UK: What makes a terrible railway station?

[John Ashworth]

What makes a terrible railway station?

Page last updated at 13:11 GMT, Tuesday, 17 November 2009

By Finlo Rohrer and Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Magazine

The Transport Secretary Lord Adonis is touring the 10 railway stations in England that are most in need of improvements. But what makes a bad railway station?

It's not too difficult to picture the scene.

Thanks to some feeble excuse on the part of the train company you've missed your connection to Far-Away-In-The-Dales, and now you're going to be stuck for an hour in the station.

It gives you a chance to look around and you don't like what you see.

A dandelion springs at a strange angle out of the cracked concrete of the platform. Rust gently nibbles at the edges of signage. Water dripping from cracks in the roof has crossed the ancient girders and spread virulent green streaks down the walls.

The waiting rooms have been kindly decorated with spit, and the toilets? The horror. The horror.

Most of us thinking about bad railway experiences think about the mysterious cancellations and the wanton delays, but there must be a place for bad stations too.

On at least one of Clapham Junction's 17 platforms a sign proudly welcomes passengers to "Britain's busiest railway station".

It features in the list of the most neglected, and the signs of decay that have taken it there are everywhere.

In rush hours scores of passengers at a time spill out of trains that pass through this linch-pin of the South East rail network, thronging each platform's woefully narrow exit. They patiently pigeon step their way to the descending staircase, assailed by the waft of sausage rolls that seeps out of the myriad snack bars.

The huddle will inch its way down the stairs, as a mother attempts to bump a pushchair in the opposite direction. At the bottom is a dank and dark underpass, not much wider than a train carriage itself, that connects all the platforms and leads the lucky to the station exit.

First opened in the mid-19th Century, Clapham Junction has been patched and mended, but displays many of the trappings of a piece of Victorian public infrastructure struggling to keep up with the demands of the 21st Century.

Weeds sprout through the track ballast and vie with discarded crisp packets and drink cans. And when it rains, passengers are well advised to keep umbrellas aloft even when sheltering under the "cover" of the platform roofs.

Liverpool Central, which is also on the list, is a rail station frozen in time. The enduring theme is scratched brown plastic, dismally redolent of the 1970s. Black vinyl floors polka-dotted with chewing gum are overlooked by walls part covered with grey-beige corrugated metal and finished with brickwork rendered filthy by the water from above.

Clapham Junction's story is about space. It is crammed into an area where expansion presents a logistical nightmare. Liverpool Central's problem has been a lack of funding.

But these aesthetic concerns, while not unimportant, are not what irk passengers most, says Anthony Smith, chief executive of Passenger Focus.

The most important quality in stations is personal security. "The key to that is presence of staff backed up by cameras and help points."

It is that very absence of staff, combined with dereliction that led Lord Adonis in July to label Wakefield Kirkgate as "probably the worst 'medium-large' station I have seen in Britain". After a number of serious crimes at the station, work started the next month on some improvements.

As well as security, parking, both of cars and bicycles, is a major issue. At stations in commuter areas, the lack of parking encourages people to drive rather than take the train, and a Passenger Focus survey found it was the aspect of stations that most people were unhappy with.

Another major factor for bad stations is the lack of information, says Mr Smith. In the absence of live train information, travellers at unstaffed stations can feel rather unsettled.

The ultimate factor behind these stations tends to be lack of investment. Where that has been lavish - as in the case of London's St Pancras - the results can be fantastic. The resulting cathedral of rail tops favourite station polls.

On a much smaller scale, says Mr Smith, Eastbourne station's waiting room is an example of how to make things a bit nicer, with the additions of plants, proper sofas and so on.

For most stations, even the announcement of £50m of funding for national improvements will not be enough to lift unloved stops out of the abyss.

THE WORST 10?

Luton station
Clapham Junction
Barking
Wigan North Western
Warrington Bank Quay
Manchester Victoria
Preston
Crewe
Stockport
Luton
Liverpool Central

[Carl van der Linde]

Looking at that list, I see Preston and Liverpool central, and a few others in the North West.
Back in the late 90s I was on a short working holiday and stayed in Preston close to the railway station.
Its a busy junction and back then it was pleasant, probably because it was so busy.
One of my favorite Saturday trips was to Liverpool, and back then Liverpool central was fine.
I heard rail prices have skyrocketed so those memories will have to do.
Crewe and Wigan are on the industrial west of England, and they did look a bit gloomy, so I might have to agree with the list you sourced there, John

[John Ashworth]

I hadn't spotted that, Carl, but you're right - six out of the ten are in the north west (seven if you count Crewe, although I'd tend to call that the Midlands).