Trivia: Railway stations with thoroughfare

[johnsmith1979]

Apart from Stockport and Sheffield Railway Stations, are there any others in Britain where access to platforms is also the thoroughfare linking two urban areas - i.e residential area and town centre.

 

[30907]

The subway at Blackburn (town centre and retail/leisure outlets) comes to mind, though it now has a barrier along it.
Petts Wood footbridge is or used to be the most convenient link between the two halves of the township, ditto Penge East (where there was once a level crossing). I am sure there are others.

Germany (and former German areas like Silesia) has a fair number of city centre through stations which qualify. Hannover Hbf comes to mind (the subway being a retail mall on 2 levels), plus Duesseldorf and Koeln - but German stations are unbarriered anyway.

 

[greaterwest]

Guildford's footbridge is used as a thoroughfare between the town centre and a residential area (and they have an arguably ineffective 'bridge pass' system in place as both entrances have automatic ticket gates).

An informal arrangement is also in place at Woking should one require the use of the lifts to get from the main side to the town side of the station, although there is a subway under the station which only has stairs. The accessible detour is otherwise via the Victoria Arch Bridge adding an extra 5-10 minutes to your trip.

 

[Mikey C]

You can enter East Finchley station from either side of the tracks, but usefully you can also go right through the station, outside the ticket barriers. Indeed I walked through East Finchley a couple of days ago, the only station I've been in since lockdown started!

 

[plugwash]

Stevenage spings to mind, with the station bridge joining the town center to the leisure park. The part of the bridge over the current platforms* is split by ticket barriers, but the lifts are on the opposite side of the bridge to the stairs and hence on the wrong side of the barriers.

Will be fun if they ever try to bring PAYG to the station.

* The new platform will have it's own barriers.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Dewsbury station footbridge is part of a walking route from the housing north of the railway to the town centre. As a result, the ticket barriers don't cover the bridge, meaning the lift is a way of bypassing the gates for the down platform- to go along with the pub creating a bypass to/from the up platform.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Fratton station footbridge

 

[Mikey C]

It's simpler on the DLR as the vast majority of stations don't have barriers, but Cyprus and Beckton Park DLR stations are both designed so that the bridge across the tracks is also a main pedestrian path to cross the railway and a main road

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Indeed the DLR is quite unusual in this section, located between the 2 carriageways of a main road, but lower down

 

[rf_ioliver]

Would London Road and Moulsecoombe in Brighton count - at least the latter is between a residential area and the university, though the public route is technically via the road bridge further down...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Will be fun if they ever try to bring PAYG to the station.

It isn't really a great problem any more than it is at the unbarriered platforms at Euston (the barrier project seems to have stalled after doing 1-3). You just have a standalone validator there. If you don't touch in, you'll get a PF at the other end.

 

[edwin_m]

The centre bridge at Nottingham is a public right of way. At one time there was another footbridge to the east going right across with no platform access, but BR demolished that and diverted the path about 1990.

 

[snookertam]

Glasgow Central and Edinburgh Waverley are good for a short cut from one street to another.

Mount Florida is another one, on a smaller scale.

 

[pdeaves]

Slightly widening the remit, Swindon has a private bridge linking to the north side, though it is used by more than the people who officially have reason to use it.

One of the Jubilee line station platforms (at Southwark?) is more-or-less a walkway from one end to the other.

 

[DelW]

Until it was remodelled a few years ago, Reading station's footbridge was split longitudinally, one half being inside the barriered area and the other half outside. That bridge went in the rebuilding, and I think the public footpath was diverted into the old parcels subway.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I don't think London Road (Brighton) fits the OP's criteria and as for Moulscoomb, you have to access the platform first before crossing the footbridge to access a public footpath. Same with York; you can either access the station and cross the station footbridge to get to the NRM, or walk past the station into Leeman Road and go under the railway bridge

 

[norbitonflyer]

Teddington has a footbridge which can be used by the general public to cross the line as well as to access the platforms.

 

[Mordac]

It's not technically a right of way, but I've gone though Kings Norton station sometimes rather than going around on Middleton Hall Road.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

Shrewsbury has the Dana footbridge that goes from one side of the station to the other, though it is not actually linked directly to the station at all.

I and many others used to find Purley station subway a useful short-cut into the town centre until they brought in the automatic ticket barriers...

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Not really urban, but Alvechurch footbridge is a public right of way, I think.

Worcestershire Parkway isn't but probably should have been - it would have saved them the cost of an entire new footbridge...

 

[Cherry_Picker]

Hinckley station has a footbridge connecting the town of Hinckley and the village of Burbage (which is now contiguous) which is a public right of way as far as I'm aware as the railway line forms the boundary between these two places and there are only a handful places you can cross it in the entire settlement.

 

[jumble]

Harrow on the Hill springs to mind as qualifying

 

[Mikey C]

The footbridge at Derby seems to have been a public footbridge as well, though it's status is a bit confusing!

 

[philjo]

The footbridge at Welwyn Garden City is also a footpath linking to the town centre. This is the reason that both platforms have their own set of ticket barriers at the bottom of the steps.

 

[Mag_seven]

I would suggest that any station with two or more entrances/exits in discreetly different areas of the station would count. Complicating factor is if you have to go through a barrier at these entrances/exits and whether the barrier staff allow you to go through these barriers in order just to use the station as a thoroughfare.

 

[superjohn]

I don’t know if it is officially a thoroughfare but the footbridge at Woodbridge has a fence down the middle, as per the old bridge at Reading. One side is has steps up from both platforms. The other side can only be accessed from separate staircases outside the station on either side of the line. There are no barriers (or staff at all) at the station these days so its purpose has been lost. It is also not a massive deviation to cross the line via the adjacent level crossing if you just need to get over the railway to the marina so I’m not sure why it was built like that in the first place.

Several central London underground stations also serve as public subways between their multiple entrances.

Kensington Olympia used to have a split footbridge. I believe it has now been changed to having barriers at the entrance to the platforms on both sides, the bridge itself being an unpaid area.

Back on the continent, Rotterdam Centraal really should be a thoroughfare but isn’t because of the barriers. It is a real pain to cross the railway elsewhere if you are in that part of the city.

 

[causton]

I would suggest that any station with two or more entrances/exits in discreetly different areas of the station would count. Complicating factor is if you have to go through a barrier at these entrances/exits and whether the barrier staff allow you to go through these barriers in order just to use the station as a thoroughfare.

More people seem to use the length of the platform at Fenny Stratford as a thoroughfare than actual travel - which is definitely true these days!

 

[pdeaves]

Chippenham station had a public right of way over a separate bridge. Fairly recently, the bridge was replaced with lift and step access to the platforms as well. I suspect it has a mid-line fence to separate flows, though I have never been onto the bridge so haven't seen.

 

[ValleyLines142]

Not sure if this is what the OP is looking for but there is a bridge across Southampton Central from the main entrance (outside Starbucks/Costa) to the other side of station (Asda/West Quay side), which seemed to be used heavily as a thoroughfare. Great for spotting units!

 

[Dave W]

Harringay is a footbridge linking both sides of the railway with a station hanging off it (almost literally).

Ditto Hornsey, although that feels bit more like a station with bridge access from both sides (EDIT: This sounds daft reading it back, but the two aren't the same, somehow! I think it's because Harringay's footbridge connects two roads either side of the cutting and might well be a public right of way the railway maintained)

In neither case do you actually enter the platforms, or indeed at Hornsey go through the ticket gates. Ally Pally has a split bridge too, gates to platform usually locked from the footpath side though, so I think that's even less valid here.

 

[Furrball]

Hyndland station probably counts