Hebden Bridge station (and other lovely railway stations)

[Roadkill]

Hull Paragon station has a certain faded dignity about it. It's a very big station - fourteen platforms in its heyday - now ratehr under-used. Although it's much better now that the '60s office block that covered the front of it has been demolished, the frontage restored and the space once occupied by the local-train platforms (and used for parking since those lines closed) turned into a proper bus station. It's actually impressive again now, rather than faintly sad.

 

[salem]

Oddly I quite like Crewe, but Euston is foul as foul can be.

See, for me it's the other way around. As a kid I used to do the rail/sail to Ireland most years. Euston for me reminds me of 10pm and the excitement of the trip ahead. Crewe on the other hand makes me think of being cold, tired and cranky and waiting for the connecting train to Holyhead.

The thing I love about Euston is that there are always loads of people just sitting around on the floor, relaxed like no other station I can think of. Kinda has a festival feel to it

 

[davesgcr]

Lets hear a word for Marylebone !

Described by Betjeman as Londons most peacefull station !

 

[HackneyE9]

Putting in a word for Penzance station - cul-de-sac three-sided train shed! You can't go any further west in mainland Britain. (Well, there used to be a branch line to Mouse-somewhere a bit further west, but not anymore)

There's just something about a stone wall end to the station saying 'you ain't going any further'!

Also, the approach into the station alongside that massive cove has got to one of the most spectacular stretches of rail anywhere in the UK.

PS - thanks for the Flickr photos of Bradford Forster Square. Yes, they don't really do justice to the victorian facade and supporting walls, but give an idea how vast and empty it was in the final days.

 

[Roadkill]

Lets hear a word for Marylebone !

Yes, a word - like 'thank fuck we've still got it!'

I like Marylebone a lot. It's by far the nicest central London station.

 

[citygirl]

PS - thanks for the Flickr photos of Bradford Forster Square. Yes, they don't really do justice to the victorian facade and supporting walls, but give an idea how vast and empty it was in the final days.

found this rather ghostly one...this is how it actually looked most of the time.

one train - no passengers

 

[Roadkill]

Perhaps another station deserving of a mention, this one lost altogether - Broad Street:

Photos and write-up on some railway anorak's website here

 

[editor]

Photos and write-up on some railway anorak's website here

I am that anorak! I really, really, really wish I'd taken more photos when I was there.

Here's a station that has almost everything that a country junction needs: semaphore signals, signal box, branch line bay, GWR canopies and buildings, hanging baskets and a proper ticket office.

St Erth, Cornwall, junction for St Ives line.

 

[HackneyE9]

I am that anorak! I really, really, really wish I'd taken more photos when I was there.

Here's a station that has almost everything that a country junction needs: semaphore signals, signal box, branch line bay, GWR canopies and buildings, hanging baskets and a proper ticket office.

St Erth, Cornwall, junction for St Ives line.

Ooh, I've changed trains there. Weren't they threatening to close the St Ives branch? Had a godawful two-carriage sprinter when I went on it - what a contrast to, say, the French equivalent, the summer-only train to the Quiberon peninusla in Brittany.

 

[HackneyE9]

found this rather ghostly one...this is how it actually looked most of the time.

one train - no passengers

Thanks!

I guess those shelters are sixties and post-date the station itself. I've got such strong memories of pulling in there from Bingley as a teenager....then I went off to University, came back, and they'd built the toy-town bus-shelter station instead!

 

[tangerinedream]

The talk about rebuilt stations made me think of Birmingham Snow Hill.

then...

Now...

 

[teuchter]

This thread got me thinking about Clapham junction, which I think could be quite an attractive station if it was given a bit more TLC. At the moment it's a terrible mess of signage and ropey alterations though.

I've started a thread in the London forum about it.

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=7283427&posted=1#post7283427

 

[Roadkill]

I've just seen your other thread. Nice photos.

