Edinburgh Waverley station needs me.

You don't know what a windy railway station is until you've been on the Settle/Carlisle line. Standing at Ribblehead Station (N Yorks) with the wind coming at you from all four points of the compass (sometimes all at once!), it can whip a fur-lined Icelandic knitted hat off your head in a nanosecond...

I had time to kill once at Waverley (meeting people off a much delayed train) and whiled away the time helping a guy find the platform for Aberdeen. He was clearly in drink and it was early afternoon. I asked when he had started drinking. "Wednesday".

Suspect oil rig related.

Also I'll take Haymarket and raise you a Slateford. Parked there got the train to Waverley to meet DS returning from school trip, both train back to Slateford. Jump in car.

I live a very sad life in that I’ve never been to Edinburgh or Glasgow, both of which my adult ds informs me are well worth visiting (but have gone more Scottisher to The Highlands!)
I’ve always found Birmingham New Street hideously confusing. It’s all zones and gates and see through walls.
Tunnocks (all varieties) are imho superior to Percy Pigs. And are Scottish so that confirms their better status.

From Edinburgh, I thought it was just me 🤣

Oh yes, RIP Felix and happy retirement to Bolt.

It's donkeys since I went through Peterborough, I remember I could never tell the difference between Peterborough and Stevenage, which is such a northern thing to say 😀

Taunton is a station that manages to remain at an ambient temperature all year round. No idea what that's all about but I wish Network Rail would roll it out across the country.

I got stuck at Peterborough once for over 3 hours
on the hottest day of the year possibly decade I’d have done anything for a draught! Thank fook for the free water fountain!

Oh god yeah! I would take Waverly every time over Birmingham New Street!

Which route do you normally take op?
I use Waverley most days. The more long distance trains tend to leave from the edge platforms at either side of the station, or down the stairs on your way out of side exit at Brewhemia.
The more central ones, Glasgow, Stirling, Fife circle ones tend to leave from the main station bit through the barriers if that’s any help

Oh ye softies. You don't know know the meaning of lost till you've tried Waverley in a wheelchair.

I swear a little ghost of me is still going up and down in those fecking lifts – including the one that debouches inside the Mor Bakehouse down the ramp from the plaza – because someone mentioned there was a Sainsburys "somewhere in the mall" when the M&S was being refurbished.

Birmingham New St is terrible since it was "improved". Used to be grotty but straightforward. Now I wander hopelessly for ages trying to find the right "zone".

Euston, on the other hand, is loathsomely ugly and unpleasant to spend time in, but is very easy to navigate.

YAB massively U.

Who chooses fudge when you could have tablet?

I'd definitely agree with Peterborough. It manages to be drafty on a completely still day.

I think this is bad advice, to be honest. If you get on at Waverley you are more likely to get a seat.

I do recall seeing a station map somewhere in Waverley recently, although I cannot remember exactly where, maybe on the main concourse. I do know my way around so I didn’t pay too much attention.

York is also draughty, I grant you that. As is Carlisle. And Crewe now I come to think of it. It's years since I was there but I wonder if Derby is the same (you can see my railway-connected thinking here.)

I've spent much of the last 30 years of my life on the UK rail network and finally it's coming into play tonight on Mumsnet. Who knew.

I thought York was the draughtiest station in the UK? It’s literally a wind tunnel whereas Waverley has been platform 7 and the wall along it platform 1 to protect us from the elements (and possibly some platform 18 if anyone can tell me where it is!!)
the worst is travelling In first class on the LNER trains when the platform is so long that the first class
carriages at the front / rear of the train are half way to East Lothian and well beyond the roof of Waverley when it’s raining!! #FirstWorldProblems

It's definitely a lot quieter, but...

it does also involve going up a set of stairs, across a bridge, and then down again in the hidden drop off/pick up point and then schlepping up a bit of a hill (quite short actually) with no clear indication that John Lewis is there until you get to the top of the hill.

Another word of warning - take ear muffs just in case the only person who can't play the piano is banging away on it. (To be fair that was just the once, the people who play it mostly can play, but it was fairly bad the one time it did happen.)

And when you get to John Lewis it looks as if it's the wrong door because it's the white goods department which doesn't look like it's part of the shop.

As you can see Waverley station has depleted me of all optimism and positive thinking!

Although I did once see a fox walking through the station just as we were coming out of the Covid lockdowns. Came in via the Market Street steps and then went down into the station somehow - via the steps to one of the platforms at that end I think.

See I find Waverley a doddle. Possibly because I grew up here. Birmingham New Street on the hand has me completely befuddled with all the different locked zones for the same platform numbers . Can I offer my services to guide mumsnetters round Waverley (DH calls me Sherpa no never, so I'll help carry your luggage too) in exchange for someone rescuing me whenever I need to change trains in Birmingham?

I do understand though - MIL once booked tickets for a large number of the extended family from Nottingham to Oban changing at Waverley among other places. Only she booked tickets with only 6 minutes between the two trains because she thought it was sure to be fine, and that after all they were bound to arrange it so the two platforms would be close by. I insisted on meeting them to help because they would have never done it otherwise, and they only managed it then because I spent half an hour before they were due in talking to every single uniformed person I could find, their carriage fortuitously stopped directly opposite the lift from platform 10, where I was standing with luggage trolleys at the ready holding the lift for the less able members of the party and the luggage while one of my new friends raced the rest up the stairs across the bridge and down the stairs to platform 14 where the rest of my new friends were either holding the wider ticket gate open for them to run through or at the door of the train ready to throw all the luggage on after them. One of my finest achievements,🤣

And I love that ‘getting off at haymarket’ is a euphemism for coitus interruptus. Only in Edinburgh.

My "local" is Doncaster, it has half platforms, trains leaving from one end or the other of the platform, dead platforms... and its impossible to get lost in. Plus an awesome little pub.

I totally agree, and I’m a local (or at least very nearly so, as long as I can locate the train to Tweedbank!). The long walk to platform 7, the ‘is it 1 or 20’ conundrum, the random barriers. It has it all, and that’s without trying to get a bloody M&S sandwich without being swiped by a tourist’s backpack. Fabulous!