Station Buildings

[sprinterguy]

Quite a shame, would look much better with a decent roof. Was looking at pictures of Stockton station on Pinzac55's flickr and it had a magnificent roof. Bugger all there now. Pure vandalism.

It's true that some of the stations on the Durham coast were once pretty impressive entrances to the towns they served: All gone now, just like most of the heavy industries that made the towns themselves what they are. To use one of my favourite sayings, "it's grim up north". Reducing maintenance costs and providing for retail space are now seen as much more important factors than providing a grand entrance when you step off the train. Shame really, Stockton and Sunderland stations both once had great glass roofs. Of course, the Germans didn't do Sunderland station any favours there!

 

[PinzaC55]

Stockton being demolished was like Durham Cathedral being demolished.I remember seeing some of the cast iron columns lying in a scrapyard just before Thornaby station.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, like Bradford Exchange. And they didn't even have the excuse of Luftwaffe damage there either.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Stockton being demolished was like Durham Cathedral being demolished.I remember seeing some of the cast iron columns lying in a scrapyard just before Thornaby station.

When did it go? Remember there's an Internet article I've ssen all about Thornaby's downfall, demolition and rise

 

[PinzaC55]

It was demolished in October 1978.Here's the first of my photos - click on the top right hand thumbnail to advance to the next. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3500954358/
I've got to be fair to BR and say that the amount of dosh it would rquire to have maintained it would be ridiculous - you never saw anybody get on a train here - but you'd have thought Stockton Council might have paid for it to be kept.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

It was demolished in October 1978.Here's the first of my photos - click on the top right hand thumbnail to advance to the next. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3500954358/
I've got to be fair to BR and say that the amount of dosh it would rquire to have maintained it would be ridiculous - you never saw anybody get on a train here - but you'd have thought Stockton Council might have paid for it to be kept.

Wow, its changed so much. Bays too. Now an hourly service, exposed, a ghost of its former self. Whoa.

 

[PinzaC55]

There used to be a carriage line inbetween the platforms, goods lines on the outside, about 4 signalboxes - a real railway complex.Here's a shot I took the following year http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3622101720/ The lines on the left are still bright with use, and it was before it was totally mashed up to make it into old peoples flats or whatever the hell it is.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

The building is gone now - there's just two massive walls and an unbelivabely ugly footbridge. Under 80,000 passengers a year, for a town of its size, is amazing hock:

 

[PinzaC55]

One of the silliest things about Stockton is of course that Grand Central trains go through without stopping - probably a legacy of privatisation which means that Northern Rail won't want GCT "competing" for passengers.Then of course since there's no service from Stockton to Eaglescliffe (or Darlo) they have to go from Thornaby.This country is crazy.

 

[PinzaC55]

Those of you interested in Sunderland station and how it got into it's current state might want to see this booklet from my collection

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/sets/72157625418693756/

 

[142094]

Looks like BR trying to capitalise on the air rights in the 60s. Glad we seem to have moved away from this.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

Looked better in '65 than it does in the next millenium!

 

[The Barlow Boy]

Arlesey, I'd agree with you on that, Platform 2 is woefully inadequate. Biggleswade however, is great.. if you're heading southbound before 2pm! It's got 2 waiting rooms and toilets.. on platforms 1/2! Sadly the buildings on the northbound platforms were replaced with the horrid bus shelter quite a while ago by BR.

I won't even comment on the monstrosities that are Peterborough and Stevenage...:roll:

You should have seen the original station at Stevenage!

 

[scrapy]

Bury's in Lancashire, they have trams! No, I agree with them in cities, but hate when they take over heavy rail (ie. Bury, Altrincham, Tyne & Wear etc, croydon)

Bury is in fact in Greater Manchester and not even in the ceremonial county of Lancashire, despite the fact the locals like to think they are still part of it (which historically they were). There are trams in Lancashiee though - in Blackpool.

