Ugly railway stations

[purlieu]

Elsewhere in the West Midlands:

Duddeston



Spring Road




Bordesley



Hampton-in-Arden


Danzey


Lye


Stechford


Perry Barr


Old Hill

[non capisco]

Crayford in Kent. I used to find everything about the town depressing when I was a kid apart from it was where my nan lived. There's something really slate grey and January sunday afternoon about Crayford. Look, even the pylon looks depressed. (It does if you've always seen pylons as having faces like me and presumably some other weirdos.)



Even worse, Crayford's nearby mate Slade Green. State of this.

[holyzombiejesus]

Inspired by this thread, I took these when I disembarked at Moston for work this morning.







Both platforms were redecorated earlier this year but I think they used a chain gang of criminals or community service people as it was done in the most atrocious manner. The floors and weeds were all covered in purple paint and they left big gaps. Additionally, the (only recently erected yet soon to be demolished) shelters had glass panels in them which were always destroyed overnight whenever they were replaced. (One of my 'Why, oh why, oh why' things, glass panels on street furniture.) The trains only go through Moston hourly and if they're ever delayed (which is pretty often) Moston is usually sacrificed in order for the train to catch up. Imagine waiting there for an hour only for the train never to arrive.

[Serge]

Last year, I went to Lichfield, and as there was no direct train route, changed at Tamworth, which is about as grim a station platform as I've ever stood on:



I didn't see the outside of the station itself, which seems to look like this:



For reference, here is what it replaced:

[Gurke and Hare]

Perry Barr

WHAT?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Selly Oak's much nicer, etc.



Looks like it was modelled on a run-down methodist church.

[weekender]

Elsewhere in the West Midlands:

Bordesley

Whilst they convey a certain desolation, I'm afraid your photographs don't fully portray the full desolation that is Bordesley station, for me.

Allow me to elaborate on your first photograph:

1) Further arches on either side of the bus stop used to be Victorian toilets.  They are all bricked in now, no-one knows why.

2) The gates are open (albeit they look like the gates to hell).  I can only assume you went on a day when Birmingham City were playing, which is the only time I have known Bordesley station be open.

3) There's a crappy orange sign off to the left, in the window of a crappy - erm, 'shop' is the wrong word, 'small building' is probably better - which advertises food and drink on match days.  Good quality stuff, obviously.

4) Bordesley is on the line that connects Snow Hill (not sure about bits north of that) through to Solihull, Warwickshire, that sort of way.  Three suicides have happened in the Bordesley platform vicinity in the past 2 years and they caused travel carnage for people trying to escape Birmingham.  All I can say, as a witness to the attempted escapisms, is that there were many people trying to get out of Birmingham on those days.  Maybe these suicidal people knew something some of us don't about Bordesley?

5) I occasionally get a lift to a bit further back from this stop, and it doesn't convey how many little bastard children there are just trying to spit on your shoes.  Honestly, they're worse than pigeons.  FUCK OFF I AM NOT GOING TO LET YOU SPIT ON MY SHOE AND THEN PAY YOU MONEY TO CLEAN MY SHOE OF SPIT YOU STUPID LITTLE BASTARDS.

5) It was only actually by going on this train route, a couple of years ago, that you could actually see one of those stupid fucking 'Spot all the bears in Birmingham' bears, because someone decided that putting a stupid fucking bear on top of the Custard Factory was a good idea.

Your second photograph is clearly fake as a) I don't know anyone who's ever been on Bordesley platform and b) it looks like the platform has been cleaned.

tl; dr? Fuck Bordesley Station. 

[purlieu]

Last year, I went to Lichfield, and as there was no direct train route, changed at Tamworth, which is about as grim a station platform as I've ever stood on:



I didn't see the outside of the station itself, which seems to look like this:

Having spent many, many, many hours trainspotting on Tamworth station with my dad as a child (it's on the West Coast Main Line below, as well as the busy Birmingham to Derby route above, so a haven for railway enthusiasts), I have a strange fondness for the place. It has lower and upper levels, which give it character.
That said, it's also a concrete hell hole and the stairwells linking the two levels (not to mention being the only way you can get from one platform of the upper level to the other) are exceptionally grim.

