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Inconveniently Sited Stations

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Killingworth

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It could equally be renamed Bilton as the village to the west of the tracks is Bilton and is as close to the station as Hipsburn is to the East. But the Football and Cricket Club both use Alnmouth as their name despite being in Hipsburn (although the school is Hipsburn Primary) so the station is as well remaining as Alnmouth.

Alnmouth was originally called Bilton from the time it opened in 1847 until 1892. I'd say they got it right in 1892.
 
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Midnight Sun

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Frome, Yeovil Junction, Yeovil Pen Mill, Westbury (Wilts), Harlow, Epping, Exeter St David’s are all a fair way from their respective commercial centres
The commercial centre of Exeter is served by Exeter Central, so no need to move the station. Problem with Harlow is that the commercial centre moved away from the station
 

Mikey C

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I believe that as part of the HS2 works the Euston underground station is to be rebuilt and connected to Euston Square, which may help.
Indeed. That this wasn't done as a part of the 1960s Euston works is absolutely nuts.

An equally bad decision which will be rectified was only having one entrance to Euston underground station, the one from the National Rail station. A massive bottleneck and forcing people into the crowded NR concourse when they might have no reason to be there, and not something repeated elsewhere on the network with major termini.
 

Train Maniac

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Sandling in Kent is a pain in the neck. In the middle of nowhere and a good 20 minute walk up a steep hill from Hythe which it is meant to serve. Not that much can be done about it, unless they decided to reopen the branch line back into Hythe itself.
 

156443

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Prudhoe Station is at the bottom of a very long and steep hill from the town centre which is about a mile from the station.
 

Western Lord

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The commercial centre of Exeter is served by Exeter Central, so no need to move the station. Problem with Harlow is that the commercial centre moved away from the station
Nothing "moved" in Harlow. Like all new towns it was supposed to be self contained, so hardly any consideration was given to rail access. The former Burnt Mill station was rebuilt and dubbed "Harlow Town", but it was always a mile away from the new town centre, known as The High, which name indicates that it was all uphill from the station as well. The station is still very rural and you can spend your time waiting for a train watching the ducks on the Stort Navigation.
 

xotGD

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Manchester Oxford Road could do with an entrance from the west. Especially with lots of new development in that direction.
 

Welshman

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Halifax station, built in the Hebble Valley at the bottom of town, used to be in its centre, with the parish church [now Halifax Minster] and housing nearby.
Then the town expanded up the hillside towards Commercial St, and people complained the station was in the wrong place, as it involved a walk down Horton St - OK going out but a bit of a bind when coming back, especially with heavy luggage.
Then with the movement of the town back down the hill [the development of the Woolshops shopping precinct, the re-opened Piece Hall, the moving of the bus station from its original site at Crossfield to its present location, the development of Square Chapel as a concert venue and the re-allocation of the library, the station is in the right place again!
 

Ken H

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Bradford, both stations. Both lines have been truncated putting both stations away from the city centre.
 

Mutant Lemming

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Coventry is another station that is a bit out of town. A station on the Bedworth branch by Coundon or Radford Roads may be fractionally closer to the Pool meadow part of the city centre.
 

KingJ

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Waterloo East could do with a proper exit at the country end of the platforms. Currently, anyone wanting to get to Southwark either needs to double back via the Sandell Street exit, or pay the extra to pass through Southwark Underground.
 

DynamicSpirit

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Waterloo East could do with a proper exit at the country end of the platforms. Currently, anyone wanting to get to Southwark either needs to double back via the Sandell Street exit, or pay the extra to pass through Southwark Underground.

That's very true.

