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Post by theblackferret on Aug 23, 2014 15:58:03 GMT
Wondered if any of you have a favourite terminus?
Doesn't have to be on the London area rail map, btw, but does anything tend to bring a smile or warm feeling to your soul whenever you use it, including through stations where short workings often terminate?
I'm stuck for choice between Victoria, which, over 80 years after they knocked down the dividing wall between the original LCDR & LBSCR stations, still gives off the ambience of two very separate stations within one contiguous whole.
And Aldwych, which was on the map once. No less then six attempts to turn it into a through station went to the wall, so was it really all along just somebody jogging the draughtsman's pen at the wrong moment in 1905 & creating the branch from Holborn? It always had the feeling of distinct possibilities faintly in the background of the overarching feeling of a melancholy 'This is the end-of-the-pier show' as per Archie Rice in The Entertainer.
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 23, 2014 16:21:14 GMT
theblackferret No, Aldwych really was intended to be the terminus of the Great Northern & Strand - at the time, the Strand was still one of London's main shopping streets (Mr Selfridge was about to change that). The next stpe was to amalgamate the GN&S with a proposed line coming from the S kensington direction, which had the effect of leaving Aldwych on a branch. Yes, it would have been great if it had gone to Waterloo, although I doubt if anyone, least of all LT, would have run it through to Kings Cross and beyond as that would have divided the service at its busiest point. Still, given the volume of buses and their loadings between Waterloo and Holborn (but not north of there to Russell Square) , it would have been quite well used. Whether it would have justified the cost of building on to Waterloo is difficult to say now - probably not in today's terms, but project appraisal worked differently before the War. To answer your first question I'd have said Broad Street but I don't know whether you allow long gone stations... It had a tired dusty quality and one could easily envisage Mr Pooter detraining from his morning commute from Upper Holloway or wherever.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 23, 2014 16:29:30 GMT
Broad Street went 30 years ago, but it sure was a terminus by any stretch of the imagination. And had its' own ambience, so it's perfectly suited to this thread.
Well, as for Aldwych-the old music hall song said it all:
'Lets All Go Down The Strand(haveabanana!)'. Written, incidentally in 1909!
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 23, 2014 16:56:50 GMT
theblackferret - the ghost of the Strand as a premier shopping street lived on for years - the Savoy Grill, the Civil Service Stores, a couple of theatres - I guess that in 1909, that upstart at Oxford Street, plus his "ally" in the CLR, hadn't yet quite turned the tide against them... Same with the Tottenham Court Road - all those now fading department stores such as Heals - with the Hampstead tube arriving just too late to save the area.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Aug 23, 2014 18:04:36 GMT
Aldwych really was intended to be the terminus of the Great Northern & Strand - The next step was to amalgamate the GN&S with a proposed line coming from the S kensington direction, which had the effect of leaving Aldwych on a branch. Indeed, what we know as the Picadilly Line started out as three quite separate projects - the GN&S (nb, Aldwych station was originally called "Strand", but renamed to avoid confusion with its CCE&HR namesake at the other end of that thoroughfare (now renamed Charing Cross) - the Picadilly & Brompton - from Picadilly Circus to the now-closed Brompton Road station - the Deep Level District - from Hammersmith to Mansion House Joining those three up after parliamentary powers were granted resulted in a number of Piccadilly Line oddities - the Aldwych branch is one, but more obviously the arrangements at South Kensington, with the twisty-turny connection connecting Brompton Road (B&P) and the parallel DLD alignment at South Kensington, with the two directions on different levels, the extra platform tunnel on the westbound (never used for trains, now a circulating area) , and the step plate junction on the eastbound leading to a blank wall on the main line where the DLD never went any further. (there is also a never-used stepplate at the west end of the westbound platform) |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2014 19:44:58 GMT
Broad Street went 30 years ago, but it sure was a terminus by any stretch of the imagination. And had its' own ambience, so it's perfectly suited to this thread. Ditto Holborn Viaduct. |
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 23, 2014 19:44:53 GMT
Yes, I used the Savoy Grill once, two young ladies with me as well. Few years before I met my wife, happy to report!
Remember the Civil Service stores well and the original frontage of Brompton Road station, which went west about 1972, around 40 years after the station itself closed for custom.
