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Awkward Stations to Find in towns

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gary47

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Warrington central. stopped for a quick pint in warrington when changing from BQ for connection. got lost in a maze of slip roads, fenced off areas and general chaos. just made my connection. not well signposted whatsoever from the bus station.

I know what you mean about Warrington,had that experience myself. I find that Crewe and Winsford are a fair step away from stations,you could easily get lost at both places.
 
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extendedpaul

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Out of interest is there a website which shows the distance stations are from town or village centres ?

I got caught at Cheltenham not long ago whereas Gloucester is really central.
 

MidnightFlyer

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Out of interest is there a website which shows the distance stations are from town or village centres ?

I got caught at Cheltenham not long ago whereas Gloucester is really central.

Google Maps ;) That's a serious answer BTW, it's helped me out a good few times.
 

6Gman

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I know what you mean about Warrington,had that experience myself. I find that Crewe and Winsford are a fair step away from stations,you could easily get lost at both places.

I think I mentioned up-thread that Crewe is quite easy to find so long as you don't assume that it's in the town centre! Remember that when it was built there was no Crewe town, they simply put in a station where the railway crossed the major turnpike road from Nantwich to Sandbach.

Winsford is a long way station to town centre, but again located on the main road.

I think we need to distinguish between:

a) stations which are a long way from the town centres they are meant to serve (but may be quite easy to find);

from

b) stations which are ****** hard to find (and Bordesley is a very good example - a hole in some brickwork, under a bridge, hidden behind a bus shelter).
 

extendedpaul

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Thanks, Matt.

I do try to use google maps to decide where to stop off when using a rover/ranger ticket but it would still be useful if there was a website showing approximate distance of each station from the centre of the main town/village it serves.

Llanelli and Westbury are also places where you need more than an hour to walk into and around the towns.
 

Ivo

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Llanelli and Westbury are also places where you need more than an hour to walk into and around the towns.

What? An hour? Where do you get that from?

Llanelli station is only half a mile from the main shopping street. Westbury isn't much further than that. And neither is big enough for it to take an hour to walk from one side of the town to the other (assuming 3½ mph)!
 

Gwenllian2001

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Maesteg
Grangetown, in Cardiff; tucked away with the entrance under an overbridge. Whitchurch, also in Cardiff, hiding behind residential properties.

Llanelli has been mentioned and I can assure you that it's more like a mile than half a mile from the town centre. Even then it is tucked away in a side street, appropiately named Great Western Avenue or maybe Crescent. It is so well hidden that you have to walk to within ten yards to realise that there is a station there at all.
 

jwos

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I'd vote for Commondale. Even after leaving a single track road, you have to walk up someone's driveway, open and close a farm gate, and then walk through someone's garden!
 

Old Yard Dog

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Stanlow & Thornton is just off Oil Sites Road which has forbidding "Private road" signs and a barrier half way along (west of the station). It is debatable whether it is still a public right of way.

The station itself has a tiny little entrance near Stanlow refinery underpass which is very easily missed.
 

transmanche

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Manors. One entrance is hidden at the back of a business park. And the other is a path off the pedestrian ramp leading to a car park alongside the Central Motorway.

Quite a come down for what used to be a large station with nine platforms.

(You can just make out the station sign in this image.)
 

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tsr

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You would never guess that Millbrook (Bedfordshire) had a station if you hadn't studied a map and weren't local (or an enthusiast), and hadn't actually used the road that goes over the level crossing. The station is on a fast, busy, unlit country lane with no footpath, a good walk away from the village. I should know - I recently used the station of a winter's evening, and walked to the village.
 

Old Yard Dog

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You would never guess that Millbrook (Bedfordshire) had a station if you hadn't studied a map and weren't local (or an enthusiast), and hadn't actually used the road that goes over the level crossing. The station is on a fast, busy, unlit country lane with no footpath, a good walk away from the village. I should know - I recently used the station of a winter's evening, and walked to the village.

I once used Millbrook station to get to the eponymous car testing centre. I have never been so terrified as I walked the mile or so down the road with all the boy racers flying past with little regard for pedestrians.
 

142094

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Manors. One entrance is hidden at the back of a business park. And the other is a path off the pedestrian ramp leading to a car park alongside the Central Motorway.

Quite a come down for what used to be a large station with nine platforms.

(You can just make out the station sign in this image.)

Good example - if you don't know it's there, it is very easy to walk past, and there is always the confusion with Manors Metro station.

Northern have been trying to get more signage to the station, but it is difficult due to some of the area being private land (business park), and other issues.
 

robertclark125

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Alness is five minutes walk from the town centre, and I know where it is. But, while the car park is signposted, it's still easy to forget it's a station!
 

tsr

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I once used Millbrook station to get to the eponymous car testing centre. I have never been so terrified as I walked the mile or so down the road with all the boy racers flying past with little regard for pedestrians.

