One stars seem to low so two is where I am even though there are a mixture of issues with my local…read morestation. The staff tend to be quite nice, although hardly ever there, the ticket office seems to shut in the early afternoon and this often means that you will have to que for sometime in one location or another (destination station) to get a ticket, as there is no ticket machine available (it annoys me quite a lot). There have been some improvements made over the past year, such as adding self opening doors at the ticket office/waiting room (when it is open) so that you won't suffer from the wind while waiting in there, but on the whole this is a fairly dismal place to end up waiting for a train, even more so if the train you were hoping to catch has for some unknown reason been cancelled.

Maybe I'm just biased because I've spent far too many hours of my life freezing my arse off on the…read moreplatforms of Burnage train station, but during the Winter months, it is - without a shadow of a doubt - the coldest place on earth. There's no indoor seating, and your face is regularly whipped by the wind from the intercity trains whistling past you at 80 mph. 90% of the time, you're unable to purchase a ticket before getting onto the train to Manchester Piccadilly, and if you're REALLY lucky, you'll be able to see some of the charming local characters attempting to lob rocks through the open doors of any train which decides to stop there. Still. At least Northern Rail has deigned to "do it up" over the past few years. By which I mean they've repainted a few benches and added a few digital train times boards. If you ever find yourself stuck here for more than twenty minutes, I heartily recommend that you either get a can of something strong, warming and alcoholic to keep you company or just get the bus.