Trivia: Stations Not Relative To Settlement(s) They Serve - Size, Facilties, etc.

[Bedpan]

Tring is a town, but the much closer Aldbury is a village (and has an excellent set of pubs and cafes, worth a visit).

Whilst sitting with a pint at the front of the Greyhound in Aldbury one Sunday afternoon last summer, there seemed to be quite a brisk taxi trade taking weekend visitors back to the station for a train home.

 

[Bedpan]

Horsted Keynes, village population about 1500, (ignoring the preservation era shop and café) with its five platforms and subway beneath them always gives the impression of an important station, and I can't imagine that things would have been a lot different in BR days, despite the sparse service on the Bluebell line, although also services to Haywards Heath. St Erth has a fairly bustling station with frequent comings and goings, again population size is about 1500.

 

[Springs Branch]

March station is a similar category to Hellifield - originally intended as a junction / interchange station for longer-distance travellers, no-longer needed for this purpose but substantial railway buildings remain (unless March has been severely rationalised since last time I passed through).

The town of March has similar population to the OP's Newmarket, but March station retains much better facilities (toilets, ticket office etc).

 

[urbophile]

Hooton. I think three platforms still in regular use, with another couple now redundant between them and the large station building. The remains also of one or maybe two platforms to serve the former West Kirby line. Although the station serves as a park and ride for a fairly wide (and affluent) area there are very few houses in the immediate vicinity (unless they are so posh that they are all hiding behind trees).

 

[MrJeeves]

Not quite what you're asking but my town has 2 station just a mile apart from each other: Wivelsfield and Burgess Hill.

WVF is unmanned most of the time now (no platform staff, ticket office only open during peak/weekends), but is also the last stop on the Brighton Mainline before it branches off towards Eastbourne and Hastings.

Network Rail even made proposals for this station (built on top of a road bridge) to be upgraded to 4 platforms! I can't begin to imagine the mad amount of work that would need...

Unused signal box nearby after the LC was made CCTV operated.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Preston , changed there many times , during the day is ok but after 6pm most things in Preston are shut.

There's now a Tesco Express about half way up Fishergate which has late opening - but what you say was an issue for years. Though I also recall waiting about an hour there for a connection in my student days at about 2300 and there was a kebab shop up the road.

 

[S&CLER]

Hooton. I think three platforms still in regular use, with another couple now redundant between them and the large station building. The remains also of one or maybe two platforms to serve the former West Kirby line. Although the station serves as a park and ride for a fairly wide (and affluent) area there are very few houses in the immediate vicinity (unless they are so posh that they are all hiding behind trees).

There is a large housing development under construction at Hooton on the old R.O.F. site ("Roften"). It is easily seen from the Wirral Way.

 

[SargeNpton]

The station at Tynemouth always seems to be too big for the town. Admittedly only now served by Tyne & Wear Metro services, the station is rather grandiose.

 

[Glenn1969]

Halifax. Pre covid pax approaching 2m but no café and toilet only open when the waiting room is. I know it has a shop though

 

[route101]

There's now a Tesco Express about half way up Fishergate which has late opening - but what you say was an issue for years. Though I also recall waiting about an hour there for a connection in my student days at about 2300 and there was a kebab shop up the road.

I see , i recall a small Sainsburys but not the Tesco

 

[matacaster]

Pontefract, 3 stations for a quite small place and none particularly well situated.

 

[xotGD]

Pontefract, 3 stations for a quite small place and none particularly well situated.

There's a heck of a lot of new housing being built in Pontefract. Time for a 4th station?

 

[A0wen]

Corby. Population of 62,000 as of 2010 (probably ~70k now), with only 1 platform. Compare to Wellingborough or even Newark and Grantham, and it's clear the town really does have a poor deal. Obviously, its rail location isn't ideal and they're getting a service upgrade but it still won't really be good enough for a settlement of that size.

I think you're confusing different things here - the question was whether the station was "not relative to the place it serves".

Corby will be getting a half-hourly service to London, but Northampton which is 3 times the size gets 3 trains / hour - by your logic Northampton should be getting something like 6 trains an hour ?

Corby's station is big enough to accommodate half-hourly services, indeed it could probably accommodate every 20 minute with some creative timetabling. The station has a ticket office, refreshments, toilet facilities etc.

If anything Corby's station is pretty much spot on in terms of size and facilities.

I'd go for Dovey Junction - 2 platforms in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Aberystwyth is impossibly grand for what's quite a small town although only a small portion of it is still in railway use. It's hard to understand why they built something that big.

 

[30907]

Aberystwyth is impossibly grand for what's quite a small town although only a small portion of it is still in railway use. It's hard to understand why they built something that big.

But it was the terminus of 2 different railways, so 4 platforms (5?) for passengers and parcels wasn't hugely excessive by C19th standards.

 

[Bedpan]

Hooton. I think three platforms still in regular use, with another couple now redundant between them and the large station building. The remains also of one or maybe two platforms to serve the former West Kirby line. Although the station serves as a park and ride for a fairly wide (and affluent) area there are very few houses in the immediate vicinity (unless they are so posh that they are all hiding behind trees).

I commuted into Liverpool for a month or so in the 70s nd found it to be a bit of a desolate place. My albeit hazy recollection is of four bare platforms with nothing on them, as well as having to change onto a 2 or 3 car DMU at Rock Ferry, and the abandoned line to Hamilton Square alongside, although I can't remember if it had been quadruple track all the way from there to Hooton in those days.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The station at Tynemouth always seems to be too big for the town. Admittedly only now served by Tyne & Wear Metro services, the station is rather grandiose.