Fortunately, the last time I used that road in the dark, I had an extremely visible torch and my orange hi-vis jacket (plus I have excellent safety awareness from the amount of time I have spent walking in rural areas and also traffic marshalling) and perhaps that is why I am still alive! It is a nasty road, and you can feel very lonely indeed, especially in the dark. Even though I was walking for about 20 minutes it really felt closer to an hour.

Betchworth is another station that is on a fast, dangerous road with few usable bits of pavement (and a high number of vehicles per hour). Perhaps that's why hardly anyone walks there from the village down the road, and therefore why it has low usage and only 1tp2h off peak.
 

Old Yard Dog

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You do notice Bordesley when walking back into the city centre from St Andrews. The last time I was there, I was surprised to see people going into the station, so I followed them and a train stopped to take supporters back to Moor Street. The station normally only has about one train a day, but there are extra stops on matchdays.

I have only ever been to St Andrews twice. The first time was in the 1970's when it took me so long trying to work out how to get out of New Street station and its shopping mall that I had to take a taxi to the ground.
 

GarethGwill

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Hi, first post on here!

A few I can think of:
Abergavenny is about a mile from the town centre, tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac. Not that hard to find as I think it's signed from the bus station, still a bit of a walk up hill from the town.
Builth Road is 2 miles from Builth Wells, along the A470 road! Bus is the only real option.
Pontypool and New Inn should really be called New Inn for Pontypool, again it's a bit of a trek to/from Pontypool town.
Bedminster, the entrance is through an underpass under the line from Bedminster proper, really serves Windmill Hill (although I think it's signed from Bedminster).

Gareth
 

MK Tom

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Somebody mentioned Risborough earlier... seems worthy of note that Monks Risborough is actually closer to the town centre than Princes Risborough is.

A lot of first-time visitors to MK get confused that Milton Keynes Central is at the opposite end of the centre to where the shops are. I frequently direct people to follow the dead-straight line of Midsummer Boulevard from one to the other then watch them veer off into the surrounding buildings.

The point that was made about Millbrook (Beds) also applies to Kempston Hardwick which is on another speedy country lane miles from anywhere. On an aside, Bow Brickhill would probably get a lot more traffic if people realised it's actually in MK now, and serves Caldecotte and Tillbrook (the latter being the home of Red Bull Racing).

Cheddington is a good ten minute walk from the village of the same name and in my experience seems to get used more as a parkway for Pitstone and Ivinghoe. Maybe that should be its name :p
 

HowMuch?

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There are no pedestrian signs to Wombwell station from Wombwell town centre. It's about a 20 minute uphill walk and there is no information anywhere in the town centre about how to get a bus there.

Once you are on the right road, it's not difficult to find.
 

172212

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Acocks Green is quite hard to find, about a 5-10 minute walk away from the village, on the Yardley Road, which is about 5-10s away from Yardley Wood, Swan Island, maybe the station should be renamed Yardley Road
 

WatcherZero

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The only one ive got lost trying to find is Birmingham New Street on the shopping arcade side, from the main road its quite easy to spot.
 
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Thank you for reminding me of Coventry!

From the city centre there seem to be several possible routes. All of them endless!

And then a Ring Road to cross.

:)

First time I went to Coventry I used a compass to re-find the station!
 

SussexSpotter

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Aldrington station is quite difficult to find and get to, you have to go down a maze of backstreets, a small alleyway, through a subway and then up a very dodgey looking path to get there. It's quite hidden away and the area is fairly rough as well, the signage is also very poor so a statnav might come in handy. Considering how close it actually is to Hove station anyway which gets a far better service I am suprised the station hault wasn't closed decades ago.
 

David

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Gainsborough Central,found it by accident.No sign posts that i see,do'nt even know if i could find again!!:|

I used to work just round the corner from the station, and while I knew it was somewhere close, even I couldn't find it for a while :oops:

Another contender is Thorne South. Thorne North is on the main road and well signposted, but South is down some quite narrow roads, with only a tiny sign to point the way ....
 

mattyb1405

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That's the point. It isn't particularly far from the city centre, but finding the right route is v difficult!

They are altering this in time for the olympics, nice new pedestrian crossing coming out of the station to cross the ring road at road level - rather than use the subway (certainly on one side) looks rather tidy from a distance. On the main walk into town one subway has already been filled in - took me a while to spot what was different about the place.....

I wouldn't want to drive there (station) any more though - can't wait to see the ensuing inevitable chaos of traffic heading from the City Centre towards Kenilworth......could do with a train service that way......
 

StrollerEd

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Morningside Station in Edinburgh has mythical status - still spoken about but not accessible in any sense
 

142094

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Gateshead Stadium is quite easy to find, and I'm sure there are signs point towards its direction along the walking route.
 
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