My favourite station is . . .

[Liam]

A while ago there was a thread here asking everyone what their least favourite station was. So as a positive thought, how about sharing your favourite station? This could be any station in the world, from a quaint GWR branch line to a station on a TGV route.

 

I'll go first, my favourite station is Highley, on my namesake railway.

[Bert Cheese]

Eastleigh for me, plenty of rail interest locally and only 10 minutes walk away if I want to escape to somewhere more pleasing to the eye...

[Guest]

West Croydon, but only with the aid of a time machine. Staggered platforms, semaphore signals, bays facing in opposite directions and the odd coal train to Waddon Marsh to relieve the monotony of the EMUs. No time machine? Probably York.

 

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[Torn-on-the-platform]

Staverton on the South Devon Railway, particularly over the August bank holiday when the beer festival is on! Idyllic, walks along the Dart, regular steam trains and a very good beer festival!

[DIW]

 ^  ^

Wot 'e said, Staverton.

[Rugd1022]

This is easy...   

 

[Western Star]

To sit on Ruislip & Ickenham station (GW&GC Jt Rly) and experience a Wizzo on the down Inter-City.

 

Power, beauty, tingle down the back...

[wollastonblue]

As it's no more than a 10 minute walk from my home or the local:

 

[Pete the Elaner]

South Hampstead.

Quite an unassuming station but I am modelling it so have looked at it more closely than most.

WCML

It is very closed in so is one of the few stations which can be modelled with very little compression.

Active station

Closed platforms

5 tunnels all built at 4 different times (6 if you count the 2 bores for the DC lines separately), so there are design differences between them all.

Completely rebuilt station building, with signs of the original one still remaining.

 

I travel through it several times a week & have a model of it at home. How many can say they travel through their own model railway in order to get to work!

Ok, so it has no great roof or even pointwork, but there is already enough there to make it a challenging modelling project.

I won't get to see it much for about 3 months now...because it is dark when I pass through.

[HillsideDepot]

Another vote for Paddington:

 

 

It's a beautiful station, with so much history, and in a way it's also a "cheat" entry for favourite as the public address announcements are lists of other favourite stations!

 

The photo was taken on IET launch day, when I had time between trains to stand and stare, and really look properly at the building. But as a life long (G)WR enthusiast it's so much more than a building. It's polished brass, and copper caps, it's hydraulics, it's the clock, it's Devon and Cornwall, it's chocolate and cream, it's the Directors' balcony, it's Inter-City 125s, it's the war memorial, it's Brunel and Pole, and that's not even scratching the surface: it's the Great Western. 

Edited November 23, 2017 by HillsideDepot

[ELTEL]

My local station Stone in Staffordshire as it normally means I’m off somewhere nice.

[Pete the Elaner]

Another vote for Paddington:

 

DSC_1362b.jpg

 

It's a beautiful station, with so much history, and in a way it's also a "cheat" entry for favourite as the public address announcements are lists of other favourite stations!

 

The photo was taken on IET launch day, when I had time between trains to stand and stare, and really look properly at the building. But as a life long (G)WR enthusiast it's so much more than a building. It's polished brass, and copper caps, it's hydraulics, it's the clock, it's Devon and Cornwall, it's chocolate and cream, it's the Directors' balcony, it's Inter-City 125s, it's the war memorial, it's Brunel and Pole, and that's not even scratching the surface: it's the Great Western. 

 

The roof may look nice & its history of locos may be interesting (I am thinking mainly of Westerns, 50's & HSTS). Its positives stop there.

As a traveller though it, I hate the place.

I know people who are nervous about travelling through London. It is stations like this which make them like that.

 

I have travelled though it as part of my daily commute & here is why it is bloody awful:

 

It is 2 stations cobbled into 1. Platforms 12-14 are a hike down platform 11. The destination screens are at the end of platforms 1-9 & only half were visible from each side when I was there last, so if your train gets re-platformed from 9 to 12, you have a mad rush to catch it.

