Great Western Coffee Shop

Quote from Rob on the Hill on the "New Images" thread. "Number 3 is the delight that is Swindon bus station! "

While some stations, be they old or modern, are often fondly regarded or highly esteemed, it seems to me that bus stations don't quite seem to spark such enthusiams.

Could I be wrong here?  Are there bus stations of any note or value that fire the hearts and minds of forum members?

Likewise, are there any that fall into the "spectacularly awful" category that also warrent mention?


Edit to correct topic title

There's a place called Kielce in central Poland where the bus station has a domed glass roof that makes it look like a flying saucer. In fact, that's what the locals call it. And it has litter bins in the shape of penguins (though they don't talk like the ones on Barry Island).

Blimey, just googled it and it really does look like the Martians have landed.

 I like Nailsworth and Dursley bus stations for being just 2 or 3 stands with no facilities.
The worse one I came across was in Rome with stands for buses and not a timetable or any signs or words of what left from where. The buses were just as bad, all the same model, and all painted the same shade of blue. It was ask the driver or at the tabak half a mile down the road which was the only place you could buy tickets as the the drivers didnt have any way of handling cash/issuing tickets.
Gloucester, Paignton (Stagecoach) and Penzance (First) seem to have improved greatly in recent years.
Have to agree with grahame about Hull.....it is indeed a 'paragon' of a station...but at the same time it is the mostly thinly populated city I have ever come across in the UK.

I was in Hull a couple of weeks back and thought "wow" to the bus station set into one side of the railway station. And now that you mention it, I don't often think "wow" to a bus station.   Has anyone used a bus to / from Hull - was I right to get a really positive view of it?

Trains to the left (top picture).  Gifts for Mummy in the middle.  Buses to the right (bottom picture).

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hull1.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hull2.jpg)

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/hull3.jpg)

Paignton used to be pretty unremarkable at best, glad to hear it's a bit better. Plymouth was pretty grim too, dunno if that's been worked on recently.

I must say, I have to agree with both Grahame and yourself that Hull really looks a bit special.

I nominate "Yate Bus Station" for this category, it will give any other contender a good run for their money !!!!

Preston. Remarkable bus station. Dire town.

Blinkin' flip, google images of Preston bus station make it look more like an International Airport of some size and importance.


Yate bus station for worst in the UK, Martyjon? A strong contender for sure, until you go to Plymouth Bretonside (unless it's been given a facelift since the 1970s/80s).

.... and a mandatory W H Smiths too.

Preston. Remarkable bus station. Dire town.

My old stamping ground occasionally. Dark satanic mills and all that. First time I saw Led Zeppelin was in Preston, so it ain't all bad.



But the road to Hull is paved with good intentions, they say.

Can anyone beat this ;-

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__60AF3vdUew/TUcVr82OLjI/AAAAAAAAC3U/L-ddQ1OyavQ/s1600/yate+bus+station+%25284%2529a.jpg

There used to be, maybe still is, a good Indian restaurant just by Nailsworth bus station.

My favourite (so far) is Santiago, Chile, or Valparaiso at the other end. Tiverton isn't bad, although actual buses are thin on the ground. Smack in the centre of town, unlike Bristol.

Bristol bus station not in centre of town?  ???

Difficult to say these days where the centre of Bristol is. It's a long way from Temple Meads to the bus station.

It's an easy ten minute walk from home to the bus station, so it's "central for me".  :D ::) It's also close to Broadmead and the area still known as "The Centre" but it is less handy for Temple Meads.

Truro is alright being in a busy area. Northampton used to be bloody awful, so did Reading's long distance Alder Valley darkness. For local transport I have never favored a full on bus station on street bus stops work much better provided there is a decent central turning area or the routes cross town.
Preston has to be the winner for best.

Cardiff's bus station was well sited, next to Central Station and at one end of the town.  Couldn't really be any better, and avoided buses clogging up the city centre streets.  So of course they knocked it down and built offices instead a couple of years ago...

St ives on a sunny day has to be the most scenic

Best keep your drug buying habits to yourself. Kids - just say no.  :P

As an aside, the old Bristol Bus Station features at the beginning and end of and old British film from 1962 with Kenneth More, Ray Brooks and a very young looking David Hemmings in the cast.

It's all filmed at Bristol locations including Bristol Docks, the Portway, the Downs and Filton Airport.

