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Most Depressing Stretch of Line on the Network

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C J Snarzell

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The view's never struck me as particularly unpleasent - except of the open cast mine between Walkden and Atherton.

The area in question has under gone much regeneration in the last few years with the opening of a huge business park just off the Watergate junction of the M61.

The line in between Wigan & Manchester Victoria isn't best ever though. Hag Fold estate near Atherton is a complete cesspit and as you get closer to Wigan, the Ince industrial area where you have the former Morrisons site, the wastelands of the former Seaman's Way business park & of course the horrific Bakavar factory - this really does not do Wigan any favours. However, once past Wallgate station, the Southport line is one of the finest routes in the North West.

CJ
 
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Dave W

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Birmingham Snow Hill to Hall Green on the Stratford line.

Derelict and half functioning factories, Car Garages, rubbish, scrap and Fare dodgers galore.

Not dissimilar to the other side of Snow Hill, pretty much as far as Stourbridge, although the run down Old Hill bank offers a slightly less grim view.

Of course once you’re out past Stourbridge it’s pretty nice! Kiddy aside...
 

godfreycomplex

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Maybe it’s just me but I find rusty sidings, decrepit factories, scrapyards, gasworks, steelworks etc make for a far more visually interesting line side view than rows of suburban semis or modern intensive farmland. The latter may be a little prettier but it’s also rather bland.
+1. The area in which I live is mind numbingly dull and unpleasant (why don’t I move I hear the forum cry, but that’s another move for another time), not to mention quite depressed and fundamentally lacking in employment or social opportunities however because it’s got a few hills and big houses with big gates all of that gets glossed over.
In answer to the thread’s question Waterloo - Reading/Weybridge are particularly spirit crushing. Only in that direction though, coming into the joy and excitement and life of a big city can cover all manner of scenic sins for most people
 

yorksrob

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The area in question has under gone much regeneration in the last few years with the opening of a huge business park just off the Watergate junction of the M61.

The line in between Wigan & Manchester Victoria isn't best ever though. Hag Fold estate near Atherton is a complete cesspit and as you get closer to Wigan, the Ince industrial area where you have the former Morrisons site, the wastelands of the former Seaman's Way business park & of course the horrific Bakavar factory - this really does not do Wigan any favours. However, once past Wallgate station, the Southport line is one of the finest routes in the North West.

CJ

I agree that the line between Wigan and Southport is an undiscovered beauty.

can confirm, Slade Green is a dump, as is the entirety of Medway, source, am from medway

Slade Green looked a lot lovlier when it was full of EPB's.
 

2L70

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Of course once you’re out past Stourbridge it’s pretty nice! Kiddy aside...

Of course, Kidder is the exception!

Turn the other side of Tyseley and the Dorridge/Leamington line is completely different.
 

trebor79

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The run into Liverpool Street from about Chelmsford. Particularly if looking out of the left hand windows. Mile after mile of horrid suburbs, dreary housing estates, run down maisonette blocks and dodgy garages etc. Made doubly worse by the slow trundle on the congested railway, so you get plenty of time to gawp at it all.
 
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2L70

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Made worse by that area has dumped a load of their undesirables on your doorstep...
 
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Aberdeen to Inverness is a complete yawn.

Obviously this is a completely subjective topic so you can't be wrong - but I find this a surprising opinion on what I find a perfectly pleasant, mostly rural journey, with beautiful views across the Moray Firth on the approach to Inverness.

Perhaps it suffers in comparison to its neighbours. It doesn't have the dramatic scenery of the Highland Main Line, nor the coastal views heading south from Aberdeen. That's not to mention the Kyle or Far North lines!
 

Senex

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One from the past. The pretty well 70-odd miles of gloom when you travelled sixty years ago over the Midland route from Trent through the Erewash Valley to Sheffield and Leeds.
 

Malcolmffc

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Fenchurch Street ti Limehouse is pretty dire. Lots of shoddy post-war and 1960s eyesores
 

Bletchleyite

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Liverpool Lime Street to Edge Hill. Dank, mouldy, smelly and horrible.

I actually don't agree. As a kid I used to love going through there, head out of the droplight[1], taking in the smells and wondering as to why it had street name signs at tunnel level. To me it had the same interest as say James St station, the smell of being underground just adding to it.