Personally, I'd count Waterloo East as a station that, in an ideal world, ought to have the platforms further West: From using it numerous times, it seems very obvious that almost everyone using the station uses the entrances/exits to Waterloo main - from which we can surmise that most people want to interchange with either the underground or SWR. So having the platforms further West would make the station a lot more convenient for the vast majority of its users. Wouldn't help your suggestion though :D
 

Matt_pool

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Winsford railway station is over a mile from the town centre. It's only an hourly service from Liverpool and Crewe and buses call at the station. However, the train from Liverpool, and also the train from Crewe, is timetabled to arrive at 7 mins past the hour, but the bus to the town centre is timetabled to arrive at the station at 3 mins past the hour. So you have to wait until the next bus at 33 mins past the hour, or walk!

They can't really move the station, but if they changed the bus times so that they link up with the trains it would be slightly better.
 
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Taunton

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Most stations built by the GWR :)

Bristol TM has to be the furthest away from the centre of any major city station. Even Paddington is the furthest out of the London termini; it's actually in the W2 Bayswater postal district, and there have been legal challenges to the Heathrow Express calling it Central London.

Even Taunton is well away from the town centre, with the bus station beyond that. I should know, used to walk it every day ...
 

Ken H

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Most stations built by the GWR :)

Bristol TM has to be the furthest away from the centre of any major city station. Even Paddington is the furthest out of the London termini; it's actually in the W2 Bayswater postal district, and there have been legal challenges to the Heathrow Express calling it Central London.

Even Taunton is well away from the town centre, with the bus station beyond that. I should know, used to walk it every day ...

which is why GWR was involved in the Metropolitan Railway, and way broad gauge trains penetrated that way to the City. Hammersmith and City line is ex GWR
 

NeilNX

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Westbury wilts is bit out of town one side industrial estate and fair walk to the town centre.
Bodorgan station pretty much nothing around the station except 4 houses and a serious walk to village itself again not sure where it move too mind due
 

KingJ

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That's very true.

Personally, I'd count Waterloo East as a station that, in an ideal world, ought to have the platforms further West: From using it numerous times, it seems very obvious that almost everyone using the station uses the entrances/exits to Waterloo main - from which we can surmise that most people want to interchange with either the underground or SWR. So having the platforms further West would make the station a lot more convenient for the vast majority of its users. Wouldn't help your suggestion though :D

This is getting very in to the realms of unlikely fantasies now, but conceptually the replacement of Charing Cross and Waterloo East with a single Blackfriars-esque station spanning from the South Bank to Embankment would be interesting to see. Still reasonably easy interchange with SWR and Northern/Bakerloo at Waterloo (with apologies to the Jubilee Line users, who would have further to go, but at least you've got London Bridge as an option!), and improved connections to the Circle/District at Embankment. It'd also cut out an extra stop, distribute loads along the train a bit better (rather than front-loading for Charing Cross!) and present an opportunity for constructing additional terminal platforms compared to today (or dare I say... a Crossrail/Thameslink-esque scheme if we really want to go heavy on the fantasy!).

Of course as you say, this certainly doesn't make the situation for getting to Southwark any easier! Really, Southwark is best served by interchange on to bus/foot at London Bridge or Waterloo East, but the only reason I brought it up here as an improvement to Waterloo East as it currently stands is the oddity of being able to easily exit Eastbound, but only if you additionally pay for/possess a valid underground/zonal ticket. Especially so given the double gateline between Waterloo East/Southwark is already pretty close to street level, at the corner of Greet Street and Wootton Street or Hatfields and Isabella depending on which side we're talking about. There is empty land adjacent to the ticket hall, although presumably this is owned by the adjacent flats rather than the railway. I'm sure if it was easy to add a street level exit there it would have been done long ago!
 

DynamicSpirit

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This is getting very in to the realms of unlikely fantasies now, but conceptually the replacement of Charing Cross and Waterloo East with a single Blackfriars-esque station spanning from the South Bank to Embankment would be interesting to see.

Actually that's possibly not so far from fantasy. I don't currently have a link to hand, but I'm pretty sure something like that was mooted as a possibility in a recent route study. Partly because NR are trying to figure out the problem that the platforms at CHX are too narrow at the country end and so not well suited to 12-car trains.