At least we can console ourselves that H Gordon Selfridge failed to get Bond Street(CL)renamed as Bond Street for Selfridges. Not for want of trying!
So, looks like Aldwych is still in the running for me after all. We shall see what others bring to our memories about fondly-remembered termini.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 23, 2014 19:52:02 GMT
Broad Street went 30 years ago, but it sure was a terminus by any stretch of the imagination. And had its' own ambience, so it's perfectly suited to this thread. Ditto Holborn Viaduct.
Even though both were once intensely busy with commuters every rush hour, the ghosts of past times spoke in different voices at each. |
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on Aug 24, 2014 11:04:22 GMT
Yes, and a quite different one to Broad Street.
Even though both were once intensely busy with commuters every rush hour, the ghosts of past times spoke in different voices at each. That's rather poetic! I'd go for Broad Street as well. I found it quite haunting with all the vegetation growing in the disused platforms and the emasculated station canopies. The whole tie in with the North London and DC lines was most interesting as far as I was concerned. In my early years of work I used the line between Willesden and Broad Street as a change from the Central Line from North Acton prior to 313s operating. |
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Post by grahamhewett on Aug 24, 2014 14:27:20 GMT
@whistlekiller - I - being a persistent sort of body - used to use the last Broad Street via Primrose Hill which started at (0802?) from Willesden Low Level, having changed off a Euston, the through Broad Street- Watfords having disappeared by then.. Usually had the train to myself. BTW, years later, when my firm was advising Nat Ex on their bid for the NLL/Silverlink franchise (must have been c 2002), we looked at the stub end of Broad Street throat, still visible from the raft at Broadgate and pondered whether to egg Nat Ex on to reopening it. Could still have taken a three car... Discretion prevailed.
Yes, theblackferret is getting very Betjemanesque!
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 24, 2014 15:06:22 GMT
Yes, but I think the ambience of a station is there for us all.
The only thing precluding everybody from grasping it is the time problem.
One thing about taking early retirement in December 2008 was that I had more time to make journeys, to linger on a station and contemplate, and to remember all the past impressions of them, which were lodged as brief, hurried glimpses when I, too, had to hustle and bustle to work.
Which, of course, also gave me an excuse for doing naff all once I got to work. As long as you can look contemplative and earnest at the same time, can carry the right size of file about with you(thin, because you can always tell the bosses you are astonished there's been so little achieved on the subject for so much input, so you are about to change that), and can avoid giving anyone the impression that quick and correct answers to difficult problems come naturally to you until nearer reporting time, you could get away with it.
The best example of ambience is somewhere that did have a station until 1968, but the ambience was there before then. The Culloden battlefield. We went there mid-afternoon in late September, with a cool breeze around. Once we were about the Clan Cairns, where most of Bonnie Prince Charlie's lot fell shot to bits in a suicidal sword & bayonet charge on the English cannon, the wind completely stopped, the sun went in, and the temperature seemed to drop from around 13 to 4 or 5, if that.
As soon as we went back to the visitor centre, the sun stayed in, but the temperature went back up to 9 or 10, and the breeze returned. If it had been just me, fair enough, but my wife was just as forcibly struck by this, and she'd never had that feeling about a place before.
And, once she revisited Victoria last October, she now had the time to feel the ambience or aura of it, without me chuntering on about it, too.