[1] Yes, I know.
 

S&CLER

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I actually don't agree. As a kid I used to love going through there, head out of the droplight[1], taking in the smells and wondering as to why it had street name signs at tunnel level. To me it had the same interest as say James St station, the smell of being underground just adding to it.

[1] Yes, I know.
The street names, I understood, were for the benefit of emergency services who might require access from above. They would have had a job to get down the cutting walls, but I suppose the fire brigade had means of doing this.
 

Bletchleyite

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The street names, I understood, were for the benefit of emergency services who might require access from above. They would have had a job to get down the cutting walls, but I suppose the fire brigade had means of doing this.

Cheers. I suppose it is similar to why you see street names on motorway bridges during roadworks, but it was always a bit curious to me that they were standard street signs (albeit not the "quirky" Liverpool style) rather than something more "railway".
 

Calthrop

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The lines through Portland must surely be the most “Grimm” at times...

I’ll get me coat.

I'm sure the above is a humorous gem, but I'm totally failing to get it. Help, anybody?

The run into Liverpool Street from about Chelmsford. Particularly if looking out of the left hand windows. Mile after mile of horrid suburbs, dreary housing estates, run down maisonette blocks and dodgy garages etc. Made doubly worse by the slow trundle on the congested railway, so you get plenty of time to gawp at it all.

Geographically associating here; and chiming in with the poster who felt that (quasi)-rural can be very dreary: I would nominate Witham -- Braintree as dull beyond description.


(Responding to @glenbogle's description of Aberdeen -- Inverness as a complete yawn)
Obviously this is a completely subjective topic so you can't be wrong - but I find this a surprising opinion on what I find a perfectly pleasant, mostly rural journey, with beautiful views across the Moray Firth on the approach to Inverness.

I have missed -- and covet, with less than great hopes of being able to "do" -- a considerable amount of Scotland, including Aberdeen -- Inverness. Find a bit of perverse consolation in at least one person opining that as regards that line, I'm not missing much !
 

Bletchleyite

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I have missed -- and covet, with less than great hopes of being able to "do" -- a considerable amount of Scotland, including Aberdeen -- Inverness. Find a bit of perverse consolation in at least one person opining that as regards that line, I'm not missing much !

Certainly worth doing Inverness-Edinburgh via Aberdeen, but it's the southern part that's spectacular.
 

DarloRich

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So what we have here is a list of bits of line that we don't like (but cant really explain why) and are a bit dull!
 

jfollows

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For me, the most depressing stretch of line over recent years has been the stretch of line southbound from Hereford to Newport. Now, don't get me wrong, it's certainly pretty countryside. But I've been on the train from Wilmslow and my bum is now aching, and it just seems like the pretty countryside goes on and on and on, and we still seem to be a long time away from my intended destination (usually Cardiff). I've run out of things to read and I'm hungry now, I just want the train journey to be over!
 

uvarvu

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Any railway within a two to three mile radius of Loughborough Junction. You can literally feel your life expectancy draining away travelling around there. But I do like Denmark Hill station itself.
 

43066

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Have you ever been to Slade Green? :D

Yep the north Kent has to be up there, and Sludge Green in particular.

Then again it must be the only place in the UK where you can see an emu (as in Rod Hull) from an emu (as in class 465). :D
 

nlogax

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I used to like grim bits of line as a kid.. adjacent to scrapyards, rusty old rails and old stock or wagons sitting across in long-forgotten sidings. Now with buddleia and graffiti everywhere and sidings replaced with warehouses or car parks those stretches don't hold anywhere near the same appeal.
 

cactustwirly

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I don't know, I find many of the approaches to London termini quite interesting, my favourite would probably be into Blackfriars from the south. However, there is a special place in purgatory for West London, most notably as mentioned Greenford.

West London really isn't that bad, especially when you compare it to other parts of London (South & East)
I'd much rather live in Greenford than many other places in London
 
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Certainly worth doing Inverness-Edinburgh via Aberdeen, but it's the southern part that's spectacular.

Certainly their are more 'spectacular' lines (very) nearby but, having travelled Aberdeen to Inverness many, many times I would never have thought that a couple of hours trundling through the rolling countryside of Aberdeenshire and Moray would be thought of as one of the most 'depressing' rail experiences in the UK!
 
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