The best thing that can be said about Uttoxeter Railway Station is that it's useful. The most significant thing that can be said is that it's next to the main Uttoxeter Racecourse.
And that's all the attributes that it can really boast in the 21st century. It's unstaffed, there's no ticket sales point, no refreshment point, no toilet facilities, no waiting rooms and no lots of other things.
It's a two-track station, with each side of the platform having a covered shelter. The seats inside are that awful slanted bench style (to discourage Special-Brew swilling itinerants and teenagers?) and they aren't always any too clean (proof of the failure of their purpose?).
On the small walkway up there is a public payphone. Hooray. But don't expect to be able to catch a taxi into town ..
The Uttoxeter Taxi service is legendary - in that many people have heard of it, most people believe it probably exists, but no-one you ever speak to has seen it for real. I kid you not. If you do manage to get hold of a taxi number then be sure to book well in advance - at least a day or two, if you have a shed-load of luggage to porter.
There are town buses that stop here, although in all my years of travelling to Uttoxeter I've never actually seen one. Another myth I hope to disprove one day.
The other down-side is that whilst Platform One can be walked straight onto from the car park, you have to cross the track on foot (no bridge or tunnel) to reach Platform Two. I've done this with luggage and a small toddler in a buggy in the past, and it's actually quite scary, worrying if a wheel is going to get stuck.
It wasn't always like this - the town has been rail-linked since 1848, and at one stage in it's 19thC history had three railway stations to boast of. But progress dictates change and at the end of the 19thC these were amalgamated into the one station that still stands today. A fire destroyed the station building back in the late 1980's and was never rebuilt to it's full glory.
Now, however it simply serves the Crewe/Derby line, with it's gateway to larger stations are Stoke and Stafford. The trains are faily regular - hourly - and if they run on time (reasonably so) then at least the station is soon a thing of memory! read more