Trains arriving into platforms 12-14 wait before being given a platform, delaying your arrival. I used to think this was to make one available but there was NEVER an outbound one allowing before we entered.

If you want to travel west around the Circle, which station do you use? The one next to Plat 14 or the other one which goes towards Notting Hill Gate? Take your pick, you will wait for an age at each & it is bound to be the wrong one.

If you choose the old H& S, youhear an announcement saying that the next train is at Latimer Road so will be here in "5 minutes". It always seemed a long 5 minutes, so I timed it once. It was 7. This may sound petty but is as easy to get this right as wrong, so I found this annoying.

You can't hear any announcements. The acoustics are so poor that all you hear is massive reverb.

The toilets are halfway down platform 1.

The concourse is dark, dingy, damp & cold.

 

Try travelling through it regularly. You will soon hate it.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Pete the Elaner

[D854_Tiger]

 

Back in my 1970s spotting days, that answer would have been easy - Reading.

 

Every bit as busy back then, as it is nowadays, but then just imagine virtually every train hauled by a hydraulic and even some of the class 47s had been Great Westernised by the addition of names, a named 47 back then was an exceedingly rare beast.

 

Plus the odd class 33 or class 73 interloper and every hour a Thumper just for good measure.

 

But my all time favorite station would have to be Snow Hill, the old one not the new one, though as compensation goes coming up that bank from Hockley in a mk3 set and a class 68 on a through express to London, for the first time, words can't describe how that felt, that would have been an utterly bonkers thought at one time.

 

Then, who knows, I met just get to do it behind a Western again one day.

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Mine might be Edinburgh Waverley. Just something fantastically 'undesigned' about the place. And those lovely douce accents of the staff...

 

Basel deserves a mention. I was eleven, and in my mind the concept of carpet on railway station platforms was something that only visiting royalty experienced. As for the little buffets...

[D854_Tiger]

The roof may look nice & its history of locos may be interesting (I am thinking mainly of Westerns, 50's & HSTS). Its positives stop there.

As a traveller though it, I hate the place.

I know people who are nervous about travelling through London. It is stations like this which make them like that.

 

I have travelled though it as part of my daily commute & here is why it is bloody awful:

 

It is 2 stations cobbled into 1. Platforms 12-14 are a hike down platform 11. The destination screens are at the end of platforms 1-9 & only half were visible from each side when I was there last, so if your train gets re-platformed from 9 to 12, you have a mad rush to catch it.

Trains arriving into platforms 12-14 wait before being given a platform, delaying your arrival. I used to think this was to make one available but there was NEVER an outbound one allowing before we entered.

If you want to travel west around the Circle, which station do you use? The one next to Plat 14 or the other one which goes towards Notting Hill Gate? Take your pick, you will wait for an age at each & it is bound to be the wrong one.

If you choose the old H& S, youhear an announcement saying that the next train is at Latimer Road so will be here in "5 minutes". It always seemed a long 5 minutes, so I timed it once. It was 7. This may sound petty but is as easy to get this right as wrong, so I found this annoying.

You can't hear any announcements. The acoustics are so poor that all you hear is massive reverb.

The toilets are halfway down platform 1.

The concourse is dark, dingy, damp & cold.

 

Try travelling through it regularly. You will soon hate it.

 

 

My favorite London station nowadays would have to be London Blackfriars, a genius concept, one of the best railway developments in years, so why is it such a well kept secret.

 

I rather think that should be celebrated as much as St Pancras now is.

[Pete the Elaner]

My favorite London station nowadays would have to be London Blackfriars, a genius concept, one of the best railway developments in years, so why is it such a well kept secret.

 

I rather think that should be celebrated as much as St Pancras now is.

I like the way Blackfriars can now be accessed from either side of the river.

[chris p bacon]

Either my home station of Sandy in the 60's/70's. 

