Talk:Stoke-on-Trent railway station

Use of Station buildings by Staffordshire University
This is about the buildings - there isn't really enough information for it to be a separate paragraph. If a separate paragraph is really needed, then make it a separate paragraph rather than delete relevant information. Fredtheavenger 18:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is an article about an important British railway station and the official information is that Virgin Trains are responsible for the maintenance and management of the station which is a working railway station and also one of the earliest surviving Victorian railway architectural gems virtually unchanged in its major features. You say Staffordshire University use a large part of it and by what you have written you imply that they jointly and on an equal footing maintain and manage it with Virgin Rail and that cannot be accurate. Quite frankly I was sceptical and I still am. Firstly, perhaps the 'large part' could be more accurately identified. Secondly, might we be told for what purpose it is used. Thirdly, in what way are they responsible for the overall maintenance of the buildings? Fourthly, in what way are they responsible for the management of the station? I suspect that they are tenants of a certain part. Quite frankly if you are unable to write a whole paragraph about their involvement, you should not be linking their name with that of Virgin Rail as the station managers. You should not say as you do " The railway station buildings are maintained and managed by Virgin Trains and Staffordshire University," since this implies a joint management and not just of a building but of an operational railway station building. I will alter the paragraph in question. NoelWalley 22:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The entire upstairs of the main building is occupied by Staffordshire University - there are offices (specifically recruitment and catering), a lecture room and several seminar rooms (used primarily by the sociology department). On the groud floor, a smaller area is university owned and managed enterprise space (branded e2).  They are responsible for the maintence of their part and occupy aproximately half the building.  At least one other building built around the same time is also a university property that appears to be orignally part of the station buildings, but I'm not able to verify this.Fredtheavenger 23:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you, there involvement is now clearer.NoelWalley 07:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Arriva franchise win - what will change?
How will the Arriva win of the Cross Country franchise affect Stoke Station? As I understand it, Stoke is served by both West Coast franchise trains (Virgin, and apparently staying Virgin) and Cross Country franchise trains (now Virgin, but Arriva from Nov 2007). Will we see the same rolling-stock used, just with the Cross Country trains "re-wrapped" as Arriva? Or will we see completely new types of trains from Arriva? Will there not be some clash of ticket-prices/timings and suchlike, between the two competing services using the same station and both going down to Birmingham? Who will run the actual station, will it be Virgin as before? I had hoped that the local press would manage to cover this and explain, but the local journo's seem disinclined to cover anything that strays outside the realm of formula or requires some digging. 81.153.133.153 18:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Nomrally when a TOC changes they just (evnetually) change the colour of the trains. The actaul trains services, times, price etc are all set in stone by the timetables agreed with network rail and the prices, etc with DFT Rail / ORR (or whatever its called). At a *guess* the station will be manged by virgin because its a WCML station, but i wouldn't lay too much money on it. Pickle 14:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)