Clapham Junction reminds me a bit of London Bridge, in the way that it comes across as rather haphazard and unplanned - although it was never a terminus in the way that half of London Bridge is, and it doesn't suffer from the awful rebuild that the through platforms at London Bridge were subjected to in the '60s!

 

[teuchter]

I've just remembered, I took a few pictures with this thread in mind a couple of weeks ago, as I was changing trains at Wrexham station:

 

[editor]

Wow. Wrexham looks great!

 

[teuchter]

Wow. Wrexham looks great!

Tis very nice. And, on the journey from there back to London, we passed Shrewsbury signal box which I have not seen before, and is very impressive. In fact, I think there's more than one of them, isn't there?

 

[d.a.s.h]

Many of the stations on the West Highland Line are still in fairly good nick, by the way - here is Rannoch, for example.

The little cafe/tea room at Rannoch station is excellent.

 

[bigbry]

Like I said New Street. That Manchester one I can't remember (actually, all the Manchester stations except Victoria)

That Manchester station earlier in the thread (Ooxford Road ?) was pretty good. I'm no expert on architecture but someone had used some imagination and given the building an 'interesting' line (no pun intended). I appreciate the Victorian architecture and there's some great examples here (especially Aviemore) but good industrial architecture didn't stop with Victorians.

I stand by what I said - I like Manchester Oxford Road station - would like to see the inside to see if they did it 'properly' or lost the plot.

 

[Dillinger4]

That Manchester station earlier in the thread (Ooxford Road ?) was pretty good. I'm no expert on architecture but someone had used some imagination and given the building an 'interesting' line (no pun intended). I appreciate the Victorian architecture and there's some great examples here (especially Aviemore) but good industrial architecture didn't stop with Victorians.

I stand by what I said - I like Manchester Oxford Road station - would like to see the inside to see if they did it 'properly' or lost the plot.

The inside is not bad either.

 

[HackneyE9]

That Manchester station earlier in the thread (Ooxford Road ?) was pretty good. I'm no expert on architecture but someone had used some imagination and given the building an 'interesting' line (no pun intended). I appreciate the Victorian architecture and there's some great examples here (especially Aviemore) but good industrial architecture didn't stop with Victorians.

I stand by what I said - I like Manchester Oxford Road station - would like to see the inside to see if they did it 'properly' or lost the plot.

Manchester Oxford Road is listed. Was done by proper architects.

 

[Jayen4]

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.

Hmmm.....that's disgusting !! Where's the roof gone ?? I've been through Wakefield Westgate a few times and its a lot better than that !

 

[citygirl]

Hmmm.....that's disgusting !! Where's the roof gone ?? I've been through Wakefield Westgate a few times and its a lot better than that !

what ya saying then? it's not LIKE that? (cus i can assure you, at least PARTS of it are...)...or is he posting pics of a different place entirely and trying to impersonate a delapidated (sp) railway stn?... the plot thickens...

 

[Crispy]

the main bit looks alright

I'm sure if you're taking a branchline to shitsville, the platforms might be a little bit more crummy...

 

[Culdee]

Isn't that Westgate?

 

[teuchter]

Isn't that Westgate?

I think you may have spotted the source of the confusion here.

 

[Crispy]

shucks

 

[quimcunx]

I thought about you lot and this thread when i was outside Letchworth Garden City today..

Then I forgot to take the all-important pic of the platform.

 

[teuchter]

I thought about you lot and this thread when i was outside Letchworth Garden City today..



Then I forgot to take the all-important pic of the platform.

Are you sure it's a train station? Did you check for trains etc.?

 

[quimcunx]

Are you sure it's a train station? Did you check for trains etc.?

Perhaps not, but if not the kindly train driver took pity on us stood there forlornly, slightly lacking in land legs and weighed down with our overnight bags and stopped to let us on.

 

[teuchter]

Well, it was nice of you to think of "us lot" and our thread, anyway.