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Post by whistlekiller2000 on Aug 24, 2014 15:24:03 GMT
Yes, theblackferret is getting very Betjemanesque! It's certainly not Pam Ayres, that's for sure.  |
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Post by mikebuzz on Sept 16, 2014 11:07:16 GMT
I always loved Marylebone before the redevelopment of the 80s and 90s. It felt like half a big station and very quiet too (at a time when stations were a lot quieter generally). Aldwych really was intended to be the terminus of the Great Northern & Strand - The next step was to amalgamate the GN&S with a proposed line coming from the S kensington direction, which had the effect of leaving Aldwych on a branch. Indeed, what we know as the Picadilly Line started out as three quite separate projects - the GN&S (nb, Aldwych station was originally called "Strand", but renamed to avoid confusion with its CCE&HR namesake at the other end of that thoroughfare (now renamed Charing Cross) - the Picadilly & Brompton - from Picadilly Circus to the now-closed Brompton Road station - the Deep Level District - from Hammersmith to Mansion House Joining those three up after parliamentary powers were granted resulted in a number of Piccadilly Line oddities - the Aldwych branch is one, but more obviously the arrangements at South Kensington, with the twisty-turny connection connecting Brompton Road (B&P) and the parallel DLD alignment at South Kensington, with the two directions on different levels, the extra platform tunnel on the westbound (never used for trains, now a circulating area) , and the step plate junction on the eastbound leading to a blank wall on the main line where the DLD never went any further. (there is also a never-used stepplate at the west end of the westbound platform) Just to add to this, Yerkes bought up the tube schemes mentioned here after parliamentary approval (not always easy to get) including inheriting the District DD along with the purchase of the District Railway itself. The first amalgamation was the GN&S and the P&B, later merging with the 'District Deep Level' west of South Ken. The rest of this line eastwards to Mansion House, which was an express tube parallel to the district sub-surface, was still planned to be built (though once the District was successfully electrified it went on the back burner) and the scheme was even extended to Stepney Green, underneath the existing railway to join the new extension to Bow. After the failure of he Morgan tubes, there were plans (probably just blocking schemes) to add branches on the Piccadilly east from Piccadilly Circus via Strand to Mansion House and west from Nightsbridge to via Hammasmith to Shepherd's Bush. Before merger, the Piccadilly & Brompton had proposals for extension from Holborn to Angel and from Brompton Road to Welham Green. Really there could hve been 3 full tube lines instead of the eventual one but I guess the money, ambition and commitment weren't there. |
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Post by Indefatigable on Sept 16, 2014 11:35:45 GMT
Well, if one takes the rules literary...
I vote for Hull Paragon as it always warms my heart to come around Park Street Bridge flyover and see my home station. There is something magical and majestic about the structure in the dark - lit up like a beacon to drive monsters from sight. Many a time have I heard that metal tribute to Man's engineering skill and ability welcome me home after a long and tiring journey. Often have I got off the train, looked along well trodden platforms and shed tears at the thought of everything that the station has seen - and what it will see long after I have passed on.
That majestic, hallowed and most exquisite building, the location of lives made and lost, is therefore my vote in this fair discussion
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Post by theblackferret on Sept 16, 2014 11:52:30 GMT
We very nearly lost Marylebone before Broad Street was needlessly culled, having been intentionally run down, I'm sure, in both cases. Marylebone does still have enough of its' original aura left, though, to be worth travelling to today.
Hull Paragon I have actually travelled to-23 November 1974 to be precise. I thought it quite impressive at the time and I hope the 40 years since have treated it kindly.
What was clearly missing from the Yerkes' era was an Edwardian version of rockorange, who could have made the three Tube lines instead of one. Because Yerkes died in 1905, and that's when someone with imagination was sorely needed.
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Post by christopher125 on Sept 16, 2014 12:42:14 GMT
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Post by Indefatigable on Sept 16, 2014 12:44:11 GMT
Hull Paragon I have actually travelled to-23 November 1974 to be precise. I thought it quite impressive at the time and I hope the 40 years since have treated it kindly. Well next time you are ever up my way, tell me in advance and your first is on me! Hull Paragon has seen so many chances lately but has weathered them all and still stands to reign supreme! |
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Post by roythebus on Sept 16, 2014 14:09:14 GMT
Looks like the Peco kit!
My favourite terminus is Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
Aldwych may have lost its terminus status in 1975 as plans were laid before parliament to extend the line to beneath Waterloo Station. And yes, I do have the evidence available to prove it.
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Post by theblackferret on Sept 16, 2014 14:20:03 GMT
Thanks, folks, that's what I wanted to see & hear about Paragon.
And it's kept it's name, too. Unique amongst British stations for being the only Paragon station ever?
I know the DLR and Jubilee extension tried to use steel & glass to make a sweeping statement in their stations, but the original iron work of the roof here and at some of the others we have mentioned so far still surpasses these sterling efforts, ditto the presence of Leslie Green oxblood fiaence tiling on Tube stations.
There is something spiritual in the roof of a terminus, even amongst the pigeons. I suppose the Victorian engineers thought their passengers would probably be looking skyward unto our Lord, so might also marvel at the skill in designing and erecting the roof as to what talents God gave man?
Now, over 100 years on, we can marvel at it and its' endurance, too.