 

Or Kings Cross with 8 Deltics on the stops.......ticking over...then full throttle.

[The Pilotman]

From an architectural point of view, St. Pancras (since it was done up) is hard to beat but on a personal level, Dawlish as I remember it from childhood holidays in the late 70s and early 80s wins. Back then, it seemed like an almost constant procession of trains with a great variety of loco types; classes 25, 31, 33, 37, 45, 46, 47 and 50. Happy days.

[woodenhead]

A station I have never been to but fascinates me is Penzance before the loss of loco hauled trains - at the end of the world but lots of activity.

 

As a spotter I used to enjoy New Street because of the traction changes that meant lots of shunt moves but only on a sunny day when you could get to the platform ends.

[HillsideDepot]

The roof may look nice & its history of locos may be interesting (I am thinking mainly of Westerns, 50's & HSTS). Its positives stop there.

As a traveller though it, I hate the place.

I know people who are nervous about travelling through London. It is stations like this which make them like that.

 

I have travelled though it as part of my daily commute & here is why it is bloody awful:

 

It is 2 stations cobbled into 1. Platforms 12-14 are a hike down platform 11. The destination screens are at the end of platforms 1-9 & only half were visible from each side when I was there last, so if your train gets re-platformed from 9 to 12, you have a mad rush to catch it.

Trains arriving into platforms 12-14 wait before being given a platform, delaying your arrival. I used to think this was to make one available but there was NEVER an outbound one allowing before we entered.

If you want to travel west around the Circle, which station do you use? The one next to Plat 14 or the other one which goes towards Notting Hill Gate? Take your pick, you will wait for an age at each & it is bound to be the wrong one.

If you choose the old H& S, youhear an announcement saying that the next train is at Latimer Road so will be here in "5 minutes". It always seemed a long 5 minutes, so I timed it once. It was 7. This may sound petty but is as easy to get this right as wrong, so I found this annoying.

You can't hear any announcements. The acoustics are so poor that all you hear is massive reverb.

The toilets are halfway down platform 1.

The concourse is dark, dingy, damp & cold.

 

Try travelling through it regularly. You will soon hate it.

 

Whilst all that might be true, the question didn't say that the station had to "work", just be our favourite. Plenty of people happily support non-league football teams, for example.

 

As for travelling regularly through it, I personally never go to London unless I have to, nor will I, I hate it. Remaining on Paddington, absorbing the place while changing trains, isn't really visiting London, and I accept not at all the purpose of a station. It doesn't change my vote though.

[Zomboid]

Paddington is alright. It's a bit of a cheek to call it "London" though, it's nowhere near the centre and you're likely to have to use the circle line, which is just terrible.

[Three Cocks Junction]

I have too many. If it has to be one:

 

Nottingham Victoria.

 

The Powers-That-Be could not suffer such excellence to be, in the era of new Euston/Birmingham New Street.

[jacko]

 

 

Tynemouth. Used to walk through it every day on  my way to school and always thought it very atmospheric. It was pretty run down by the time I left but it's since been refurbished and hosts a thriving market.

 

 

[The Johnster]

Difficult not to be overawed by the Brunellian magnificence of Paddinton and Temple Meads' great sweeping curve, but I have to own up to a soft spot for, of all places, Bargoed.  I like the way it merges into it's hillside, I like the viaduct, and the overwhelming South Wales Valleyness of it on a grey drizzly day is wonderful.  Caerphilly and Pontypridd come close, but Bargoed takes the prize for me!

 

Pontsticill, when it was a standard guage junction, must have been wonderful as well; stunning scenery and the Brecon and Merthyr, what's not to like?   Closed even before Beeching could get his hands on it...

[eastglosmog]

My favorite station is my local, Charlbury - the last Brunel designed timber station building.  Site of the famed HOOF campaign (Hands Off Our Fire) when even Sir Peter Parker signed up to keep the open coal fire.