I've always wondered if Piccadilly is open 24 hours...is it??
Cardiff officially closes for a couple of hours as well, but depending on who is on duty and the general appearance / sobriety of the passenger the platform staff will stretch a point.
For anyone who has stayed overnight at Leeds or Manchester Piccadily, do the announcements stay on all night?
E.g:
"24 hour CCTV recording is in operation at this station for the purpose of security and safety management"
"Security personel tour this station 24 hours a day"
"It is not permitted to cycle, skateboard or rollerblade within the station building"
Etc...
I stayed at Chester station one Saturday night in August 95. I got off a Merseyrail service around midnight, & i was waiting for the overnight Holyhead-Euston HST think it was due around 4:30am which ran in those days, mainly connecting with the late night ferries from Ireland at Holyhead.
I've also stayed at Manchester Airport Station, although i made my way into Terminal seeing people asleep waiting for there early morning flights, also remember watching Football League Extra on one of the TV in the terminal.
I'd have thought Man Picc would be good for overnight stops with plenty passenger trains, & think they'd be a few freight trains going to/from Trafford Park as well.
The worst by far has to be York. Dark, cold, vagrants and drunks everywhere. The security guard tries his best, however with it being poorly lit, with obstacles and pillars everywhere theres lots of dark dodgy corners.
Out of interest what happens if you get off the last train at a Station at night only to find out that the station had already been locked up for the night, I'm not on about mainline stations (like Manchester Piccadilly) but out of town stations.
I know this does happen as I know it happened at Rochdale station on at least one occasion when a late running service passed through only for the passengers to find that the exit had been locked up for the night, I'm not 100% certain but I seem to remember the Fire Brigade being called on this instance to free the stranded passengers
Yesssss! And the theme music was "Little Britain" by Dreadzone!Football League Extra - how I used to love setting my alarm for all hours of the morning for that show!
Out of interest what happens if you get off the last train at a Station at night only to find out that the station had already been locked up for the night, I'm not on about mainline stations (like Manchester Piccadilly) but out of town stations.
I know this does happen as I know it happened at Rochdale station on at least one occasion when a late running service passed through only for the passengers to find that the exit had been locked up for the night, I'm not 100% certain but I seem to remember the Fire Brigade being called on this instance to free the stranded passengers
The freight would be through p13/14 if there is any; but I suspect that only the bay platforms (p1-12) and the concourse would be open in the small hours. Having said that, I don't actually know if they can physically close of the through platforms, though you may look a bit suspicious if you were on them on your own at half two in the morning...
The freight would be through p13/14 if there is any; but I suspect that only the bay platforms (p1-12) and the concourse would be open in the small hours.
If it's a Northern service and they haven't told the managing operator about the delay you get locked in: http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8486236.Trapped_couple_rescued_from_Nelson_train_station/
Is this a fault of the newspaper in not asking Northern Rail....or pehaps they did, with no comment forthcoming.
As railway stations are private property, surely no-one is generally obliged to advertise "opening hours" for the building as a whole? Outside the hours when passengers might reasonably be expected to be catching imminent trains, owners/operators can simply close the property to the public at any time for any reason, be it security, maintenance, cleaning or the fact that, errr, there aren't any trains for several hours and no-one has any reasonable business being there.
You have made the point that railway stations are private buildings which is very true. But I should imagine that railway stations and airports see a tremendous number of public admissions into a private premises situation in any 24-hour period of time.
Regarding the story about the couple locked in at Nelson, and the fact that the newspaper quoted only bus operator Lancashire United, perhaps because it is a jointly-operated interchange responsibilities are shared, particularly late at night, and that it was indeed a bus company employee who locked up, especially if the rail platforms exit via the bus stands. Purely a guess - I don't know the area, but neither am I leaping to the conclusion that newspapers are always wrong.