But that is due to the airport feel to Eurostar.You get it on Eurostar too... everybody has an allocated seat, but still the British form a queue at the platform entrances...
Touristy yes, but I can't recommend Rome highly enough, at least to visit at least once in your lifetime.
Doubt I'd want to live there, but the history, architecture and art are something else...
Petty crime issues in European cities are common, though, something the UK for some reason seems to largely avoid. Barcelona is terrible for it, to the extent that I have wondered if the Police are actually in on it. Otherwise a great city, though Sants is a bit of a rubbish station, basically like New St downstairs.
Getting off topic - but while the Euston scrum isn't great, I'd rather have the UK/European notion that you can turn up for a train 'just in time' and get on, rather than have to queue up at a 'gate' in good time with no option to reserve a specific seat. Canada is better as they now reserve specific seats but they still queue up for some reason (Canadians love to queue even more than Brits I think).
But that is due to the airport feel to Eurostar.
With BA ect you have your seat but people queue at the gate.
Does any other European station operate such a silly system?
Of course you have the (in)famous UK example of Blackpool North as well, and they don't have security as an excuse.
Dublin Heuston quite often do this unless anything changed. And occasionally the same in Cork coming back the other way!There are quite a few UK stations that do it - sadly, some changed to that approach from a traditional queue (Inverness and Aberdeen for two) when gates were installed. I'd not so much seen it (per the thread) abroad, though.
Sanremo ad its now labelled does feel like a subway station. You expect the Picadilly train at any moment.
Despite being relativly new, it feels dingy and damp. Very few facilities in it.
Where did you get this information from?Newcastle NSW Interchange isn't very good, although it is brand new
Similar thing in Adelaide for the Ghan and The Overland at Keswick terminal except there isn't a passenger train connection back to the CBD.For me it has to be East Perth Terminal, after 3 nights on board the Indian Pacific which Departs from the magnificent Syydney Central and passes through many large, medium and small stations enroute you arrive at what can at best be described as a suburban stion where you have to get a metro service into Perth, a big disappointment after one the worlds finest rail journeys.
Quite liked Adelaide, watching all the freights passing and the mixed gauowhich was 1st tome i had seen this.Where did you get this information from?
The station is fine the problem is why does it exist in the first place. The answer is the truncation of the heavy rail line and semi replacement with a small 2km light rail line. This was done because there was several level crossings and the heavy rail blocked these crossings for much of the time and the main part of the city from the forshore. Tunneling is not really a viable option because the whole town / city is a former coal mine and a skyrail is not viable because the project was done to make the place look better.
Similar thing in Adelaide for the Ghan and The Overland at Keswick terminal except there isn't a passenger train connection back to the CBD.
I've found the following on line: neither are my pictures, but I think they illustrate the horrors of San Remo station quite well!
The first by Giorgio Stagni shows tracks & train at the old station in the open air with sunshine, palm trees, & sea breezes; the second from wikipedia shows the new station. I'll leave people to make up their own mind about which they prefer....
Where did you get this information from?
The station is fine the problem is why does it exist in the first place. The answer is the truncation of the heavy rail line and semi replacement with a small 2km light rail line. This was done because there was several level crossings and the heavy rail blocked these crossings for much of the time and the main part of the city from the forshore. Tunneling is not really a viable option because the whole town / city is a former coal mine and a skyrail is not viable because the project was done to make the place look better.
Drab architecture??? It's a stunning modernist masterpiece. I've not hung around there long enough to agree or otherwise with your other points but I'm prepared to believe you. Milano Centrale looks as if it was designed by a triumphalist Escher; lots of slow inclined travelators taking an age to take you in the opposite direction to the one you want (Italians don't seem to have got the habit of overtaking on escalators). But if a shopping mall is what you want you've got plenty of that, and quality food is not in short supply.Rome Termini for me; drab architecture, confusing and full of blatant scammers openly hassling people at ticket machines. Connecting down to the metro is equally grim, all the stations on that being depressing. It definitely can compete with the lovely Brussels Midi.
Drab architecture??? It's a stunning modernist masterpiece. I've not hung around there long enough to agree or otherwise with your other points but I'm prepared to believe you.
Drab architecture??? It's a stunning modernist masterpiece. I've not hung around there long enough to agree or otherwise with your other points but I'm prepared to believe you. Milano Centrale looks as if it was designed by a triumphalist Escher; lots of slow inclined travelators taking an age to take you in the opposite direction to the one you want (Italians don't seem to have got the habit of overtaking on escalators). But if a shopping mall is what you want you've got plenty of that, and quality food is not in short supply.
Meanwhile, the deeply engrained corruption affecting Transnet and COVID-19 are combining to create a perfect storm of vandalism and destruction. Here is a recent M-Net report on the now widespread asset-stripping going on in suburban rail stations.
Agreed, it's not pleasant at all, although I've only alighted there so the lack of facilities was not too obvious (I then caught Europe's most scenic trolleybus route back to Ventimglia).Sanremo ad its now labelled does feel like a subway station. You expect the Picadilly train at any moment.
Despite being relativly new, it feels dingy and damp. Very few facilities in it.
Agreed, it's not pleasant at all, although I've only alighted there so the lack of facilities was not too obvious (I then caught Europe's most scenic trolleybus route back to Ventimglia).
But the old course of the line must have completely cut the town off from its waterfront? I would think the wider benefits make the rebuilding of the line worthwhile, although of course that doesn't mean the station itself could not have been much better.
+1 for NY Penn in its current state. Total shambles and an embarrassment to the city.
not many trains serve it I suppose.Brussels-Congress - closest station to where I had a conference and wanted to get to the airport one weekday morning.
NY Penn is a temple to transport compared to the Port Authority bus terminal which is one of the worst gateways to any city in the world.
I walked past Congres a lot when I lived in Brussels (lived by Madou metro so technically it was my closest railway station I guess) and I don't think I ever saw anyone waiting for a train: having a closer look was on the list of things to do but I never did before I moved back and its only after I looked up the timetable here that I understood why. There's pretty continual talk about it closing and the service is very much a closure by stealth thing at this point: and while any closures are usually bad I don't know if this one would be a massive negative - its around the corner from Rogier Metro which has direct pre-metro connections with Nord and Midi; and Central is probably a ten minute walk away on the road that goes from the Botanical gardens past towards Brewdog.Brussels-Congress - closest station to where I had a conference and wanted to get to the airport one weekday morning.