Lincoln Railway Station

Lincoln Central or The Great Northern as my grand parents used to call it is well located in the city centre. It was once one of two stations serving Lincoln and since 1985 when St. Marks, or The Midland station closed all rail services now use this station.
Architecturally the building is quite impressive and has benefitted from some restoration and maintenance over the past few years. The travel centre was closed a couple of years ago and in 2014 the booking hall was expanded and modernised to compensate for this. Pity it was closed on my last visit due to staff illness!
The buffet/​shop is reasonable and accessible from both street and platform. There used to be 8 platforms which was reduced to 7 and now to 5 but this is quite adequate for the appalling train service level that Lincoln continues to have to put up with.
Destinations from Lincoln have been reduced dramatically over the years and the long distance services that used to call have long since gone. London is directly accessible only in a morning when two services depart within minutes of each other. There are return journeys which also arrive with in minutes. The quicker more direct of these going to Kings Cross and the longer to St. Pancras via Nottingham
Regular services go to Newark (NorthGate & Castle stations), Nottingham, Leicester, Sleaford, Gainsborough, Sheffield and Peterborough. Less regular trains go to Doncaster and Grimsby. Be warned that the timetable is totally irregular and trains can run anything from 40 to 80 minutes apart to the same destination. The Sheffield service does however, run to a regular timetable every hour. Another point to mention is that there are no set platforms for services, so trains to Sleaford for example can and do, depart from any one of the five platforms. Sunday services are almost none existent and nothing leaves before 11:05, and nothing arrives till after noon! Dreadful for a university city of almost 100,000 people with tourism as one of the main industries. Train companies please take note!
The station is fully accessible and platform entry is via ticket barriers. Tickets are available from the booking hall (should it be open) and from ticket machines. Staff are generally cheerful and helpful and when chatting to, some of them do seem quite embarrassed by the appalling level of train services from here, which are often of single carriage units with people having to stand for some considerable distance.
One of the best things about arriving in Lincoln by train is the stunning views of the cathedral and castle you can get as you get near the city. If you’re going to go to visit them use the shuttle bus as a long uphill walk is involved. Steep Hill is a road that truly justifies it’s name.
Outside the station is ample parking, a taxi rank and 2 minutes walk away is the bus station. PlusBus tickets are available with your rail ticket.
Getting to Lincoln can be a bit off putting by train, but the city is well worth the effort.

Apart from being a frequent visitor to Lincoln as it is such a beautiful city I also worked for the University for a while. Obviously this entailed a lot of travelling and as I didn’t drive at the time it meant that I became very familiar with Lincoln Station indeed.
It’s hard to find somewhere to start because there are so many bad points. The station is dirty — on the platforms and inside the buildings. It’s not very well laid out and signage is poor. The staff are not exactly welcoming. The café is terrible — high prices, poor selection, indifferent staff, cold and unwelcoming. Trains are often late, delayed or cancelled and the information relating to this is poor. Even when trains are running late the information presented is terribly poor. I once ended up on a train to peterborough because the announcer stated the train coming into the platform was the train for grimsby so I got on it! I just thank my lucky stars that I don’t need to use the train to get to Lincoln these days.