A train is seen through the waiting shelter at St Albans Abbey station. Photo by Rudi Newman.The Garston Community Art Project was another successful CRP project. Here Councillor Stuart Pile and children from the Garston area unveil the new artwork at the entrance to Garston station - much of it a product of their own creativity.New bicycle shelters at St Albans Abbey station were a product of the CRP.
Abbey Line Community Rail Partnership, official logo.

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Station adoption
Station adoption is one of the ways in which local people can become directly involved with their railway. Many groups across the country are now taking up the idea, as a way of injecting new life into often-neglected, unstaffed stations.
Volunteers helped to tidy up St Albans Abbey station - the kind of thing that station adoption groups can get involved with.
Although there is no fixed template for station adoption, schemes generally fall into two categories:

  • Where station 'monitors' act as additional "eyes and ears" and regularly report problems to the train operating company.
  • "Friends of stations", where small groups undertake a wide variety of activities ranging from feeding in comments, tidying up of litter and weeds, to provision of station enhancements such as gardens, planters, art work and signage.
The Watford North station adoption group in 2006.
At Watford North, a small group has taken up the challenge and they work on the 'eyes and ears' principle. An inspection takes place atleast once a week, a record sheet is filled in and then returned to the group station manager. Although the TOC do check their stations every day, such a process can help to flag up problems such as faulty lights and vandalism, which may save the handyman a journey. They have also been known to pester Network Rail to get the weeds cleared! 

Station adoption groups also exist at Bricket Wood, How Wood, Park Street and St Albans Abbey. 

If you are interested in joining one of these groups, please contact the Community Rail Partnership Officer via our Contact page.


PLEASE NOTE: under no circumstances does station adoption give you the right to go on or near the track, or to conduct activities on railway property without the permission of the relevant authorities.

Disclaimer: The information on this site is provided in good faith by the Abbey Line Community Rail Partnership. We have tried very hard to ensure that the information given is correct, but visitors to the site are advised to check with the service providers if any errors would cause them inconvenience or expense. Contact numbers for the service providers are given where available. Please let us know of any errors you find by emailing the Webmaster "at" abbeyline.org.uk. Thank you.