The sign has gone up at the drop-off point at Warrington Bank Quay station in the town of Warrington, between Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England.

A man in a hat and a woman with a curly-looking hair-do puckering up show people where they must not indulge in full-on lip-locking.

A similar sign, this time permitting kissing, has been erected elsewhere in a zone where smooching is considered tolerable.

"We have not banned kissing in the station," said a spokesman for operators Virgin Rail.

"But we have put the sign up at the drop-off point because it is not a very big area and it often gets busy with lots of traffic.

"The sign is a light-hearted way of getting people to move on quickly.

"If people wish to spend a little more time with their loved ones before they leave, then they should park in the short-stay car park nearby."

The busy station links the town with the major cities London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Manchester.

The 1945 film Brief Encounter immortalised forbidden love on the platform in stiff-upper-lip Britain while railway romance has been encapsulated in a statue at London's revamped St Pancras station, opened last year.

However, one station is trying to rescue love from the tracks.

High Wycombe, northwest of London, is having none of it and is actively urging commuters to get frisky.

"Kissing is welcome here! ... we would never dream of banning kissing," says a poster of a cartoon couple embracing, framed by a pink heart.

"Railway stations are romantic places," insisted Kirsteen Robertson from Chiltern Railways.

"They are where fond farewells and emotional reunions take place, where relationships start with a glance and even, in the case of our Marylebone station last November, where one passenger will propose to another over the public address system.

"So our passengers are more than welcome to share a kiss in our stations."

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