[purlieu]

Selly Oak's much nicer, etc.



Looks like it was modelled on a run-down methodist church.

A popular station design in the West Midlands, it seems...

Bournville:

Five Ways:

Kings Norton:

Longbridge:

Northfield:

Selly Oak:

University:

[Sebastian Cobb]

That's like a flip-book through my teens before I left the Midlands; especially with the more (I believe) defunct central trains logos everywhere.

Memories of the defunct Longbridge station just for rover workers tbh.

[purlieu]

Yes, that 'Centro' logo is now gone, although the brand name still exists somehow.

[Dex Sawash]

The "old" Durham NC train station, a doublewide office trailer.



The new one is in the end of an old Liggett & Myers cigarette factory that was a nice 1890s  italianate warehouse that has been sloppily made to serve, too nice for this thread and not worthy of the other.

[buzby]

A popular station design in the West Midlands, it seems...

They were either new stations or old ones that were rebuilt  in 1976-78 when the old Litchfield, Redditch and Birmingham West Suburban Railway routes were combined into the Cross City line by the WMPTE. They presumably used the same station building design to bring an air of commonality, though probably more likely to save money, as the WMPTE were skint (they had to get EU development money to fund it) so it was done on the cheap.

[holyzombiejesus]

^posts you knew were made by buzby,  without checking who made them^

[pancreas]

Yes, buzby, where do you get all your information from? Is it books? Have you been #readingbooks™?

[im barry bethel]

Nothing more miserable than the concrete 'facade' of Ealing Broadway, supposed to be getting a Crossrail revamp when really all it needs is a Lidl bucket bomb


upload image album

[Paul Calf]

Fantastic. More money spunked all over London's transport network- which already has four major East-West lines - while the rails of the rest of the country rot.

[Ferris]

Simultaneously proud and offended that the suburban West Midlands is so well represented here. It's a real trip down memory lane.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I hear Memory Lane has a particularly appalling and dilapidated façade.

[MoonDust]

Bolton and its post-modern awfulness:



Frustratingly, like a lot of these Victorian stations, the platforms still retain the old architecture, which is actually nice.

On a bit of a tangent I think that's the sole modern architecture movement I hate the most; post-modernism. It's basically people saying "we appreciate old-style designs so we're trying to re-imagine that to fit with the modern age" when really it just looks like gothic or Victorian architecture made of Lego.

[Gurke and Hare]

On a bit of a tangent I think that's the sole modern architecture movement I hate the most; post-modernism. It's basically people saying "we appreciate old-style designs so we're trying to re-imagine that to fit with the modern age" when really it just looks like gothic or Victorian architecture made of Lego.

You're familiar with McMansion Hell I imagine?

[Ferris]

I hear Memory Lane has a particularly appalling and dilapidated façade.

It's been done up recently - lots of glass and a Costa Coffee now. Not amazing but could be much worse.

[Replies From View]

On a bit of a tangent I think that's the sole modern architecture movement I hate the most; post-modernism. It's basically people saying "we appreciate old-style designs so we're trying to re-imagine that to fit with the modern age" when really it just looks like gothic or Victorian architecture made of Lego.

Same here.

These aren't railways stations so forgive the brief derailment (OH LOOK A PUN), but these buildings in Bath are sheer guff:


The Podium shopping centre (now almost entirely a Waitrose):





That came in the late 80s - early 90s as a reaction to the horribly boxy 1960s and 70s stuff which was immensely unpopular at the time (and still deserves to be, to be fair).  It's just that post-modernism seems to think it's being classical enough to appear less boxy than the 60s-70s stuff.  But it's not.  Boxy as fuck and stupid use of disproportionately scaled/sized windows that aren't "classical" in the slightest.  Urgh.


