Victoria Coach Station

[Petrushka]

As I was in London anyway on Thursday for the Proms I made my way to Victoria Coach Station to meet a relative arriving on a Eurolines coach from Berlin. It was the first time I've ever been there and hope I never have the misfortune to pass through its doors again.

The place was very hot, smelly, intolerably over-crowded, staff were harassed and bad tempered and it cost 30p to go to the loo. In addition, the Arrivals terminal was closed for emergency gas repairs so coaches were arriving in Departures leading to even more overcrowding.

TfL should be ashamed of a dump like this and it should be bulldozed with a smart new station built at a more accessible location.

Anyone else got a horror story about this dump?

[Nick Armstrong]

Never had to grapple, but from the fringes (dropping people off) it always looks dire.

Maybe this should go on the 'Tourist Office' sub-forum (which could indeed cover places to stay well clear of, as well as places to visit!)?

[VodkaDilc]

It was fine in the late 60s, when I could travel to London by coach for about a quarter of the train fare - thus saving my student grant for more useful expenditure. It sounds as if it might not have changed in the 45 years since.

[Petrushka]

It was fine in the late 60s, when I could travel to London by coach for about a quarter of the train fare - thus saving my student grant for more useful expenditure. It sounds as if it might not have changed in the 45 years since.

Probably been through any number of re-furbs since then but it is a place to avoid at all costs and never more so than on a baking hot day.

[mangerton]

It was fine in the late 60s, when I could travel to London by coach for about a quarter of the train fare - thus saving my student grant for more useful expenditure. It sounds as if it might not have changed in the 45 years since.

That's exactly when I was last there, having been decanted from the overnight coach from Edinburgh.

[salymap]

It was fine in the 50s when friends and I caught a coach for Edinburgh to visit the Festival. £3.50 as far as Ican remember. The only drawback, it took 17 hours with long stops in Stamford and the Scottish Border.

It obviously is a place to avoid now.

[Sir Velo]

It had become a soulless stinking dump, with cast-off syringes in the gutter, by the time I last frequented it in the early 90s as a starting point to journeying to a girlfriend studing at the University of Glas-gee.

[Flosshilde]

It was fine in the 50s when friends and I caught a coach for Edinburgh to visit the Festival. £3.50 as far as Ican remember.

£3.50 (or £3 10 shillings) in 1955 would be the equivalent of £101 now, according to this site http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/b...nged-1900.html. Inflation for coach fairs though doesn't seem to have been as great as the inflation rate used to calculate that, as the dearest fair from National Express now is £47 (& it's a lot quicker on the motorways now).

[teamsaint]

Look around Heathrow, the No 1 UK airport, and it's clear to see why Victoria Coach station has no chance........

[gurnemanz]

Never an edifying place, I haven't been there for ages. There was a good BBC documentary a few weeks ago, which is still on Youtube. I enjoyed the chap telling us about directing someone to the bus for Torquay, when the person was actually going to Turkey.

[Nick Armstrong]

I hope Petrushka won't mind, this seemed such an ideal case for the 'places to avoid' desk in The Tourist Office, so I've moved it to that part of Platform 3. I don't think it should cause any confusion.

Since posting this morning, I've remembered a largely-blocked memory of attempting to accompany an elderly relative to her coach north after a family function... I seem to remember it was like an experience from a third-world country in terms of inadequacies of information, lateness of the service, rude staff.

(Am I still allowed to refer to "third-world countries" in this way? )

[teamsaint]

I think you will find that it is the Developing world , Cals.

You know, like Somerset.

[Petrushka]

I hope Petrushka won't mind, this seemed such an ideal case for the 'places to avoid' desk in The Tourist Office, so I've moved it to that part of Platform 3. I don't think it should cause any confusion.

Since posting this morning, I've remembered a largely-blocked memory of attempting to accompany an elderly relative to her coach north after a family function... I seem to remember it was like an experience from a third-world country in terms of inadequacies of information, lateness of the service, rude staff.

(Am I still allowed to refer to "third-world countries" in this way? )

I didn't even know the Tourist Office sub-forum was open for business or, indeed, existed at all. Since when? Obviously, this is the right place so no problems...

[Nick Armstrong]

Since when?

Yesterday!

Do add threads with earthly paradises or alternatively, more hell-holes!

[Nick Armstrong]

I think you will find that it is the Developing world , Cals.

You know, like Somerset.

Easy, tiger.