Manchester Victoria Railway Station

No stress traveling into Manchester by train and no worries about parking and the cost of it

Manchester Victorian station
This is one of the main train stations in Manchester and there is a tram stop inside the station. The station has just had a lot of money spent on it and they are making it look good! It is located next door to the MEN arena which is ideal if you are coming to see a concert. The only downside is that the station will be busy with people going to the Arena at certain times

Love the new look Victoria Station Manchester. Very Spacious and well light. As a women i will feel a lot safer if I was travelling alone at night, before the renovation it was dark and cold looking.
Also love the little java bar where you can relax with a drink (lovely Procecco) whilst waiting for your train.

A review for a railway station… I don’t think I can go into too much depth here. It’s a place where you get the train.
I’ve seen this railway station for a good few years now and it has improved a lot over the years. The unattractive improvements have now been finished and the station looks a whole lot better for it.
It’s a very opened up location with huge roofs and plenty of stairs. There are a couple of cafes, one small one larger and a bar to get food and drink from so if you have a wait there’s always somewhere where you can relax. There’s a McDonald’s located within the station so if your looking for a cheaper option, you’ve got one!
There’s not usually too big of a wait to buy tickets but this station can get extremely busy so bare that in mind. There’s two self service ticket stations and also a small space dedicated to the history of victors station for you to gain more knowledge about if wanted.
All in all a good station with all the necessary needs.

Plenty of construction work going on here so I’ll likely update my review once it’s completed, but even now it’s an above average station. Victoria provides a connection to the city center from pretty much every outside town and with the new addition of a coffee shop and a trendy pub and kitchen, it makes for a comfortable waiting spot also.

Manchester Victoria is the 2^nd busiest train station in Manchester, of course after Piccadilly and is currently under renovations, which will see development of the station, costing 44 million pounds.
Victoria is a much quieter station, although it is still pretty easy to get stuck in queues, as they is only 2 ticket machines, which double up as buying and collecting tickets, hence if one does break down, you could be waiting quite a while, and of course they are from «Northern» rail and not the modern «Virgin Trains» machines, which can be seen at Manchester Piccadilly, London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street, but you can still book and collect tickets from any provider.
Manchester Victoria isn’t the nicest of stations at the moment, it is quite easy to get to via public transport and driving from city centre Manchester (it is on the metrolink city zone), but at the moment it doesn’t even have a WHsmith (WOW! A train station without a WHsmith!) and just seems to have 2 coffee shops (Java and Starbucks), but I’m sure more businesses will want to come to Victoria, when renovations have taken place and it is a much nicer, busier station.
The work for Victoria is coming on well, I especially like the new metrolink bit, which is new, modern and pretty cool, and beats the likes of Piccadilly on that one.
Manchester Victoria provides a quicker route to Liverpool Lime Street by Piccadilly with the First Trans Pennine service taking around 33 minutes, however it takes considerably longer than Piccadilly to get to Leeds, so I would always check the 2 stations, before planning a journey.
Remember to have your ticket before getting on the train too, as they is automatic ticket gates to get through to the platform, which are similar to Oxford Road (Manchester) and Blackpool North (train stations)
I did have an incident with my train and they was a lack of people to help /​announcements. As I arrived early, they was one more train to go from my platform, I knew the first train would be wrong, as it was the Northern service to Blackpool North, so I asked the woman on the platform (before this train came) and she told me that was my train (the next one), and she nearly made me get on it, until someone else told me at the last minute. (I’m sure she was trying to tell me wrong information was I wasn’t traveling with her company) but it was still clear as it was on the screen, and my First service to Lime Street, came on the screen next.
It wasn’t the last of it, as another service, also by Northern, pulled in my station, they was nothing on the board, just a small sign on the train saying «Out of service», I think it was an emergency stopover, as everyone got off the train and it went «out of service» and it seemed that it even struggled to get moving, and had to get maintenance, however this confused me as I didn’t know if this was my train, or if it was going from a different platform, as they was no one alerting anyone or any messages, I understand they don’t want to scare passengers by mentioning about this problem, if the train had broken down, but it would just end up worrying and confusing passengers anyway, so Victoria really do need to do more.
Victoria is a nice station, it is a lot quieter than Piccadilly, and is more of a place where you can relax, rather than rush, but still they is limited facilities for shops and food/​coffee (although they is a few places other than Java/​Starbucks) and unlike London we can’t have it all (many busy, restaurant/​shop filled stations) and it is an overall nice station but for now I have to give 2 stars, with the main reasons for the lower rating:
— Issues with the old ticket machines (low in number)
— Issues with announcements and my platform
— The station being a building site /​old fashioned in areas
— I didn’t seem to find many shops /​newsagents (if any)

So busy station for North Manchester, both the metro link and northern rail go from here. It also houses the arena where many shows are held.

This is a review for the Victoria station pre modernisation completion so bare with me !
I’ve chosen to do this now and then update it in about 6 months as I want to tell you if a few additions to the old station you may now come across !
Firstly from the actual railway part of the station there is now an electronic ticket barrier line which will happily suck your ticket in and spit it out to allow you access to the best city in the world (Manchester, obviously)
Also look out for the large brick murals depicting a rail age that has gone by !
National rail services go from here out too Liverpool, Southport, Leeds, Newcastle, Todmorden, Huddersfield, Clitheroe, Wigan, Blackpool — so really you can get where you could want to go
The metrolink light rail service goes to Bury, Eccles, media city, altrincham, Rochdale and eventually the airport
Station is kept nice and clean with friendly staff and a good presence had British transport police officers with the occasional spaniel !

On my first encounter with Victoria Station, it was… well it wasn’t very impressive (still isn’t really) and I thought I didn’t want to be making this journey very often. I didn’t realize that the station was undergoing renovations to make it «posh» (that’s what the posters say) so I am going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Currently there are just staff manning the entrances and exits from the platforms, inspecting tickets. And for those of you coming from stations where there is no ticket office or kiosk, there are staff to sell you a ticket at the exit (sometimes there is a train manager who sells tickets on the train, but he only ever seems to make it to the fifth or sixth row before he goes back into his little cubby hole).
Some of the staff are friendly and helpful, but some of the staff aren’t very helpful… and also don’t really move with a sense of urgency. On my most recent visit, there were about six staff standing at the exit, two checking tickets, two standing at the makeshift ticket desks, and two just standing there. There were a line of us that needed to purchase tickets, but only one of the people behind the desk seemed to be assisting customers. The other one… well she stood there looking around, didn’t acknowledge customers and when one of the customers did go up, she just ignored them. So I guess in reality there were three staff just standing about and one staff at the makeshift ticket desk. From what I can tell, there are only two ticket kiosks, located under the departures/​arrivals board, but that’s it.
With the renovations, everything is boarded up so if you have never been here before, there is really no clue as to what the station previously looked like. However, as I was walking back to my train on the most recent visit, I did notice the old-​style ticket desks. They are really lovely and I wonder if they will keep them or if they will modernize everything. Would be a shame to lose them. The one thing I can say is that with the construction, you are really just funneled through to a couple of different exits so in that respect, it isn’t a difficult train station to navigate. There are a couple of places to get coffee or a snack (Pumpkin, a café near one of the exits) and there is a McDonald’s upstairs, but that is about it. I usually stop at the Co-​op to get a drink or a snack if I want one before I make my way to the station.
Hopefully the renovations will make the station a little more pleasant to be in and much more efficient!