 

[RPM]

Denham golf club. Just a waste of a place - though i understand the shelters there are old remnants from great western

The three corrugated iron buildings at DGC are the only examples of GWR "pagoda" buildings left anywhere on the network. For this reason they are grade II listed. The booking office building was damaged by fire in 2006 but it was repaired and reskinned - it is not a replica.

Whilst it may be fair to say DGC is not a particularly useful station, in architectural terms it is actually quite important.

 

[PinzaC55]

It will be interesting to ask the same question in three or four years time - many of the top ten worst will have been refurbed into modern 'palaces' and there will be new contenders for bad stations on a new poll. For exmaple BNS, Man Victoria, Sunderland, Gourock etc are all receiving expensive work to bring them up to date. Even Kirkgate has had some work done on the subway - just need another ten million quid to do the rest!!

Many of the Virigjn stations in the North West are a bit run down and need some cash - WBQ, Wigan, Crewe, Stockport etc. I wouldn't be surprised if station investment doesnt play a key role in the franchise battle when it starts next year.

Sunderland is my home town so I can speak without fear of contraception when I say that the station can NEVER look good no matter how many millions they squander on it.
On my last visit a couple of months ago water was already leaking through the new roof covering and leaching chemicals from the concrete above producing a kind of crust above the platform.
It's simply good money after bad.

 

[blue sabre]

Sunderland is my home town so I can speak without fear of contraception when I say that the station can NEVER look good no matter how many millions they squander on it.
On my last visit a couple of months ago water was already leaking through the new roof covering and leaching chemicals from the concrete above producing a kind of crust above the platform.
It's simply good money after bad.

They had the chance in 2002 to really make a difference to it. IMO opening the disused island platform when it was redeveloped the first time round for metro services would have made a massive difference.

 

[sprinterguy]

They had the chance in 2002 to really make a difference to it. IMO opening the disused island platform when it was redeveloped the first time round for metro services would have made a massive difference.

Precisely! The Metro extension was a massive missed opportunity for some forward thinking concerning Sunderland station.

 

[PinzaC55]

I knew the guys who designed the signalling at Sunderland and parts of the reopened Hylton line. Although in theory Sunderland station was done as a huge island to allow interchange between the Hartlepool line and Metro it was actually to save money on the pointwork and S&T.
Here's the track diagram C.1963 copied from the signalbox diagram in my collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3853006959/sizes/o/in/set-72157623620355068/

 

[blue sabre]

Precisely! The Metro extension was a massive missed opportunity for some forward thinking concerning Sunderland station.

Would love to see track laid to connect with Durham. Durham > Sunderland > Newcastle with intermediate stops, I reckon could be quite a bit of potential there.
Also, (probably not the right thread for this but I'm typing it anyway!) would like to see them relay the old line that diverged around university metro then runs through Barnes Park, Silksworth then onto Doxford Park. Thousands of people work in Doxford, me included, and it just seems like such a sensible line, again with potential to be a little goldmine.

 

[PinzaC55]

The line to Silksworth (the Hetton Colliery Railway) actually ran from Hetton Staithes on the south side of the river from the football stadium and crossed over the current Metro line between University and Millfield by this bridge http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3598228403/
which Sunderland council cleverly demolished in 1990 and then had to build a replacement footbridge 10 years later.
It would be impossible to link it with Sunderland station without colossal earthworks and demolition of houses near the Royalty.
The most obvious Metro "fill in" would be East Boldon to Tyne Dock to allow a resumption of the Sunderland to South Shields service which finished in 1965 but they don't seem interested in doing that.
Re Durham that would be relatively simple to do. I think when the A1(M) was built it didn't allow enough space for a bridge at Leamside but the improved acceleration of the Metro trains would allow the trackbed to be lowered.Whether County Durham would want to contribute to a Tyne & Wear project is another matter.

 

[LE Greys]

You should have seen the original station at Stevenage!

You mean this?

Looks a bit run down in this picture, but according to my dad (who used the place a lot) it was a very nice little station when it was being looked after properly.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Here's the track diagram C.1963 copied from the signalbox diagram in my collection.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3853006959/sizes/o/in/set-72157623620355068/

Thanks for that.

