I have visited this location on a number of occasions.
While I agree that the "scenary" and cabling make taking "nice" photogrpahs difficult, it can be done. Platform 5 is the best to catch the freight that goes through the station. There is a variety of stock 170's, 153's, 43's, 91's and Eurostar workings. Hull Trians workings can also be photographed as well.

Why would anyone waste their time going there? Awful!

Perhaps Peterborough Station is okay for the spotter, busy even if not particularly thrilling, but for the photgrapher it's a dead loss.

Most of the interesting stuff, by which I mean freight, runs down the two lines to the west of Platform 5, which offer you the sun in your face virtually all day - hopeless! A few freight and a few passenger trains, the non-stoppers, use the through roads and these can be photographed well from Platform 4 all day - but they are few and far between.

You gain the advantage that anything southbound/eastbound from Eastfield Yard has to come your way but you don't see anything working into Eastfield from the north, like the Tallington trip, often a 37, or departing northwards from Eastfield.

And, added bonus, when they electrified Peterborough, they gave the god Zeus a fistful of RSJ's and said just chuck these anywhere you like and there we will erect electrification masts, whether we need them there or not. I've never seen a place so crowded out with them. If they had branches and leaves, the trains would get lost in the woods!

Far better, in my view, is to get a Delaine bus to Bourne from Queensgate (across the road) and go to Werrington or Marholm footbridges, a couple or three miles north of the station. They're not brilliant but a vast improvement on the dire station.

See 'Doncaster and Peterborough' for more information.