To be fair, it's not exactly a brilliant film but definitely interesting to anyone who knows Bristol. Nearly forgot, it's called Some People.

A little more on topic, I quite like the Wandsbek Markt bus station in Hamburg which integrates nicely with the U-Bahn immediately below.

I lost my car in the vast car park above Preston bus station. A former colleague found his (then new) company Sierra eventually after parking there. He drove out, then opened the glove box to switch the radio on - no point in trying to call base from inside a car park. But there was no radio. He realised he had taken the wrong brand new Sierra. Someone must have been baffled when he got back to his car, probably on a different floor.

I saw the psychedelic rock band Gong in Preston Guildhall about 40 years ago. Walking back through the labyrinthine underpass below the bus station, we found the sax / flute player Count Bloomdido Badde de Grasse, aka Didier Malherbe, wandering, lost. We took him for a pint - he was really good company, although I was slightly disappointed not to have met "space whisper" Shakti Yoni (Gillian Smith, who died aged 83 in 2016), Daevid Allen, otherwise "Divided Alien" or "Bert Camembert", died 2015 aged 77, or Stevie Hillside, alias Steve Hillage, one of the better players of the electric guitar, and still very much with us at a youthful 67. We then found Didier's rather battered Citroen. Shakti Yoni was extremely sultry, and about two years younger than my mother.
The following month, me and the same mates ended up in the same pub with Yes, after seeing them play, purely because all the pubs close to the Guildhall were full, and they chose the same one as us for a post-gig snifter. Jon Anderson - first man I ever saw order a tonic water without gin. Rick Wakeman - first two pints didn't touch the sides.

I digress. I used to change trains at Preston when visiting my now late mother near Blackpool. The electrification was going on at that time, but wasn't finished in time for my last visit. Occasionally, thanks to split tickets, I would venture out of the station for one of them pints. It's not something I would wholeheartedly recommend.


An avenue of pleasure long closed to me. These days, it tends to be steroids, but man cannot live by Prednisolone alone.

Go to  for the seminal track "Phohat digs holes in space" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8c-Nl_r9Zs) and fast forward about 20 minutes.

In the case of Reading, oh to have a bus station to like (or not).

It certainly has been given a facelift - it's now an IMAX cinema and leisure complex.

Plymouth's "bus station" is now Royal Parade. There's a small coach station though, which is a converted shop and car park round the back of Mayflower Street.

I nominate Galashiels "Transport Interchange". Brand new, bus and railway stations combined, interesting architecture and nice facilities. Unfortunately you have to cross a road to get to the railway platform, but otherwise it's a model of how to do it, I'd say.

But just along the line in Port Talbot, they've just spent £17m on an incredibly windswept bus station next to the railway station, but are keeping the old bus station at the other end of town running as well. From what i can work out, only the routes that parallel the railway use the new bus station, with passengers having to change at both bus stations if they are coming from the train and are heading inland up the Afan valley. Having said that, with the bus service up the Afan valley strangely not continuing over the top into the Rhondda, it wouldn't really be very useful even if it did go to the right bus station.

I've recently spent a few minutes in Tiverton bus station, and changed my opinion. It isn't very good.

Thanks for that, I enjoy having my musical horizons broadened.

It would have been Cardiff - co-located with the main railway station (as they always should be if such is available) and very well organised - but I haven't been there for several years so did not realise it had been demolished.
This just serves to indicate that the members of Cardiff City Council responsible for transport are complete pillocks.
cf. Exeter City Council who are in the process of having our bus station rebuilt, at great expense, in the same place after ignoring at least two opportunities to relocate the facility adjacent to Central Station.

Slough has won praise for its architectural elegance.  ::)  :P

Just Googled it and it's certainly a bit unexpected.

Slough doesn't offer much in the way of shelter though. The former bus station was grotty but world famous and did a decent breakfast for drivers in the canteen.

I was there a few years back in the rain and was shocked at how easily you could get wet. The roof, though trendy, is too high and lets the rain in from the side.

https://www.dezeen.com/2011/10/02/slough-bus-station-by-bblur-architecture/

I had been using the old bus station since the early 80s but towards the end of its life, I was very wary of being there at night. It seemed too dark and dingy with unsavoury characters loitering around. Were they waiting for a bus? The 81 avoided the High St at night and still does I think so I had little choice but to wait at the bus station. The 81 stop was near a pedestrian opening onto Wellington Street so I would often stand just outside until the bus pulled up or started its engine and then walk back in.

