John Woodhouse: 'If you want comfort and luxurious sofas go to DFS'

I LIKE train stations. I like the oldness of them, the anticipation of the journey, the reasonable chance of seeing a businessman open the door too early and fall in an ungainly heap on a woman awaiting the 3.15 to Exeter St David's.

I was disappointed then to see the publication of the list of the supposed '10 worst stations in Britain'. A government advisor described "shabby environments, deterioration, and lack of real-time information". It's the train mate, not a space shuttle launch site.

I mean, what is all this sudden moaning about the condition of train stations? In Brief Encounter does Trevor Howard mark his weekly meetings with Celia Johnson by wittering on about the state of the latrines for half an hour?

Did I miss the episode of the TV adaptation of the Reverend Awdry's classic children's stories where several dozen irate passengers descend on the Fat Controller to complain about the pigeon in the roof-space on platform four?

Was Ivor The Engine ever held up by placard-waving campaigners troubled by the shiny toilet paper at Llaniog Junction?

Nevertheless, the Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, a man who singularly fails to live up to his name (if he's an Adonis then Miss World is a ferret) is promising to do something about it, splurging five million quid a piece on these stations, most of which, including Crewe, are in constituencies deemed marginal at the next General Election. Funny that.

I don't really understand what people want from a station. It's a place where you go, stand on a platform, wait for a train, get on, and clear off. If you want to experience deep padded sofas, obsequious staff, and sparkling floors then go and sit in DFS for half an hour.

These are places that whoosh, whistle, and whirr with history. Take the number one in the list, Manchester Victoria, a truly fantastic Edwardian building complete with 160-yard facade which still carries an iron and glass canopy bearing the names of the original destinations which it served.

I used to love going there as a child. Even in the 1980s, you could smell its coal-fired past, hear the tramp of the feet of decades in the subways – a proud old chap holding on to his grandeur.

Post-renovation will it retain its splendour? Or will it, like Piccadilly, be just another anodyne shopping centre? "Oh have you been to the new Victoria? The WH Smiths is simply divine."

To my mind, this top-10 list is nothing more than a smokescreen disguising the truly awful train stations in this country, those smaller halts which used to be manned but have been left to crumble into graffiti-encrusted and urine-sodden decrepitude.

I'd name Etruria in the top-10 worst stations, not because it hasn't got a shiny new ticket office, rather because it isn't there anymore. Some fool shut it down and cleared off with the platform despite the region's major retail park being five minutes away.

If you're a rail traveller, look out for Lord Adonis. At present, clad in smoking jacket and cravat, he's on a tour of the rail network. You may well find yourself behind him at the buffet as he enquires after the availability of a quails' egg sandwich, or see him shoving his cigarette holder through the window between stations. Fair play for making the effort, Adonis old chap. But if you really want to make stations more accessible, here's a spiffing idea – make the bleeding trains a bit cheaper.