Of course as you say, this certainly doesn't make the situation for getting to Southwark any easier! Really, Southwark is best served by interchange on to bus/foot at London Bridge or Waterloo East, but the only reason I brought it up here as an improvement to Waterloo East as it currently stands is the oddity of being able to easily exit Eastbound, but only if you additionally pay for/possess a valid underground/zonal ticket. Especially so given the double gateline between Waterloo East/Southwark is already pretty close to street level, at the corner of Greet Street and Wootton Street or Hatfields and Isabella depending on which side we're talking about. There is empty land adjacent to the ticket hall, although presumably this is owned by the adjacent flats rather than the railway. I'm sure if it was easy to add a street level exit there it would have been done long ago!

Again I don't have a link - possibly someone else knows of the link - but I believe NR did try to fix that by proposing a proper street level exit, but came up against planning permission problems and objections from residents.
 

swt_passenger

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Actually that's possibly not so far from fantasy. I don't currently have a link to hand, but I'm pretty sure something like that was mooted as a possibility in a recent route study. Partly because NR are trying to figure out the problem that the platforms at CHX are too narrow at the country end and so not well suited to 12-car trains...
There’s a thread started in the last few days about this very proposal in the speculation department here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/could-charing-cross-be-rebuilt.174323/
Quickly goes off on extravagant tangents such as resiting Waterloo East to Southwark, (where there’s absolutely no room). It’s mentioned in the May 2018 Kent route study which is linked in the first post.
 

Journeyman

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Breich. The decision to spend millions rebuilding this useless station in the same place was really stupid. If it was a few hundred yards along, it would be much more convenient for the village, not that anyone would use it anyway...
 

MarkyT

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Platforms 13 and 14 at Manchester Piccadilly are a long walk from the concourse. Almost as if they were a separate station :)
Does my memory fail me but ISTR that you used to be able to access these platforms directly from under the bridge on Travis Street.
I believe there is a street entrance somewhere at that end of the station, and a travelator from the main concourse.
 

Megafuss

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Prudhoe. The station itself is in the only place it can go, but it's an awful walk up a steep bank to the Town. The station is nearer to Ovingham than the town it's named after.
 

Dr_Paul

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Waterloo East could do with a proper exit at the country end of the platforms. Currently, anyone wanting to get to Southwark either needs to double back via the Sandell Street exit, or pay the extra to pass through Southwark Underground.

As I have an Old Codger's Oyster Card these days, I've used the Southwark entrance to Waterloo East without having to think about fares, so this strikes me as rather odd. How is it that passengers are charged merely for walking through the ticket gate and foyer of an underground station?
 

DJames

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Rowley Regis - It could do with moving slightly south west along the line so it's then right next to the tunnel entrance, which would give it better interchange with buses and make it a lot closer to the town centre. It could also do with being renamed Blackheath, as you have to go through there to get to Rowley Regis proper.

Nearby Coseley could also maybe do with being slightly further south, so that it's a lot closer to Roseville town centre and then it could have better connections with buses.
 

swt_passenger

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[Southwark]
Again I don't have a link - possibly someone else knows of the link - but I believe NR did try to fix that by proposing a proper street level exit, but came up against planning permission problems and objections from residents.
TfL are having another go at the moment, their latest plan for an entrance on Greet St was out to consultation recently:
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/p...new-second-entrance-at-southwark-tube-station
Renders show the National Rail symbol present, for the route to Waterloo East, which is mentioned on page 4 of the consultation exhibition boards here:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tu...ads/southwark-station-exhibition-boards-1.pdf
 

chefchenko

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Congleton is a good 20 minute brisk walk up a hill from the centre , sporadic bus service too , it is however only 2 miles or so from the fringes of Biddulph so how about ‘ congleton and Biddulph parkway’ ???
 
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