Favourite Station
 

Do any of you chaps have a favourite station, one where you'd quite happily spend a whole day or two?

Mine is Kingscote on the Bluebell, a superb country Southern station and I like its quietness. It can be better when it ceases it's end-of-line status, which I am looking forward to. The buildings are wonderful in their interesting and sculpted architecture, the greenery and general ambience are superb and the still working adjacent timber yard give an air of quiet purpose to the loading dock are, even if they are no longer in commercial use.

Second is Isfield on the Lavender line for it hotch-potch-ness, if that's a word!

Bury Bolton Street for me. Trains pottering about during the day, then a real ale bar on the platform for the night. What more could you want?

I like Horstead Keynes, Loughborough, and Medstead & Four Marks, but they all have to be visited out of peak times to avoid the crowds and achieve the full spooky time-warp feeling.

I am quite partial to Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland. Beautiful mountain scenery and great food and drink in the station buffet. The melodic jingle of cowbells ensure that even between trains there's never a quiet moment.

The bridge at Loughborough seems to be very popular with photographers, since its so low, though I wish they would extend the platforms. Ive always wondered whats the deal with the deserted platforms that appear after the 'little tunnel' on the Southern side of the station.

My favourite stations would be the following Wassen(on the Gotthard), Spiez or Olten.
All give plenty of variety and the last two have restaurants and good beer.

In England I would probably go for Appleby (Friendly people) or Hellifield (Good Bacon or Sausage butties):

Swinton Manchester.

It has no redeaming features. It generally smells of urine and is served by two trains an hour - pacers or sprinters. It has a booking office that is open until early afternoon. It's had two major upgrades since opening, the first was an electric lightbulb, the seccond was a chip-and-pin reader that generally dislikes my Visa. The GMPTE have put a bus stop sign outside and have then had the gall to label it an "interchange".

I love it though, purely cause it was the first railway station I ever stood foot on. It's my roots. So yeah.

:p

Ooh, so far it would have to be a toss up between York and Shrewsbury!

Grosmont. Not actually on the station you understand, but sat outside that pub next to the level crossing. A pint of guinness and plenty of locomotive movement in and out of the station. A great way to spend a few hours.

Ropley on the Mid Hants and Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell are great favourites for me.

I like Highley on the SVR, after having spent a couple of weekends in a rented house on the riverbank. River & fields in front, station & steam trains behind.

Oh and I agree with Adam about Bury Bolton Street too, specially on diesel days.

I like Blue Anchor_lovely atmosphere with a nice cafe very close. Arley and Highley are very pleasant as are a lot of other stations. Brownhills west is a great place on special timetable days.
Richard

I'd love to visit Loughborough Central on the old GC - just to soak up the atmosphere.

I also quite like Haverthwaite on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway for a truly authentic branchline atmosphere.

Erstfeld and Wassen on the Gotthard line,Spiez on the BLS/Lotschberg and Grindelwald on the BOB/WAB.

Enfield Town Station
 

I'd love to go back and spend a day at Enfield Town Station as it was in the 1950s when I first started working for British Railways. It is now a quiet place with electric trains but I liked the much noisier and grubbier British Railways station with a loco shed, goods yard and signalbox now sadly all gone.

I know what you mean Alan.:)
Yesterday I caught a train from the station that we used to "run" as kids. Even though the remaining buildings are boarded up or used for non-railway purposes I could still picture how each individual room looked nearly 50 years ago. I could also still remember the smell of Jeyes Fluid in the Gents:D

My favourite station that is still open would have to be Grantham, because I can still hear the A4 whistles every time I go there.
Nottingham Victoria would be my choice of closed stations because it was just so awesome in size to a small boy like me in the 1950's.
Paul.

My favourite stations would be london
All give plenty of variety and the last two have restaurants.

Shareefa

SreeVysh Corp

Hi Shareefa, welcome to the forum. I'm ashamed to say I'd never heard of Coimbatore, so I looked it up on Google Earth- it appears to be a great place for trains itself!

Tell us more about what you've got there- this looks fun.

Hi Shareefa, welcome to the forum.
Paul.

I think Cape Town has to be one of my favourite stations. With the Atlantic in front and Cape Town with Table Mountain as a backdrop. I have not visited it since 1997, but Im afraid it is one of those "NO PHOTOS" stations, or at least it was then.

It just has to be Crewe in steam days, although Clapham Junction could be quite interesting before 1966. For present day; Rugby, Doncaster and most of the London terminii.

hiya im new 2 dis thing and my fave is Rothley on the GCR. good 2 c trains pass & look at the coach works on gala's

Welcome to the forum stokeclass20.
I like Rothley as well, it has all the ingredients of a proper steam era station.
Paul.

Nottingham Victoria for me too I spent many happy hours there in my early teens I still remember the B1s,V2s & L1s and other Ex LNER types.:)

Paddington & Fishguard for good childhood memories.
Also Connolly Station Dublin. Also Sligo, because it's a terminus all trains pull into a single bay brick "house"...very olde worlde

Favourite Stations
 

Nottingham Victoria would be my favourite old station.
I also liked Eurostar Waterloo International with it's curved roof which was better than the shoe box fitted at the end of St Pancras!

Another favourite station in steam days Birmingham Snow Hill

A great Station to "Spot" on in the 50's second only to Birmingham New Street!

In Birmingham we were spoilt for choice!


Best wishes,

John H-T.

OH! I don't know what about Leeds city,Doncaster,Bristol(Temple Meads)Carlisle,Cardiff(General) I could go on.
the late 50s early 60s still hold many happy memories.

Blencow on the old Penrith-Keswick railway.

It has loads of character.

Crewe in the 80s and 90s for me.Id spend days and days racking up 'the numbers'.You could see up to 200+ locos a day with all the movements on and off shed.I even remember seeing nothing but 100+ class 47s one day and moaning about it.Its laughable really when you look at it now as a semi rundown cold station with a dead diesel depot and nothing but Virgin plastic to 'entertain' you.

Did a 2 day shed bash in 1966 Glasgow/Edinburgh areas well over 1,000 locos mainly steam.

Hi, My First post here, My favourite Station would be Winsford

Dave

Hi Jetstream, welcome to the Railway forum.

Welcome to the forum Jetstream.
Paul.

Thanks for the welcome :)

Dave

Bere Alston in West Devon, reversal point of the Gunnislake branch
Apart from rationalised trackwork and missing footbridge, more or less as built still. And may one day soon become a junction with the proposed Tavistock re opening on the cards, lovely place, even made a model of it in the late 80's and got it in the Jan 90 Railway Modeller:D
2nd would be Templecombe, Iconic LSWR/S&DJR junction, now on the Waterloo-Exeter, again much rationalised, you just can't imagine how busy this place used to be either

me at my railway station...never happier..honest
Taken last August:)

Shepton-Mallet
 

... when it was still working, decades ago!
I remember one funny thing: the board marked "GENTLEMEN" was twice as big as the ones bearing the name of the station! After all, it sound logical: travellers over these local lines know where they are, but they do not necessary know where the toilets are...