In reply to raydaviesfortishill, the station car park from where you can watch train movements is no longer free at any time. It is now barrier controlled. Ticket cost £8.00 a day for a long stay of over 3 hours but the ticket expires at 3am. So if you do an overnight from say 2pm to 10am the next day, when you put the ticket in the machine to pay, prepare for a £12 fee to get out of the car park.

Place to stay:

I always use the Travelodge which is about 10-15 mins walk from the station (ST17 4ER).

Food/pubs:

From the station take a right then left at the lights & you will have 24hr Tesco on your right & a row of take-aways on your left,Ali`s being the best in my opinion(http://alisstafford.com/),just past there you have a junction & just on your right is The Sun Inn which has plenty of real ale (£2.60-£3.00/pint) & good food (http://www.thesunstafford.co.uk/),on your left you pass a chipy also not bad & then there is The Picture House (Wetherspoons) pass that & next left you have Coach & Horses pub which has three ales on usually (Tiger,Tim Taylor +1) average £2.80/pint also sports on TV & again just past that you have The Yard for Sky sports but the real ale doesn`t get looked after in my opinion.

Station has friendly staff and freight is good 1500-1800 & 1945 onwards,bit hit & miss during the day as many places are.

20/09/11

If you really like Voyagers and Pendolinos it is well worth visiting.
If you can't stand the sight of the aforementioned units then do not
bother. Virgin units frequent the station all the way until around
22:00 then they die down in number. Freight traffic is usually very
poor until the evening and early hours of the morning when you should
start seeing at least 4 or 5 freights per hour, often much more. If you
are planning to stay past midnight for lots of freight , then
unfortunately its not worth it, because the chances
of
being kicked off the station is very high. Freight traffic
is plentiful in the evening, EWS 60, 66, 67, 90
92,FL 57,66,86, 90 & DRS 20, 37, 66 can be seen. However
the variety of loco hauled express trains
is a thing of the past, in its place is virgin's plastic
units. A huge amount of both voyagers and pendos call at
the station every hour. I can't think of a station that
gets a higher total of combined voyager/pendolino units.

CERTAINLY A HUGE CHANGE FOR THE WORSE. ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL.

To follow on from McGrid, the station car park is now locked out of use when the station closes at 0030. There is an alternative location I use which is just north of the station. Next to GEC, it is an open car park but photography is limited.

One of the better places to be , Stafford sees mainly Virgin,Central and North Western passenger services and a trickle of freight through the daytime. It hots up after mid-evening with a constant flow of freight services incuding F/Liners,Coal,Intermodal,Car Carriers,Nuclear Flasks and Engineers Trains. There is a buffet on the station which shuts around 8pm after which there are 2 fast food outlets less than 10 mins away. If you are thinking of staying all night(well worth it) ask the supervisor before hand as they close the station around 0030-0100. They are not too keen on night photography either, be warned !