The roof too high, brings to mind the new "canopy" on the down platform of Wokingham station. Possibly a good theoretical design but impractical in British weather. More generally I do wonder wheter designers need to "live" with the things they create more.

My mother was a very vocal criticizer of kitchen designers who placed cookers on the opposite side of kitchens to the sink, she said cookers should be placed next to a sink or in the case of a double drainer sink unit, next to a draining board so as to negate the need to carry a saucepan of vegges in a pot of boiling water halfway across the kitchen to strain them.

Likewise at Reading. Compare - if you remember - the efficient coziness of the Edwardian canopies and their close-fitting valances with the current, up-turned umbrella piece of architecture that floats quite uselessly above the platform when it rains in even the slightest of breeze.

Agree designer should be made to use what they design. Perhaps waiting at Slough bus station on a cold rainy winters night?

As for Reading we even had trouble on the transfer deck with the Coffee Shop banner being caught by sudden gusts of wind.

I couldn't let this thread go by without some mention of the wonderful Art Deco 1930's bus station in Derby.  All the platforms were "through", so no bus ever had to reverse to get in or out.  Yes a bit windy (the wind went "through" too), but easy to use, and lovely architecture.

Closed in 2005, Demolished in 2006. :'(
The replacement didn't open till 2010, so for 4 years, Derby buses used city centre roadside stops.  As stated by Reading General above:
and Derby seemed to work OK.

See here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_bus_station) for Wikipedia link, where there's a photo or two.

Yes the reverse out, space saving type bus station used in many places has only really been suitable for interurban or rural services. Higher frequency town routes work better 'on street' if you like. This set up probably existed in most places which had a single company or corporation running the town local routes. Reading, Oxford, Bournemouth, Coventry, these are all places that have or had this arrangement. Many towns local transport evolved in the same way Reading's did, from tramways and trolleybuses to buses. So the bus station arrangement only existed for the beyond the boundary services which, in Reading were provided by Thames Valley. I still believe this set up works best provided that main local routes cross town, or have a reasonably quick street terminus in the centre if they are radial. However, in Reading's case nothing really works anymore with making connections between buses, or between bus and train as the town centre street layout has been altered in the last decade. It doesn't necessarily need a bus station, except for perhaps the interurban/rural routes (station northern entrance stops perhaps?)  it just needs the whole town centre layout lifting up and started again to simplify and give a bit more room for public transport. It wouldn't be that difficult, after all I was almost perfect in the early 2000's. Then again this is the U.K. where everything is hard work.

The old bus station looks like some London Underground Stations do. Off course they were all built around the same time.

The incarnation of Leicester's St Margaret's bus station that I remember so well (not really that fondly to be honest as it was like a wind tunnel) was the one built just before the Second World War, with the bus shelters doubling up as above ground air raid shelters. One picture of what that was like is here  (https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9b/3f/b2/9b3fb263a1f005d5d823af9dbaba1899.jpg)- there isn't much online and the likes of Wikipedia doesn't even acknowledge its existence, referring only to its mid 1980s replacement, and the subsequent one in the 2000s. When it came to be demolished the shelters took days each in keeping with their original purpose, being concrete over a foot thick.

This was only for coaches and county buses - the City Transport barely used it. Modern-day successors do a bit, and another station near-by, but many just run across the centre on streets.

I'm guessing she was not a Part P electrician! Although you can get away with 300mm between sink and cooker, some say.

Correct, she would have needed a CORGI registration to fit her gas cooker.   ;D

NOT CORRECT!

CORGI lost their rights to be the registration service for gas fitters a few years ago.  The new registration service is Gas Safe.  CORGI registration has little meaning these days. A gas fitter must now be on the Gas Safe register (even if they are also CORGI registered).

New gas and electric cookers must be installed by competant electrictions, for electric or Gas Safe registered for Gas cookers. But can be fairley close to the sink, about 500mm or so.

Meanwhile back to bus stations, Poole is pretty dreadfull. Though there are major plans afoot for a new one soon, but of course the railway that runs directly behind the new site is NOT part of the plan, a nice straight level piece of track too, while the current Poole railway (not train) station is on a sharp curve, seems like anither missed opertunity that will be with us for another few decades.

Swindon (bus station) ain’t so brilliant.

Wind the clock back to 1948, that's the era I'm talking about, she'd probably needed a certificate of proficiency in ordnance disposal then.