It wasn't too big back in the day, though it still gets very busy when it's a hot summer Saturday or when they've got gigs on at the Priory.

They've kept it as it's listed.

Bradford FS is very lacking in facilities. At least Interchange has a Greggs.

Neither is up to scratch for a major city.

Forster Square isn't that bad, with the retail park next door. It's about right for what is a suburban train station, could do with some toilets. I'm not sure what you think is lacking about the Interchange? Cafes, toilets, a newsagent, cash machines, pretty much ticks all the boxes you'd need.

Sunderland is a good example of a station that is too small for the city it serves but, again, it is largely a suburban station for Metro. It doesn't even have a toilet, but it does have a very scabby Burger King.

For grandiose stations way out of keeping for the settlement, you can't beat Carstairs (pop 914) but I know fewer expresses stop these days.

 

[Flying Claret]

It wasn't too big back in the day, though it still gets very busy when it's a hot summer Saturday or when they've got gigs on at the Priory.

They've kept it as it's listed.



Forster Square isn't that bad, with the retail park next door. It's about right for what is a suburban train station, could do with some toilets. I'm not sure what you think is lacking about the Interchange? Cafes, toilets, a newsagent, cash machines, pretty much ticks all the boxes you'd need.

Sunderland is a good example of a station that is too small for the city it serves but, again, it is largely a suburban station for Metro. It doesn't even have a toilet, but it does have a very scabby Burger King.

For grandiose stations way out of keeping for the settlement, you can't beat Carstairs (pop 914) but I know fewer expresses stop these days.

Forster Square's main purpose is to get people 15 minutes down the track to leeds and back. Not sure it needs much else.

 

[2392]

Grosmont. Originally 3 now 4 platforms. Pltform 1 Northern/Network Rail Esk Valley line Platforms 2,3 and newer 4 NYMR.

 

[xotGD]

Forster Square's main purpose is to get people 15 minutes down the track to leeds and back. Not sure it needs much else.

It will soon have a regular London service. Hard luck to the business travellers turning up looking for the First Class Lounge!

 

[urbophile]

Forster Square's main purpose is to get people 15 minutes down the track to leeds and back. Not sure it needs much else.

Probably true, but what a come-down for what was once a proud city.

 

[SoccerHQ]

Remember a similar thread on here years back. Someone on here went to Oxford the first time and was surprised by how small and mediocre the station was considering the tourist hub the place is.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

For grandiose stations way out of keeping for the settlement, you can't beat Carstairs (pop 914) but I know fewer expresses stop these days.

I'm too young to remember Carstairs station before the bulldozers visited, but from photos it looked rather overengineered during its final few years between most of its service vanishing and the demolition of the buildings. Looks much less impressive these days, but at least it does now have a usable timetable!

 

[Old Yard Dog]

Forster Square's main purpose is to get people 15 minutes down the track to leeds and back. Not sure it needs much else.

Most people travelling from Leeds to Bradford and back (who would anyone want to go the other way?) use Interchange rather than Forster Square. Forster Square is used mainly by commuters and shoppers on the Skipton and Ilkley lines.

Incidentally the M606 to Bradford has three lanes in and two lanes out, while the M621 to Leeds has two lanes in and three lanes out. Just about says it all.

 

[Taunton]

I'm too young to remember Carstairs station before the bulldozers visited, but from photos it looked rather overengineered during its final few years between most of its service vanishing and the demolition of the buildings. Looks much less impressive these days, but at least it does now have a usable timetable!

It doesn't look much different, station or layout, to how I recall it in the 1970s, sometimes changing from Edinburgh to the south. Just one island platform. Don't recall any facilities, although there were porters to deal with transferring parcels etc. Diesels standing between duties, always a couple there even after electrification, stood in the old steam shed on the north side.

 

[MB162435]

Penzance has 4 platforms, although the terminus of the Cornish mainline only 2 or 3 platforms are generally used

 

[S&CLER]

Remember a similar thread on here years back. Someone on here went to Oxford the first time and was surprised by how small and mediocre the station was considering the tourist hub the place is.

It's not much, I agree, but it's palatial compared with the derelict wooden slum we endured in the late sixties, which, if I'm not mistaken, was built as a temporary structure when the line first opened over 100 years earlier. Nothing endures like the makeshift. The present Oxford station is the third on the site, the 2nd being a rather cheap and nasty structure that didn't last very long. They all suffered from a shortage of through platforms.

 

[DB]

Bradford FS is very lacking in facilities. At least Interchange has a Greggs.

Neither is up to scratch for a major city.

Was just about to post Bradford! It must have the most insignificant stations (and rail connections, too) of any large city (population somewhere about half a million, depending whivh boundaries are used).

Not the case in the past, of course - Exchange and the old Forster Square stations were much more what would be expected in a city this size.

 

[DB]

Huddersfield could possibly be one - a modest-sized town, but it has one of the grandest stations in the country - it is pretty much the focal point of the town in the same way that the town hall or main church is in many other towns.

 

[leytongabriel]

Harringay Green Lanes on the London Underground had usage of 1 million plus pre-Covid but only the tiniest of shelters with sloping perches not seats due presumably to narrow platforms