Farringdon Station

For a cyclist this station is a dream! The fact that I can use my non-​folded bicycle in elevator that the station provides from the platforms is awesome! Which is also good for the elderly and disabled users or just for the plain lazy who cant be asked to use the stairs haha!
The station is spacious and has the barrier which is wide for me to get my bicycle through. The station is also quiet at the weekends which is a bonus for a cyclist too.

Lovely BIG station located very centrally. It has multiple street entries making it easy to navigate. The staff is always friendly and helpful.

A lot on construction still going here. It is confusing with both the underground and overground next to each other. I was confused on how to get from one to the other.

Direkte Verbindung zu Paddington und Paddington Express.
Dazu viele andere Linien, daher gute zentrale Station zum ansteuern.

Don’t listen to them Farringdon Station, they know not what they are talking about!
I hear the rumours, that you used to be closed on the weekend and that engineering problems kept people from really liking you. But as of today, none of them are true! You are open on non-​work days, your entrance is wide and the construction is now happening around the corner from. Your trains run, your staff is friendly and you are great.
When I moved to London, you were my go-​to spot for travel and I’ll never forget you. Ever.

Considering the pain in the behind ‘engineering works that are going on, this station is actually doing an ok job of working well, and not causing me too much bother. I guess my biggest bugbear is that it’s closed every weekend which mean that you either have to go to Barbican or Chancery Lane — not cool.
However, that said it’s great if you’re heading out of London from Euston or King Cross, and I like where it is situated in terms of walking to neighbouring wards. There are also some pretty fabulous eateries and bars not to far away.
Lastly, I rather like that trains run to my beloved ‘Southside’. Stopping in Peckham, Elephant & Castle and Herne Hill, amongst other southern destinations. This is super handy if you want to avoid the underground (which most of us do), and or just want to pop over to Brixton Village* for something nice to eat!
*Get off a Herne Hill and then jump on a bus heading towards Brixton Station, and in no time at all, you’re in ‘The Village.’

It does the job, but is a massive faff to get in and out of, with loads of entrances and exits shut at random times.
Maybe one day the construction will be over.

Farringdon Station, I’d like you a whole lot more if you were ever open at the weekend (when I actually need you.)
As it stands, you’ve been closed for construction every single weekend in recent memory.
However, you make getting to Paddington (and Heathrow Express) on week days a snap and I do appreciate that. Your First Capital Connect train services are also worth mentioning for folks who fly in and out of Gatwick. Me? I try to avoid that place at all costs.

I watched a programme recently about ghosts on the underground that said there was a murder years ago at Farringdon Station and sometimes you can still hear the woman’s screams on the platform.
What a load of old tosh — the screams are me trying to get to and from work everyday in the ridiculous crowds of sweaty, smelly, shoving people!
At the moment this station is a friggin’ nightmare although I hold out hope for a positive update in the next year or so as all of these ‘works’ are supposed to be finished in time for the Olympics to make Farringdon the most brilliant station in the world, ever. Hopefully. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Currently under major reconstruction for Crossrail and Thameslink, This will make it into quite the central hub, with major east/​west meeting major north/​south.
Farringdon has better days ahead. It originally opened in 1863 (yes, 1863) as the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground from Paddington. Other than the construction, the Central/​Metropolitan/​Hammersmith & City platform is in surprisingly good condition.
Farringdon is in Travelcard Zone 1 and is between King’s Cross St. Pancras and Barbican on the Tube. While it is not step-​free today, the new construction will introduce lifts throughout the station, including from street level to platform level as well as interchange between the Underground platforms and the National Rail platforms.

For a South West Londoner like me, it’s easy to think of Farringdon as primarily a tube station. After all, the Metropolitan, Circle and Hammersmith and City lines all visit Farringdon station, and so for someone like me, it’s likely to be a stop on the tube, rather than a station on a railway. However, Farringdon is home to a couple of platforms servicing First Capital Connect services to Luton and Bedford and points thataway.
Farringdon, despite being a tube station, is completely outdoor. There aren’t any major concessions there — unlike some other suburban stations, you won’t find loads of coffee shops on the concourse, though you will, of course, find plenty unconnected to the station in the surrounding area.
The tube platforms can be deceptive — because the Metropolitan Line trains are so much longer than the circle or Hammersmith and City, you can find yourself in the right part of the platform for one line, but in a trainless part for another.
The station has electronic displays of when the next train is coming and to where (for both the Mainline and tube trains). There is one ticket booth, and a handful of ticket machines, which dispense both tickets and Oyster top ups.
Considering the number of platforms (around 4, maybe 5 — it depends on how you count), and the number of lines served, the station is tiny, and can get very crowded.