Hebden Bridge station (and other lovely railway stations)

[editor]

After setting off from Leeds' hideous mess of a modern station - all soulless Meccano tubing and wannabe airport stylings - and trundling past a load of bombsite stations with bus shelter architecture, the beautifully restored Hebden bridge station was a delight.

Not only does it look like station should do, but it's pleasant to use and easy on the eye. Note the large station signs and compare them with the tiny slithers of printed metal we get on modern stations - guaranteed to be 100% unreadable from any passing train.

Those fuckwits who went around demolishing perfectly good brick stations and replacing them with flimsy metal and glass graffiti magnets deserve a good dousing in the nearest water tank.

http://www.urban75.org/photos/hebden-bridge/hebden-bridge-station.html

 

[johnnymarrsbars]

looks nice but its pretty grim inside the tunnel thing..stank of piss and was full of litter last time i was there...

 

[MsShirlLaverne]

looks nice but its pretty grim inside the tunnel thing..stank of piss and was full of litter last time i was there...

I use it regularly and I've never smelled piss or seen litter in the tunnel.

 

[Poi E]

Those fuckwits who went around demolishing perfectly good brick stations and replacing them with flimsy metal and glass graffiti magnets deserve a good dousing in the nearest water tank.
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I was thinking that the other day as I stared at the bland offensiveness that is New Cross station. A lovely Victorian station used to be there, swept away, I believe, when the bridge overhead was renewed. What an inauspicious end.

 

[Dillinger4]

That is a beautiful station!

One of my favorite stations (that I use reguarly) is Manchester Oxford Road. It doesn't look traditional like that station, but I like the alpine theme they have going on.

 

[moose]

It's Grade 2 listed. Built in the 60's, and utterly fab! bit grim inside, though

 

[editor]

That Manchester Oxford Road station isn't bad at all. But what was there before?

I've got a book of railway architecture and some of the stuff they demolished in the 60s is fucking criminal.

 

[Biddlybee]

Looks really familiar - not sure if I've been there, or another station up that way that looks pretty similar

 

[Dillinger4]

That Manchester Oxford Road station isn't bad at all. But what was there before?

I've got a book of railway architecture and some of the stuff they demolished in the 60s is fucking criminal.

Indeed. Not this country, but I read up about Penn Station in NYC.

IIRC, London Euston suffered a similar fate...

At least they replaced Oxford Road with something at least trying to have some kind of aesthetic, I guess!

 

[citygirl]

there are loads of like this stations up north, ours has steam trains running through it!

 

[editor]

there are loads of like this stations up north, ours has steam trains running through it!

I don't think many have their orignal Victorian signage intact and it's only preserved lines that have daily steam trains.

 

[Roadkill]

I've got a book of railway architecture and some of the stuff they demolished in the 60s is fucking criminal.

Euston

 

[aqua]

fucking new st!

 

[johnnymarrsbars]

yeah oxford rd is beautiful outside.


re hebden...the bit by the door where the taxi company thing is. was really scruffy looking..twas a few months since ive been, like. mightve been cleaned up since.

the platform is lovely tho.

 

[davesgcr]

Euston was done to show the railways could be "modern" (the old station was impossible to work efficiently and had grown in bits - had about 60 years of deffered maintenance and dry rot in the Great Hall roof. Some of the platforms were wooden ! - remorselessly destroyed for "progress" without any attempt to save the Arch ! Scandalous - yet typical of the age - think Coal Exchange etc)

The guilty man was one A J Pearson , Asst General Manager London Midland Region

MInd you - some of the 60s West Coast stations now have some kitsch charm - Oxford Road - and even Coventry (internally) has weathered well and looks OK to my eyes.

And then you see what they did to Neath station in the 197O's - needs a JCB through it and a replica of the 1877 station put back

 

[citygirl]

ah..it's perfection you were after, not just aesthetics...you should've said

preserved...meaning? why would that make a difference, then? i'm not into studying them...it runs alongside the mainline. but they're going to connect them so they'll be on the main network then. it'll provide an eastern line, to connect with places like hebden and it still has it's original signs. there are 2 stations adjacent.

 

[johnnymarrsbars]

i saw a really drunk girl fall onto the tracks at coventry station once. looked pretty nasty

i remember it being a bit grim looking...the station

 

[moose]

That Manchester Oxford Road station isn't bad at all. But what was there before?

I've got a book of railway architecture and some of the stuff they demolished in the 60s is fucking criminal.

The old Oxford Road station was well run down by the time they demolished it. No great loss. I have a pic somewhere of my mum standing in front of it.

 

[teuchter]

Aviemore station in the Highlands was restored back to its Victorian glory a few years back.

The only thing they didn't get quite right was the lettering style on the signs, if you ask me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/getoffyourhorse/2156330878/

 

[scifisam]

Why can't all stations be like that?

They're just not lesbian enough.

(Sorry - but, hey, Hebden Bridge!)

 

[laptop]

Whitechapel is, if you mentally edit out the London Transport stuff, a Proper Railway Station: here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whitechapel_stn_east.JPG (sure there are pictures out there that make my point better).

But last week it struck me that they'll almost certainly destroy it for Crossrail

 

[editor]

Aviemore station in the Highlands was restored back to its Victorian glory a few years back.

That's a beaut of a station!

 

[Poi E]

Whitechapel is, if you mentally edit out the London Transport stuff, a Proper Railway Station: here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whitechapel_stn_east.JPG (sure there are pictures out there that make my point better).

But last week it struck me that they'll almost certainly destroy it for Crossrail

Hmm, having had to use the station in the past I think that it is one of the coldest in London! Not particularly pretty IMO.

I see latest photos of Shoreditch show the cutting in-filled. The wrecking ball will soon put Shoreditch into the history books. I wonder who has secured the lovely wooden flooring?

 

[_angel_]

there are loads of like this stations up north, ours has steam trains running through it!

Yeah Keighley station is pretty nice. Like you said, there are quite a few like that.

Wish I could afford to go on the steam trains, though.

 

[Fez909]

Anyone complaining about their train station needs to have a look at Wakefield Kirkgate. Is this the worst train station in Britain?

This is a working train station.

 

[Poi E]

Looks like something nice might have once stood there.

 

[_angel_]

Halifax - too small for a city of it's size.

 

[editor]

Anyone complaining about their train station needs to have a look at Wakefield Kirkgate. Is this the worst train station in Britain?

It used to have an overall roof, and Railtrack have been trying to knock down the listed bits ever since:

PDF: http://www.wakefield.gov.uk/MG/Published/C00000222/M00008669/AI00019745/$RailSafetyonthePontefractLineAppendices.docA.ps.pdf

There are far worse stations though like the ones where glorious Victorian architecture has been flattened, canopies removed and a fucking shit bus shelter shoved on a barren platform.

 

[editor]

Halifax - too small for a city of it's size.

Halifax is a town, not a city.

The station has lost one if its platforms too, but the island platform was being tarted up when we passed it on Sunday.

 

[yardbird]

Aviemore station in the Highlands was restored back to its Victorian glory a few years back.

The only thing they didn't get quite right was the lettering style on the signs, if you ask me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/getoffyourhorse/2156330878/

Station Porn!
very hot