Newbury has just moved its bus station to a previous location away from the railway. Although not that close to the station and a set of stairs between the two, it was reasonably convenient for swapping between bus and train. However, the location it sits now is closer to the shopping areas of the town, so one loss is another areas gain, and I would question how many were swapping between bus and train anyhow.

I have started a new thread [here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/21775)] about the design of the new bus station in Utopia with a list of principles that should be considered.    Keep the horror stories of having to hold your breath as you exit the bus station through a sea of smokers here!  ;)

Hi All,

A pleasant Bus Station is Sheffield, close to Station.

The story of the new Cardiff Bus station and why it is late was covered in this BBC report.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46114122

Basset

I would comment on a related thread about the utopia of  Exeter bus station, if I read it correctly which awoke my memories of a friendly coach + bus outfit called optimistically 'Utopia'. Sadly no longer with us...the closure of which would deeply inconvenience the good people of Drax, Skipwith and Tadcaster (a spot with limited faciities, other than canopies). So once I have read a thread, how do I rediscover same, once I have moved on?)

https://www.busandcoachbuyer.com/utopia-coaches-liquidation/

A bit of a tangent - Blackpool, where I went to school once or twice, lost its bus station, a monolith with multi-story car park in the neo-Stalinist brutal style, some years ago. Some bemoan it, saying the network of shelters around the central area is inadequate, but the stop closest to Blackpool North station is closer than the bus station by a few yards, and with fewer busy roads to cross.

The council, a few years ago, decided to reinstate the tram link from the promenade to Blackpool North, lost in the 1930s. Funding was won, designs done, and work commenced. When the track had been renewed along the promenade a decade back, someone had the foresight to leave two-way points heading inland, but it was still a major job. The road between prom and station was closed to traffic for quite a while, but the track was eventually laid - nearly. The terminus is to be a modern development on the site of the Wilko store opposite the station. Wilko were to be given a brand new store on a nearby development. But there was a hitch in the legal process for buying the site of the new Wilko, meaning that it is still open at the original site, and is all that is in the way of the new tram link, now delayed for another year or two.

And leading to this rather surreal picture by my pal John McCarthy.

(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7884/46209047495_751d974ef1_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2dpkrVr)2019-02-16 019 (https://flic.kr/p/2dpkrVr) by John McCarthy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/140404710@N06/), on Flickr

When it is built, I am sure I will love it!

The full story, with lots of pictures, is on the Skyscrapercity (https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=572141) thread. If you do look through it, see if you can guess which of the posters is me.

If the tram stop is by the Pick 'n Mix that'll suit me fine. A bonus if there's a loop through DIY and Men's Toiletries.

Love the picture.  Until I read the text, I wondered if Wilko were now receiving their goods for sale by rail .... or perhaps had a sideline in second hand class 27, 37, 47 locomotives that people with appropriate driving licenses could buy and take away.

From Bath Bus Station, yesterday at around midday.  An illustration of some of the issues that really need sorting.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/busstationproblem.jpg)

Love the decoy owl and pigeon spikes that have attracted a pigeon.

Love the timetable board that just tells you to refer to timetables.

But did you note the state of the pigeons 'bathroom floor' below the departures board, at least they up their tail feathers and 'fire'. away from passengers looking up at the departures board.

Meanwhile the legal profession's cash register is clicking up thousands of pounds of council taxpayers money for basically doing FA.

From my experiences there, I would say it might as well just have this on the board all the time, as what is on the screen rarely equates with what buses are actually doing. I understand that updating the screen is actually done by the local authority rather than First Bus.

The screen will often tell you your bus is going in one minute or is due and there is no sign of it anywhere. It then disappears off the screen as if it has gone, and you don't know whether to wait around in case it does turn up, or give up and find another way to travel. It will also tell you your bus is at the bay it should be at, when it is actually in a completely different bay.

Just as in froome's example above, I've had a couple of interesting times at Bath Bus Station working out what is going from where, to where and when. Always manged to sort it out but not particularly thanks to the electronic "information" board.

It's not just Bath though. In my experience bus/coach station departure/destination information never seems as clear as at most railway stations but perhaps it's because I use railway stations more?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/27/i-caught-the-train-and-bus-across-europe-to-impress-a-hot-man-and-to-try-to-save-the-world

Preston's impressive bus station is up for a RIBA award.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-48785495

Gets my vote!