Does this sound right?

I'm with Vinny on "Get off after the third station". To me, it means any station after the third station - which would raise the question, why would any of these stations be as good as each other? The only context that immediately comes to mind where this might be a genuine instruction to a passenger would be if they were trying to escape a police force whose jurisdiction ended after the third station on the line.

As for "station stop", it always sounded very wrong to me - like saying "clinic hospital" maybe. Usually trains stop at stations and trams and busses stop at stops - but why would you ram the two together? I kind of worked out for myself that it meant something like "the next station that we are actually stopping at", but even so it seems unnecessary.

A "station" is a place where trains /can/ stop, but not all trains will do so.

For an express train the third "station stop" may be the tenth station if it passes through seven stations without stopping.

First Group (UK), have recently scrapped 'Station stop'.
It's a computer generated voice - and now announces instead....
"We will shortly be arriving at...."

#31 - so would the equivalent on a bus or tram route be "the next stop stop"?

#31--

No conductor/guard has ever made an announcement saying "The next station wil be Podunk" when the train goes through Podunk without stopping, and no passenger, hearing "The next station will be Podunk," has ever wondered whether the trin would stop their or just breeze through.

That may have been in the mind of whoever told them to say "station stop" but if so he was being silly.

I've been thinking of this question and wondered why "Get off after the third stop" sounded familiar.

I use the train (commuter) quite regularly and you do hear, regularly, "Get off after the third stop". However, what is more common is "get off after X stop". I'm not sure if that's because people tend not to see the name of the station until the train has passed, because only some of the trains have a notification telling passengers which is the next stop or simply so people can start to get ready to get off if they know which is the stop prior. Perhaps a combination of all three, perhaps none of those reasons.

Either way, I can understand "get off after the third stop" if the alternative 'message' people tell someone is "get off after X station".

I'm not sure I would use "get off after the third stop" as it seems clunky. But I would say to get off after X station.

Whichever X station may be.

#35 - So you call stations "stops" in your part of the world, at least on commuter trains? Interesting.

we call them stations too.

but I've never heard 'station stop'

I think that hearing the conductor's instruction "get off after the third stop" is a little like telling you on Wednesday that we'll get together next Friday.

That is, if you take these expressions too literally you're going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sometimes it's not too good to think too much.

Good ol' railways.... So varied across the planet.