favourite main station?

[earthJoker]

It could be an error, it is maybe Sx, S-Bahnhof instead of 5x

It's not an error, the tracks are just not numbered through. The reason for this is simple, this way you can easier for the passenger to find out where to go. You have to see that tracks 51-54 are only temporary until 31 - 34 are build.
I don't know why the numbers 4x are not used. Actually I think tracks 1 and 2 should be 41 and 42, and the tracks 3-18 should be 1-16.

Letters are not used because they already define the sectors of a track.

BTW there are 26 tracks.

[Svartmetall]

Favourite: Berlin Hauptbahnhof by FAR. It's amazing!

Second Place: London Waterloo

Third Place: Sydney Central.

[Xusein]

St.Pancras, London

I have never been here, but it truly is quite a beauty.

[Schmeek]

I love Train stations....they seem to hold a certain magic. It's like any major transport hub, I suppose, like airports; there is a buzz to them because there is invariably a mix of people from all walks of life from many different nations each doing their seperate thing, trying to get somewhere. But I think train staions have something more than airports or bus stations. I think because many of them are so old, you can sense/smell the history and the people from a bygone age.

My favorites from those I have visited are London St Pancras, Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Amsterdam Centraal, Paris Gare du Nord, and I loved the station at Marseille for it's location because as soon as you leave the train and exit the station you are presented with an amazing view over the whole city!

And as a Bristolian I suppose I'd better add my city's station, the beautiful Bristol Temple Meads. It is the oldest railway terminus building(or main station) in the world. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, trains first ran here in 1840.

The main entrance



The old main building now housing a museum





Ps sorry about the quality of the first image - that's one of mine! Other images were anonymous.

[Justme]

Previously I had listed Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof as one of my favourite stations, but having used it extensively over the last few days I sadly will exclude this from my list. The station is still visually impressive, but a station needs more than cosmetics to be great. The problems I found for Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof were as follows:

• Some of the East/West (top level) platforms are far too narrow for practical usage, and this is already before the station has even reached it’s capacity. There are area’s on the platform where the escalators or light wells are placed and here there is little more than a meter or two of space. Coming off the ICE, it was so packed it was almost impossible to get off the train. This didn’t just happen once, but several times and also on the S-bahn trains that use that top level.
• When I came off the ICE, I needed to buy a local train ticket for the S-bahn. I could only see four ticket machines on the platform (in pairs and spaced quite far apart), and everyone else coming off the ICE were having the same idea, so there were long lines behind each machine. So long, it took me 20minutes to get a ticket missing several S-bahns in the process. Again, I noticed this several times when I used the station.
• At the end of the journey, I had arrived at the station with several hours before my train to kill and wanted to shoot around the city. Usually this is a simple process of storing my luggage, but not at this station. There was only one left luggage point which had a massive line that covered a good section of that side of the top floor. I waited for 15 minutes but gave up when the line wasn’t moving and realized that their left luggage was already full. This is crazy as it wasn’t even a weekend, just a normal weekday.
• The Hauptbahnhof, it’s all it’s physical glory is really in a stupid location with poor connections to the rest of the city. I noticed on their website how they talk of great connections for Europe, East-West, North-South, but this is really just advertising nonsense. It doesn’t matter if trains come from the North and that they enter the station from the North. I came from the South and entered from the West. What really matters is local transport, and this station is very poor for this. There is no North-South local transport at all. No U-bahn stop, and the only local connection is the East-West S-bahn. I know that in a couple of years a small U-bahn shuttle will link it to the south, but it will probably be another 15years before a real U-bahn line links this station.

Sure, many other stations also have some problems, but this is a new station and I would have thought that they would have learned enough from over a hundred years of station building to get these right.

[Andrew]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this before now, but I really like the interior of Auckland's Britomart railway station (pics are from Google):











The platforms are underground, I really like the curved metal ceiling and coloured lighting.

[Svartmetall]

Originally Posted by Andrew

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this before now, but I really like the interior of Auckland's Britomart railway station (pics are from Google):











The platforms are underground, I really like the curved metal ceiling and coloured lighting.

Britomart is a disaster. It was built in a hurry, has had pieces of roof fall in and is hellishly impractical. It only has two tracks leaving the whole station hindering its capacity big time. Not only this, but the whole thing is occupied by old diesel trains which give the station an unhealthy blue haze and disgusting smell, not only this, the ballast has been so stained by oil you can hardly tell it's ballast anymore! A total of five platforms exist, but they park trains in there ready for peak meaning trains quite often double park and this involves running up and down the platforms. It's incredibly poorly lit and at night can be very dark and dingy. As you can quite clearly see, the roof isn't exactly waterproof and puddles form on the platforms, not a good start. Finally, the platform information system is shocking.

So yes, Britomart isn't a bad LOOKING train station, it's just one of the worst I've ever used and I use it almost daily unfortunately.

