Largest Heritage railway station in UK ?
 

Having just been to the very large Bury (Bolton Street) station on the ELR it got me thinking if there are any larger stations used by Heritage railways in the UK ? Correct me if I am wrong; Bury has, has three platforms two of which are covered by a canopy, a large overhead ticket office, a cafe and a pub. It has a very impressive signalling gantry as well. You could also say it has 4 platforms if you include the stub bay platform as well at the south end.

Are there any bigger ones that folks can think about that are purely heritage ?

Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell Railway has five (5) platforms, all of which have platform canopies. The ticket office is on platform 5, the buffet on platform 3/4. Other retail outlets on platform 1/2. The station is now a junction station, able to despatch passenger trains in three directions, north towards Kingscote, south towards Sheffield Park, and west towards Ardingly (albeit for about 400 yards as far as what in time may become the Advance Starter Signal). Nonetheless the latter is usefull for operating brake van rides on Special Event Weekends.

Chris

Bolton Street is certainly the biggest I've ever visited. At times it's quite easy to forget how big it is, because chunks of it aren't regularily used really. Obviously as a railway we do use the full sight, but there's offices and store cupboards underneath the booking hall that even I haven't been in! Just to add to Pemso's list of facilities at Bolton Street, we also have three shops. I think Minehead probably has longer platforms, but I don't think it's a bigger station as such.

Interesting about Horsted Keynes, I knew it was large but I hadn't realised that there were 5 covered platforms. I will have to visit sometime.
I agree about the platform length at Minehead which seem to be able to cope with 12 + carriages and looks much longer than Bury.

Are there any other large stations ?

What about loughborough on the Great central?
Never been, but it is said it has a large station.

Loughborough G.C. is just about long enough for six coaches at each of its two platforms. Fair size offices/booking-hall up at road level and the platform has shop-buffet-offices-emporium-ladies waiting room-general waiting room & gents in that order (I think!). Plus museum and offices under the booking hall area/stairs. I've posted a 1968 photo of the view from the road in the stations.part of the gallery
62440

Its strange that, as The two times I have been to Loughborough it has 'felt' like a big station even though as 62440 says it is not that large compared to the others mentioned. Perhaps its because of some of the features that it has ?

I have been to Loughborough and Horsted Keynes several times and must admit Loughborough "feels" the bigger station !

Not been to the ELR yet.

Now's a good time to visit if you're a diesel enthusiast, not so brilliant from a steam point of few. Hopefully we'll pull something out of the hat before the steam gala at the end of next month.

Revisiting this, I went onto google maps and had a look at the minehead aerial photo. Very handily the picture shows a Loco and 8 on the longest platform, but a quick bit of measuring on the photo shows that Minehead platform is able to take sixteen coaches and a Loco. Thats pretty impressive