitely an improvement on what it was!
However if you compare it to Manchester Piccadilly which was refurbished around the same time it suffers, and I think that's the comparison most people would make.

Out of genuine curiosity, why is Manchester Piccadily considered to be a better refurbishment than Leeds?

Personally, I prefer Leeds out of the two. Having a reasonably priced pub selling decent ale (the Wetherspoons) within the station naturally helps sway things for me, of course.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Out of genuine curiosity, why is Manchester Piccadily considered to be a better refurbishment than Leeds?

Personally, I prefer Leeds out of the two. Having a reasonably priced pub selling decent ale (the Wetherspoons) within the station naturally helps sway things for me, of course.

Leeds just feels like they did the platforms and the 'Wellington' concourse then ran out of money, but there's a number of reasons really and many of those are subjective. Personally Manchester feels less cramped (even 13&14!); the concourse is far brighter, more spacious and feels more modern.
Despite both stations having a high number of diesel services from electrified platforms, in the ensuing decade(+2) since the refurbs, Picadilly's roof has not suffered as much as Leeds's. Personally I blame HSTs!

 

[GospelOak117]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowthorne_railway_station

Hopefully of this place you can say 'it has seen worse days'!

Worst station I have had to wait at and sticks in my mind was Castle Bar Park on the Greenford shuttle. Next to a rough estate with a couple having a domestic in the street, car alarms going off and a completely uninviting bit of park full of hoodies who looked like they were trying to burn something on the other side of the tracks. I was there before the brick waiting shelters were demolished and they along with every other possible surface on the station were drenched in graffiti. I couldn't even see when the next train was due to get myself out of there as the timetables had been written all over.

But my vote for the worst goes to that Irish one that has been mentioned a few times, Broombridge. Google Images turned up some pictures that made me wow, and I can't believe the station was only built in 1990! It looks like it has been neglected for a lot longer.

 

[Crossover]

The station is interesting.The area surrounding it is well grim...........worst in Manchester I'd say......

This! I'm sure starmill has mentioned somewhere on the forum about the day three of us visited and our presence attracted the attention of the local roaming police van!

The station itself felt relatively OK and was certainly an interesting place to be as such, but by heck am I glad we didn't do it the other way round and leave the train at Ardwick!

 

[scotsman]

Dunston.

 

[nicobobinus]

Will lend weight to the Castle Bar Park nomination, the station itself has had improvements in recent years, but Copley Close is one of the more difficult estates Ealing council has to it's name. There isn't much else there so the sense of isolation doesn't do any favours for waiting passengers.

Thinking of a similar sort of setup: Kidbrooke. Until a couple of years ago the station had nothing around it except the A2 on one side of the tracks & the severely run down concrete sprawl of the Ferrier Estate on the other. But for some reason the station has never been too bad. Scruffy, and very evidently has had everything designed to be as vandalproof as possible, but it has never seemed unsafe (to me, anyway). I guess the the bus station/cab office/6tph gives the place a relatively busy feel compared to Castle Bar Park.

Broombridge looks grim. You know things are bad when the streetlamps outside the station have mesh grilles around the light elements.

 

[12CSVT]

Will lend weight to the Castle Bar Park nomination, the station itself has had improvements in recent years, but Copley Close is one of the more difficult estates Ealing council has to it's name. There isn't much else there so the sense of isolation doesn't do any favours for waiting passengers.

After reading this, anybody doing the class 33 + TC stock railtour to Swanage this Wednesday will be glad it is starting from Ealing Broadway instead of Castle Bar Park as origionally planned.

 

[fowler9]

Was at Seaforth and Litherland again this evening and it gets my vote yet again.

 

[GodAtum]

fearing for my safety, any station in London.

For boredom, Marlow, worse then having my teeth pulled out.

 

[Crossover]

Maryland. Sprawling, unstaffed, ungated, hovers somewhere between undermaintained and filthy, and in the middle of the roughest part of Stratford. Surprised nobody else has mentioned it!

I had a visit to Maryland yesterday - grim doesn't quite sum it up! The place looks like it hasn't been cleaned for years either!

Incidentally, it was staffed, in so much as the ticket office

Walking outside didn't help matters...

White Hart Lane

A few of the stations on the line from Hackney Downs to Cheshunt looked a bit grim (much like the 315 running via!) Given White Hart Lane I'd have expected to be used for the ground (?) I'd have thought it would be better

 

[Deerfold]

fearing for my safety, any station in London.

For boredom, Marlow, worse then having my teeth pulled out.

Any station? Really?

 

[fowler9]

Any station? Really?

I haven't been to any station in London where I have feared for my safety. Maybe I'm lucky.

 

[Lampshade]

Until now I'd have said Burnley Manchester Road, however I was on a train that stopped there yesterday and they're actually doing it up!

Still means going to Burnley though

 

[krus_aragon]

It's certainly improved since last year when I went there before my most recent adventure last week. I'll still say I'm not a big fan of the undesirables from Eirias and Rydal Penrhos schools.

Ah, I tend to have been and gone before they arrive in the morning, and don't get back until they've left!

 

[Tetchytyke]

I haven't been to any station in London where I have feared for my safety. Maybe I'm lucky.

I've been to one: Angel Road.

I've felt more in danger at Shipley station than most of the suburban London stations, there are plenty of passengers around most London stations, even in the evening.

After a bank holiday, can I nominate Apsley? It's not that it's an unpleasant station, I just don't want to be waiting for the 0813 to take me to work

 

[abbo1234]

Leyland in the evenings.Full of teenagers drinking,smoking and using foul and intimidating language.Not a nice place to be,if its raining the passengers have to stand in the rain as the shelters are full of them and they have no intention of getting a train.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
And the two drunk teenage girls at Euxton Balshaw Lane on Saturday Night having a spitting contest to see who could reach the other platform.Disgusting

 

[LoverOfTrains]

Dumpton Park is one of the stations that you don't want to be at (at night). It's a small, unstaffed station with no station buildings, departure screens, benches or waiting rooms. All there is a permit to travel machine, staircase exit and a grassy island platform. I'm a trainspotter and I love trains and stations. I love trainspotting at unstaffed or part-time staffed rural stations where you get an hourly service and many fast non-stopping trains, but I wouldn't go trainspotting at Dumpton Park. It's too isolated.

 

[fowler9]

Dumpton Park is one of the stations that you don't want to be at (at night). It's a small, unstaffed station with no station buildings, departure screens, benches or waiting rooms. All there is a permit to travel machine, staircase exit and a grassy island platform. I'm a trainspotter and I love trains and stations. I love trainspotting at unstaffed or part-time staffed rural stations where you get an hourly service and many fast non-stopping trains, but I wouldn't go trainspotting at Dumpton Park. It's too isolated.

Dump by name, dump by nature? I don't mind places being isolated, it is where abouts in our fine country that they are isolated that makes me think twice.