[p-s-30@za2]

Tokyo stasion
Kyoto station
Umeda station

[Basel_CH]

Central Bahnhof Basel (Basel SBB)

[invincible]

Hey, dark lighting isn't always bad. Melbourne's Southern Cross station has night time lighting levels similar to a very overcast day, and it's just a bit of mood lighting. Having lots of people and lots of trains at any given time helps too.



In terms of track infrastructure, Britomart might struggle a bit in the future - the number of tracks and platforms there is comparable to some outer suburban terminus stations over here.

[Justme]

Britomart doesn't seem to count for me. It maybe the central terminus, but it's really just the size of a suburban station or a large metro station - though generally a lot less busy. I believe they only started Sunday train services in Auckland 2 years ago on only 3 trains an hour on that day.

[Irwell]

Originally Posted by Schmeek

And as a Bristolian I suppose I'd better add my city's station, the beautiful Bristol Temple Meads. It is the oldest railway terminus building(or main station) in the world. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, trains first ran here in 1840.

The oldest operational railway terminus in the world is Liverpool's Lime Street station, which opened in 1836, though the oldest remaining railway terminus, though now in disuse, is Manchester's Liverpool Road station which opened in 1830.

My choice in this poll would be Manchester's Piccadilly station, recently voted the best railway station in the UK.

[Svartmetall]

Originally Posted by Justme

Britomart doesn't seem to count for me. It maybe the central terminus, but it's really just the size of a suburban station or a large metro station - though generally a lot less busy. I believe they only started Sunday train services in Auckland 2 years ago on only 3 trains an hour on that day.

Yep, that's correct - 3 trains per hour, one train per line so you get an hourly service on each line. It's a half hourly service on each line on Saturday though.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

Britomart is a disaster. It was built in a hurry, has had pieces of roof fall in and is hellishly impractical. It only has two tracks leaving the whole station hindering its capacity big time. Not only this, but the whole thing is occupied by old diesel trains which give the station an unhealthy blue haze and disgusting smell, not only this, the ballast has been so stained by oil you can hardly tell it's ballast anymore! A total of five platforms exist, but they park trains in there ready for peak meaning trains quite often double park and this involves running up and down the platforms. It's incredibly poorly lit and at night can be very dark and dingy. As you can quite clearly see, the roof isn't exactly waterproof and puddles form on the platforms, not a good start. Finally, the platform information system is shocking.

So yes, Britomart isn't a bad LOOKING train station, it's just one of the worst I've ever used and I use it almost daily unfortunately.

Ah right, I didn't know that. I just took a look down there when I was on holiday in Auckland last year and thought it looked cool. Shame about the problems with it.

[anguspil]

Buenos Aires Main Stations

Constitucion Station (Main South Station):









Retiro Mitre Station (Main North Station):





Retiro Belgrano Station:

[erbse]

Damn, SP really has some architecturally impressive (and huge) stations

[Yardmaster]

Originally Posted by Svartmetall

Yep, that's correct - 3 trains per hour, one train per line so you get an hourly service on each line. It's a half hourly service on each line on Saturday though.

Seriously you Kiwis ... for somewhere without oilfields you need to do better than that. I know Wellington's a bit more PT- friendly, but Auckland aspires to be a global city.

But Britomart is ... better than nothing! btw, where did the name come from?

[Svartmetall]

Originally Posted by Yardmaster

Seriously you Kiwis ... for somewhere without oilfields you need to do better than that. I know Wellington's a bit more PT- friendly, but Auckland aspires to be a global city.

But Britomart is ... better than nothing! btw, where did the name come from?

Named after Point Britomart in Auckland.

If you're interested in our rail timetables...Just go here and type in "Southern Line" and "Western Line". The Southern Line timetable shows both the Southern and Eastern line so don't worry about searching seperately for the Eastern Line. Yes Auckland is very PT unfriendly (and by the way I'm not a Kiwi, ), and no I really don't think it will ever be a global city really... Not in the true sense of the term.

[city_thing]

Auckland might be one day. It has the population, the natural setting and weather. It just needs to put a massive amount of funding into PT. Considering how committed NZ is towards sustainability, I'm suprised they haven't announced any major PT transport projects (apart from the City centre loop).
It seems these days that Wellington has really stolen the crown for being 'NZ's best city'.

Auckland does have a long way to go before it's "world class" (this term is thrown about so much that it's lost all relevance) -it has to compete for glory against the brash, arrogant cities of Australia's east coast for one thing, and those cities won't like their tourists choosing Auckland over themselves.

Anyway, back to topic, I liked Britomart. I had no idea it was such a disaster.

[Danielle Bandeira]

Originally Posted by sweek

Antwerp is beautiful, but I don't think it's very convenient to be honest. At least not in the old layout; I hope it will be a lot better once they're done with the rebuilding.

Not sure if it counts as a "main station" since there are many in London, but St. Pancras is quite beautiful.


It looks slightly spooky at night!

I love it!
It's one of the most wonderful main stations I have seen in my life.