Many places today have stations which are poorly located, but once had conveniently sited central stations which were regrettably closed - Cheltenham, Yeovil, Barnstaple come to mind. There must be many other places also - it doesn't help to encourage train travel.
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Stations not centrally sited where previous central ones were closed
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matacaster
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Blackpool central.
thenorthern
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Stoke-on-Trent as the station is in Stoke-upon-Trent (commonly called Stoke Town and one of the 6 town that make up the city) however the main commercial area of the city is now Hanley which lost its station in 1964.
edwin_m
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Difficult to think of any in the UK where a more conveniently located main station has been closed - I'd say Manchester Central, Glasgow St Enoch, Liverpool Central and Exchange, Edinburgh Princes Street, Sheffield Victoria, Leicester Central were all less well located than the surviving main stations in those cities. Nottingham Victoria might have been slightly better located than Midland. Going down to slightly smaller cities Derby Friargate was closer to central Derby than Derby Midland is, and Peterborough East might have been better sited than North.
There may be others like Stoke where a station better placed for the city was on a branch line so never had the level of service of the less convenient main station.
There may be others like Stoke where a station better placed for the city was on a branch line so never had the level of service of the less convenient main station.
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Western Lord
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Cheltenham St. James was a terminus and could not be served by Birmingham-Bristol trains without a double reversal, retention of Yeovil Town would have involved through services reversing and retention of Barnstaple Town would have incurred the costs of maintaining the bridge over the River Taw.
MadMac
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Oldham?
swt_passenger
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I think Southampton Terminus was considered the main station on opening, and would presumably have been nearer the commercial centre of the town at that time. Being hemmed in on three sides Southampton could only grow in size to the north, which would have made the relatively minor station (originally Blechynden, then renamed to Southampton West) on the line out to the west gradually appear to be more central, which is the state we’re in today...
xotGD
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Ottawa, if we want to look further afield.
Bath?
Bath?
RSA BOB
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Hope you did not mean Mumps as that was out of town.
Mikey C
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The current Greenwich station isn't far from the centre, but the closed LCDR Greenwich Park station was closer to the centre.
pdeaves
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Morecambe?
AnthonyRail
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Bridgwater North on the S+D was a lot closer to the still open Bridgwater GWR
CptCharlee
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Plymouth Millbay
Kendalian
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Windermere
Sort of...new station (1986) is 100 yards further up the line away from town. Booths supermarket now occupying the train shed
Sort of...new station (1986) is 100 yards further up the line away from town. Booths supermarket now occupying the train shed
Mordac
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Londonderry.
Lemmy99uk
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Workington Central
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Captain Bigwig
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The law of pedantry compels me to point out that Oxford Rewley Road was (slightly) closer to the centre of Oxford than the surviving Great Western station.
edwin_m
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The Western Region in particular had a policy of cutting back branch termini, usually creating a car park in the space thus vacated, which would mainly be used by visitors to the town not by outgoing rail travellers. This happened at Windsor, Exmouth, Looe and St Ives and I think Felixstowe had something similar.
Ted172
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Hereford?
a_c_skinner
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Kirkby Stephen
lancastrian
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Blackpool South is further away from the Centre of Blackpool, but North is just as close to the centre as Central was.
Centrals main benefit is was that it was next to both the Tower and the Central beach area.
As well as being close to both Central and North Piers.
Although even North is further away from the centre as the 'new' station is built on the site of the old excursion platforms.
Merthyr Imp
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I'd say Nottingham Victoria was more than slightly better located than the Midland station.
Dr_Paul
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Then we have 'Parkway' stations, such as Tiverton Parkway, six or so miles away from Tiverton, which once had a station fairly close to the town centre.
Dr Hoo
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It is only fair to start with "Welcome to the Forum".
Previous answers have already exposed a key issue, namely that places with multiple stations (often built by competing companies) were actually less convenient, especially for interchanging passengers not travelling to or from the town or city itself. Leeds and Manchester are good examples of where rationalisation has probably strengthened rail's position overall.
You could add Chesterfield to the list of places that have lost 'handy' facilities that were actually backwaters.
MadMac
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I was thinking Central, which was closed despite meriting the name!
Stations are both origins and destinations. A centrally located city centre station is preferable as a destination, so people can walk to their offices or the shops, however as an origin customers are likely to live in surrounding suburbs and an easy-to-get to out of town station, say with plenty of parking, may be preferable to struggling into the city centre to access the rail network.
Unfortunately the rail infrastructure capacity around most cities, particularly the smaller ones, typically doesn't enable the luxury of separate stations to serve both purposes.
Unfortunately the rail infrastructure capacity around most cities, particularly the smaller ones, typically doesn't enable the luxury of separate stations to serve both purposes.
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