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Top 10 challenge
I'm onna train, so here are 10 railway stations I like. In no particular order, and for various different reasons.
1. Frankfurt Hbf. This was where my international rail travels began. Standing on the concourse, looking at the departure boards (getting slightly earwormed by Stuttgart and Fulda), realising that I could get pretty much anywhere from here...
2. London St Pancras. It's beautiful. It's not actually a terribly pleasant experience getting a train from here (maybe the East Midlands and South Eastern platforms are better) but from the outside it's a fairy tale castle.
3. Stockholm. Rolling in, bleary eyed, off the sleeper from Malta, through dingy orange lights, and then suddenly you're in this marble palace. (I got chugged in Stockholm station. I don't know what I was doing to look like a Swede with disposable income rather than a discombobulated tourist, but there we go.)
4. London King's Cross. Never mind all that wizard nonsense, it has a fully functional platform zero. Also the toilets are free these days.
5. Liège Guillemins. Just glorious.
6. Ryde Pier Head. When it's operational and when you don't just miss the train because the catamaran was thirty seconds late. But there's still something fun about a station in the sea.
7. Dawlish. Train to beach in under a minute (your mileage may vary, as may mine considering I haven't been there in about a decade).
8. York. Never mind a pub in the station, it has one on the platform. Lovely stained glass, too.
9. Norwich. Light, gracious, makes you glad you've arrived.
10. Luxembourg. Stained glass again - and just time for an ice cream before the train.
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again, no particular order
London Blackfriars: it's onna bridge, in London, with amazing views in both directions. I never get tired of going through it.
Portsmouth Harbour: walk off the train, walk onto the ferry. It's not pretty but it's a big open airy space, and you can see the boats in the Naval Yard if you have to wait a while
Dovey Junction: it's in the middle of nowhere and mostly it's for changing from the Aberystwyth line to the Pwllheli line, but it's also the physically closest to my aunt's house and you can follow footpaths from the station across the fields and through the woods to visit her (marginally more sensible is getting off at Machynlleth and getting picked up or taking a bike). And you can see the hills and the estuary and it's beautiful
London King's Cross: the new roof over departure hall, all polygons of metal and glass, I saw it the first time on a trip to London for something politics related, and I was pregnant with Nico, and I just stopped dead to take in the sight of it. Plus also platform zero is the best platform number.
London Paddington: I love that huge train shed. I love less the noise of it, all the diesel trains because GWR electrification takes so long. I love that for a long time it was the last stop on the way home to the place I grew up (which is no longer home).
Bristol Temple Meads: another huge grand GWR station, and the clock with Bristol and London time on it. From here we might be going south to Dawlish or into Cornwall, or further west into Wales, or cross country to Birmingham and family elsewhere
Paris Gare de Lyon: so large, so open, so airy. An easy transfer from the metro, and if I'm there we're on our way somewhere. For many years it was to my father-in-law, most recently it was to Vienna and the sleeper to take us on our way to Czechia.
Praha hlavní nádraží (Prague main station): I was there just last week, meeting my lovely friend who'd travelled all the way from Brno to meet up while I was briefly in her country. It's a beautiful building and the station was easy to navigate, get a drink, meet her on the platform and walk off again to get a tram.
Dawlish Warren: smaller than Dawlish but same easy access to the beach. We had a number of family day trips to the seaside there
Aberystwyth: mainline trains one platform, steam train from another
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Prague struck me as rather dingy, but I think they may have been refurbishing it when I went through there in 2018.
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I would vote for Helsinki. When my mother came to visit me in Finland, she couldn't find the platforms as it hadn't occurred to her that in a cold country they would put the trains outside.
I also love Paddington, partly because it's now the London station I use the most, but because of the walkway across the top of the platforms where you can look down on the trains and up at the arch of the roof away from all the crowds waiting in the main concourse for their platform to be announced. And the transfer to and from the Elizabeth Line is now so smooth and easy and the new Elizabeth Line station is airy and modern and seamlessly also part of Paddington Station without having to go down endless tiled corridors. It has cut an hour off my time crossing London to get to Essex.
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I have only been on the eastern end of the Elizabeth line so far. The planner app tells me it makes it possible for me to go to Winchester via Reading from here, which would never have occurred to me.
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And an honourable mention for Lewes which is really pretty.
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