It shows an interseting mix of sigalling. Appreciated.

 

[PinzaC55]

You're welcome! This was the layout for Sunderland South box in 1901, later to become the only box at the station.
Sunderland North was nearly in the North tunnel and was an early closure.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3853006941/sizes/o/in/set-72157623620355068/

 

[E&W Lucas]

Sunderland is my home town so I can speak without fear of contraception

Birth control Makkem style?

 

[PinzaC55]

Yes E&W, it's called humour.I'll explain it to you if I get time.

 

[DarloRich]

GOOD:
Great Malvern: Love the detail in the canopy columns, and just generally a really peaceful station between trains
Newcastle CentralAgreed
Whitley Bay, since the glass roof was refurbished (Just don't look round the end of the Metro platform at the old bays!)Agreed - that is very sad!

BAD:
Sunderland: It doesn't really have architecture. It's just a hole in the ground. And it actually got worse when the Metro arrived and it got closed in altogether. No toilets, and the current refurb isn't doing anything to address this or any other of the more pressing issues affecting the station. Didnt help when the germans dropped a bomb on the old station!
Crewe: Looks very forlorn. Could do with some TLC.Agreed - seems to eb held up by scaffolding!
Darlington: Always seems draughty, the design of the trainshed seems to funnel cold air.Darlington is the greatest station in the world! lol local bias! I think Darlington is a wonderful station as are Newcastle, Durham and York.

UGLY:
The proposed refurbished New Street station plans Demolition!
London EustonDemolition!
Birmingham International

Terrible

I would also add all of the 60's stations south of Crewe - terrible, horrible stations

 

[At_traction]

Although I know by now that it's futile to try to instill much atop the overly Victorian-romantic notion of what "true station architecture" constitutes...

The proposed refurbished New Street station plans Demolition!

Perhaps we might wait for the finalized design to form before we start to demolish anything... :roll:

http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/birmingham/birmingham_new_street_station_260908_3.jpg
http://no2self.net/wp-content/uploads/new-new-street.jpg

The Birmingham remake is not perhaps to everyone's liking, but at least Birmingham has tried to bring something contemporary to the station remake's form-giving and spatial and material choices. And that contemporarary "view" is what architecture should always convey - in good or bad in retrospect. And anyway, we'll see how much of the design turns out altered as various factions get involved.

I think Darlington is a wonderful station as are Newcastle, Durham and York.

Durham? The platform canopies do form a somewhat unified entity that with repetition of the bays has perhaps something going for it (despite the cutesy white painting of the iron archwork), but otherwise Durham is a horrible, mismatching, almost caricaturelike pile of stone:
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/06/96/069681_e17aca6d.jpg

The proportions are clumsy, with the central part of the facade crimping in-between the gabled high ends, above a vaguely defined and (in proportion) oversized arched portico, the whole being made either Countryside-cute or Ye Olde cute by a nondescript jumble of varied masonry around a non-defined hulk.

The now-revered grande sheds stations of course were at their time a step too far for the Victorian mind still trying to get around the never-ending battle between Gothic and Classicism (sometimes settling on a compromise of Eclectism!), which is conventiently forgotten now. Many did cry "demolish" then...

I would also add all of the 60's stations south of Crewe - terrible, horrible stations

Perhaps built with at times substandard detailling and with yet untried element structures and often somewhat underwhelming, but the BR designers, thank god, realized that it was time to move on stylistically from the (future) Prince Charles school of architecture in civic construction... The architects followed what they saw as a new solution to the ideological "betterment" of the built environment, and as with every style, there were hits and misses - the misses being made all the worse by savings cuts to the designs. Ronan Points of the country of course being the most visible example of this.

 

[PinzaC55]

Whitley Bay, since the glass roof was refurbished (Just don't look round the end of the Metro platform at the old bays!)Agreed - that is very sad!

I think you mean Tynemouth. Whitley bay never had any bay platforms.

 

[sprinterguy]

I think you mean Tynemouth. Whitley bay never had any bay platforms.

Ah yes, you're right.