As train stations go, St. Albans City is pretty well-served in terms of places to wait. All four platforms are adorned with benches and shelters and feature several well-stocked vending machines, although of course none of these facilities can be reasonably called waiting rooms. The ubiquitous Pumpkin on Platform 1 is little more than a hatch in the wall with no designated seating area. You might think that the main attraction is the clearly-marked waiting room straddling platforms 2 and 3, but in truth that’s a small boxy room which is completely dominated by an enormous information desk. Such is the imposing nature of the desk and the staff member who stands behind it, I have never been brave enough to enter it, let alone photograph it, for fear of being expected to have information requests which I am unable to muster.

But now, as you stand beside that waiting room looking towards Platform 4, you can see an EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENT.

To the right hand side of that image, you see the original waiting room, accessible via a short wheelchair ramp, and featuring the relative rarity of a bin on the outside, as well as one of the aforementioned vending machines. But to the left is what at first glance appears to be a new extension to the Platform 4 waiting room. This was completed less than a week ago, and whilst this waiting room enthusiast was slightly annoyed at the secrecy surrounding its construction (it was built almost entirely behind a tall opaque temporary fence), and the lack of signage about when its ribbon-cutting ceremony was to be completed (meaning I missed it), I am excited to find out what this extension is like. As perhaps the newest construction to have featured on this blog, I am imagining a science fiction world beyond our wildest imaginations, a giddying glimpse into the future of waiting as this new design and the facilities it contains spreads across the whole of the Thameslink service and beyond.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s look at the pre-existing Platform 4 waiting room first.

This is actually already pretty good. It’s warm, clean and bright. The comfortable (if somewhat standard and uninspiring) chairs face out towards large windows onto the platform, and there’s an information screen and an informational poster or two. It could be bigger, perhaps, but I wonder exactly how much need there is for a waiting room for fast services from St. Albans to Luton and Bedford. These trains run pretty regularly except for late at night – at which time this room is closed.

The astute reader will notice that the new “extension” is not, in fact, an extension. For whatever reason, although the new construction was built flush with this room, they opted out of knocking through that blank wall space to unify the structures into a single waiting area. I wonder why. Never mind, it’s a short walk to the new waiting area, whose shining vision of the future of humanity’s marking of the passage of time will surely render this quaint space obsolete. Let’s go!



Oh. Well, this is underwhelming. The room is light and airy, largely due to it apparently taking its inspiration from a conservatory. It is, of course, clean and new – for all I know I was the first member of the public to set foot inside, but it also feels sterile. Those chairs, which look like they might be warmly ergonomic as a result of the wood used in their construction, are not as comfortable as they look. Perhaps the bottoms of a few hundred holidaymakers heading to Luton Airport Parkway might improve that over time, wear down the sharp edges, but for now I can describe them as nothing more than functional. There is a clearly visible power socket, from which one could conceivably charge a phone, but aside from that the room is completely devoid of any other facilities.

The view from the other end, with a button to open the door placed on a bar across the wall which could otherwise have been knocked through. There appears to be some kind of bracket which might one day house an information screen, but aside from that there’s nothing to report.

Old waiting room: 7/10 – It’s fine, basically

New waiting room 5/10 – A missed opportunity, although there’s potential for it to become a more fully-featured waiting room over time.