Then there's Southgate Shopping Centre, also in Bath.  I've asked one of my cousins what he thought of this, and he said he thought it was probably Georgian.  So there are people who step out of Bath Spa railway station and see this, and think they're seeing Georgian Bath.  They might even hang out here for a couple of hours and then go home - there's desolation for you:


"Hidden" - lol.  It's right there when you step out of Bath Spa station.  "Gem" - lol.












"Wonderful place to sit and relax, this!  I am so glad we came all the way to Bath!  I wonder which parts are Georgian and which parts are Roman!!"


Those pictures don't at all convey how crowded and cramped that central "open space" part actually is.  For buildings so close together, they are too tall to let any decent sunlight in for very long, but there are nevertheless always people seated on deckchairs whenever I visit Bath, like a permanent live art installation.  People who couldn't be arsed to stroll a tiny bit further and find Queen Square or a lovely park.

They were wise to make Southgate a series of streets rather than an entirely enclosed shopping centre, but all the detailing is horrible.  It was made in the cheapest way possible, with those facades assembled from thin slivers of stone on a panel of concrete, which were then bolted into place on-site.  You can see the panel joins all over the place, but regardless the detailing is so chunky and Lego-like it's offensive that people wander around here thinking it might be historical.  That's another problem with post-modern architecture when it vaguely imitates a previous style - it actually dilutes the historical stuff.


Little detour but there you are.  (And I realise that in the context of this thread these pictures don't stand out as especially bleak, but never mind.)

[MoonDust]

Basically this:

[Replies From View]

Basically this:

That's pretty spot on actually.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I really don't like brick/painted metal pomo. Just looks like an 80's leisure centre.

Then again, every form of architecture had loads of critics at the time; it's not until later that they were appreciated. It's starting to happen with brutalism, but sadly a lot of them are getting knocked down, and save for a few listed examples, it's being whitewashed from history.

[Bronzy]

Glasgow High Street:



It somehow manages to look both extremely uninteresting and extremely ugly.

[Replies From View]

Then again, every form of architecture had loads of critics at the time; it's not until later that they were appreciated.

Will people appreciate the present architectural preference for bolted-on-panels in the future?  Where anything you like can be bolted onto a metal frame as cheaply as possible, faux-classical or glass-n-steel, just bolt your preference on the front.

To me at the moment it feels like it won't go away and therefore won't be missed.

[Gulftastic]

  You can see the panel joins all over the place, but regardless the detailing is so chunky and Lego-like

Sorry to join the detour, and it's not a railway station, but if we're talking about buildingls looking like they're made of Lego, look no further than Leeds Magistrates Court

[Replies From View]

That vaguely reminds me of this building opposite Clapham South station:



I don't know whether it's an old building that's been fiddled with, but every time I pass it I think I should check its history.  It looks like it could be 1980s or something.

Edit:  Found it; it used to be this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_London_Hospital_for_Women_and_Children

The original hospital building was by leading architect Sir Edwin Cooper, and has been described as a 'most impressive landmark building and a good example of neo-classical 1920s architecture'.[4] In 1998 Tesco attempted to win permission to demolish the hospital to the ground and replace it with a tower block of flats and a new store but this was strongly contested by Lambeth Council, local residents and amenity groups at a major public inquiry. Lambeth and the Clapham residents won their fight and Tesco agreed to retain Cooper's frontage of 1929. [8] In 2004 the Cooper building was refurbished and the missing pavilion was finally completed, 75 years after the original building was opened. This, and the removal of the awkward ambulance entrance ramp and clumsy porch, which was replaced by an elegant flight of steps with classical balustrade designed by leading conservation architect Giles Quarme, improved the appearance of this landmark. English Heritage refused to list the building so Lambeth was unable to save the interiors including an Elizabethan style wooden staircase, fine panelled Board Room and the Outpatients waiting hall with chequer-board floor and barrel vaulted ceiling which were all destroyed. The frontage block was converted into flats above a Tesco supermarket and the ward blocks behind were all demolished to build a new block of flats with large car park for Tesco.

This "elegant flight of steps with classical balustrade" is the part that made me wonder if it was all a 1980s building.  The green window shutters and red-brick-coloured roof create that sense as well.


Anyway.  As you were!