Helsinki Central Railway Station is mighty impressive. Granite!

Fratton is the next-to-last station before you reach Portsmouth docks and so "getting off at Fratton" became naval slang for coitus interruptus.

Hah, I think I've heard another version of that using a different train line.

That Helsinki station is indeed incredible. It's almost cool enough to make you wanna visit specifically to see that.

By the way, where's the article Tubby was talking about in his opening post? Everyone afterwards kept referring to some sort of list, but the link just takes you to a story about a cash boost for Sunderland or something.

Spearmint Rhino wrote:


I'd heard Haymarket (suburban station on the Glasgow- Edinburgh line).

Spearmint Rhino wrote:


Remember it from around 10 years ago;the inside didn't seem very spectacular but just looked at some photos and seems quite impressive.

The Helsinki Station was designed by Eleil Saarinen father of Eero who built aiports (which probably deserves its own thread) like JFK



The Helsinki Railway station has a private waiting room for the president of Finland It was originally built for the Czar of Russia but he was removed before he could make use of it.

Having yesterday caught a train from Grant Road to Andheri in the Mumbai suburbs, I can tell you that I'm quite looking forward to being back at Didcot Parkway next week. Mind you, my journey cost 10p and will certainly be packed under the category of "life experiences". The bundle to get off the train was reminscent of a bout of British Bulldog.

On the India thing, the Victoria Terminus (now renamed the Cchatrapati Shivaji Terminus by the local nationalist Shiv Sena party) would take some beating for grandiosity. Other favourites for me would be Bangkok's Hualamphong station, Grand Central in New York, Marylebone, Antwerp, and St. Pancras (with the caveats mentioned by others taken into account).

In the debit column, Brussels Midi is a shocker given it's a Eurostar terminus. Penn Station in New York and King's Cross are also terrible but nothing quite matches the aforementioned Didcot for sheer awfulness.

nefertiti wrote:


Are you quite sure about that?

That private waiting room is at the railway station, innit?

The station has a very nice pub there. It has ceilings so high you expect to see Spiderman crouching upside down on the roof.

I expect to see Spider-man crouching upside down on the roof everywhere I go.

impressed that you know to hyphenate his name.

Antwerp station is famously descibed inthe opening chapter of WG Sebald's Austerlitz

I would have mentioned Helsinki myself but have been beaten to it.

A moan, however, for Bristol Temple Meads, which is a shame because the building itself is... well... a tourist once asked me how to get to the train station when standing right across the road from it, because he thought it was the cathedral and that he was reading his map incorrectly.

This photo is far too big for the board.

The problem is the staff. Not even the company that runs the station (First Great Western, who are themselves a useless bunch of cunts) forcing its employees to be morons - if you ever want to find anything out, it's as if they're being wilfully antagonising. And I've been running for a train before now, got onto the platform and run towards a train that still has its doors open, called out to the kind person to hold it for ten seconds, and he's ignored me and signalled for the doors to be locked. The last time this happened the station clock was showing the time as a clear two minutes before the train as due to depart, as well. And when I put this to him he refused to even look at me as I followed him back down the platform to the stairs.

Wherein begins the other problem, because there's absolutely bloody nowhere to sit apart from a bar near the main entrance. There are a couple of (small) waiting rooms on a couple of the platforms, but they're locked early for the most part. It's a beautiful station, disastrously run.

Sport Economist, travelling by train in India is one of the greatest things about visiting that country. Wierdly though, I don't recall any particularly lovely stations on the journey I did last year on the Himsagar Express, other than Kanyakumari, a great big white and pastel pink confection. New Delhi station is bloody awful.

Victoria Terminus is absolutely fabulous hey?

Quite right about New Delhi station - not so good - and Varanasi is no great shakes either. Interesting due to the teeming humanity and the odd monkey, but architecturally undistinguished. People tell me that the train journey along the Arabian Sea coastline from Trivandrum to Goa is very special.

Another "unfavourite" in the UK would have to be Oxford - very ropey for such a historic town.

Maryport station, Cumbria.

Outside:



The platform in its entirety:



I wish I was kidding.

Sport Economist wrote:


That's very true. I was stuck there for two hours waiting for a delayed train once, and it's a right shabby bit of town too, so I didn't fancy exploring. I should have taken the Premetro somewhere nice, but having just come from somewhere nice on the Premetro, and got my luggage out of the locker, and gone through to the Eurostar "lounge", I couldn't be arsed. So instead I sat and drank de Koninck or something in the dreariest, most lightless, tattiest station bar you ever saw. It's really a lucky thing Belgian beer's so brilliant, or I might not have enjoyed the experience.

Why on Earth... wrote:


We feel your pain, Wyatt. Although Midi's grubby and too far from the Grand Place etc., its main failing is nothing to do with the locals- rather the over-the-top security insisted on by British passport control. See also Paris Nord- although if stuck there for a couple of hours, my tip is to tenez a droite along Rue Dunkerque as if heading to the Sacre Coeur. Three blocks along there's an excellent confiserie on the right-hand corner. They do beers as well.

Toby Gymshorts wrote:


Made all the worse for just having missed that train...

Well spotted Guy!

Those are the tail lights you can see.