St Alban’s Abbey Station

After having a great day in St Albans it was time to go home. The station I was met with was a train platform, with notices boards and electronic board to tell you when your train is arriving. Their also a waiting room, in a bus shed style.
Their was also ticket machine and as I was going to Watford, I found the machine is easy to use £5 single and return and a 16mintues train ride.
What can I say it does the job, although mind the gap when boarding the train.

There are stations and there are stations. It’s hard to believe that so close to London, there can be a terminus as small and quiet as St Albans Abbey station. But there is!
It’s at the end of the branch line from Watford Junction, and was actually the first station in the town, opened in 1858 by the London and North Western Railway. Plans to extend it Luton and Dunstable never came about, although another line south and east, towards Hatfield, opened in 1865 but closed to passengers as early as 1951.
Now it is very much a quiet branch line, as St Albans is also on the main line into St Pancras, served by frequent (and faster) trains on the cross-​London Thameslink line from Bedford to Brighton. The St Albans Abbey service has recently been taken over by the train operator London Midland from the previous operator, Silverlink.
Trains (from Watford) — nicknamed ‘The Abbey Flyer’ — operate from 6h until 21.30h at roughly 45 minute intervals Monday to Saturday and from 8h until 22h at hourly intervals on Sundays, the journey from Watford taking 16 minutes. The route is almost rural in parts, but was electrified on the 25kV AC overhead system in 1987 – 88.
The station is the closer of the two in St Albans to the Abbey, and about 10 minutes’ walk from the town centre. It has lost its original attractive Italianate buildings, and to-​day there is no ticket office: tickets can be bought on the train. The station has a shelter with seats, a small car park (with 3 disabled parking spaces), a single platform — and that’s it! The platform has step-​free access from the road and car-​park.
Connections are available at Watford Junction for the London Euston-​Birmingham/​Liverpool/​Manchester line; otherwise, most passengers are locals living near intermediate stations the line.
The line is supported by an active users’ group (
) and a Community Rail Partnership (
), who help organise all sorts of special events to attract custom.