There's only one thing unfortunately missing from all our termini now, which would make the ambience of Kings Cross, St Pancras, Paddington, Victoria and Liverpool Street complete, though I doubt that this:
is about to make a comeback. Maybe rockorange can find a place for them alongside PRT's?
Cowes certainly had charm, looking at the photos around of it. Which is considerably more than what replaced it could be said to 'possess'- 
Yes, that 1975 Aldwych proposal was the 5th of the 6th and it did indeed receive Parliamentary approval, which I doubt any of the others did, except the 6th and the last, the Jubilee extension originally scheduled to be going on from Charing Cross via there and Ludgate Circus to Fenchurch Street.
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Post by Indefatigable on Sept 16, 2014 16:53:03 GMT
Thanks, folks, that's what I wanted to see & hear about Paragon.
And it's kept it's name, too. Unique amongst British stations for being the only Paragon station ever?
>snip<
There is something spiritual in the roof of a terminus, even amongst the pigeons. I suppose the Victorian engineers thought their passengers would probably be looking skyward unto our Lord, so might also marvel at the skill in designing and erecting the roof as to what talents God gave man?
Now, over 100 years on, we can marvel at it and its' endurance, too.
You are quite correct, theblackferret. There has never been a station with Paragon in its name before - so its unique alright...  I know it sounds daft, but there is a feeling of contentment about getting on or off at a terminus. Often when getting on at a terminus station you want to burst our with "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" Nice to see that we are thinking alike on Hull, tbf... If you are ever up my way, let me know and I'll be my pleasure to buy you a drink and swap tales |
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Post by Tomcakes on Sept 16, 2014 19:05:01 GMT
Stations frequently have names that have fallen into disuse - Nottingham Midland, Leeds City, Sheffield Midland etc all come to mind. King's Cross is the terminus with which I am most familiar, and the recent refurbishment has greatly improved its appearance and amenities, although it is very different to how I remember it. Looking back, how did everyone ever fit onto that tiny 1970s concourse?
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Post by theblackferret on Sept 16, 2014 19:29:38 GMT
Stations frequently have names that have fallen into disuse - Nottingham Midland, Leeds City, Sheffield Midland etc all come to mind. King's Cross is the terminus with which I am most familiar, and the recent refurbishment has greatly improved its appearance and amenities, although it is very different to how I remember it. Looking back, how did everyone ever fit onto that tiny 1970s concourse?
In view of the spaciousness it now has, I'll therefore limit it to a brace of Scammell Mechanical Horses; on plinths next to an eating area!  |
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Post by rincew1nd on Sept 16, 2014 21:10:27 GMT
Stations frequently have names that have fallen into disuse - Nottingham Midland, Leeds City... Which was revived during the Railtrack era "Leeds 1 st" project, when there was a "Leeds City" and "Leeds Whitehall" with a connecting bus service betwixt the two. It took a few years for the "Leeds City" wording to disappear from the luggage trolleys. Regarding the OP, the terminus to end them all is (for me) the one that created a turning point in my life. I was 17, it was mid-summer, the air-con had failed on the Transpennine 158 and I remember sweating profusely as I passed through Manchester Picadilly. As the twin plug doors moved out then separated I stepped onto the platform and experienced the cool breeze blowing through the dump of a station that was; Liverpool Lime Street:  Ya gotta love concrete and brutalism. However the city carried me - the station, like I, has risen like a phoenix and now we are glorious:  |
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Post by theblackferret on Sept 16, 2014 21:44:42 GMT
Yes, how much better that one looks today!
One heck of a lot more to appreciate than whenever I used it once or twice a season between 1969-1986, when my lot were at Anfield or Goodison.
Not that I wasn't able to then, even if my attention was mainly on the match, witness my remembering Hull Paragon.
It's just that now, it's a bit easier to drink in the full flavour of it without the tatty shops there, so you can actually let your imagination rise to the fore as you climb up the entrance steps. So now, function and form have got reunited properly. Good!
And I believe the Liver Bird itself was meant to have phoenix-like qualities, so that's a highly-appropriate image.
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Post by grahamhewett on Sept 17, 2014 8:36:01 GMT
Thank you for the various pictures of Hull - I've never had occasion to use that station but the sense of spaciousness -- - seems a shame to spoil it with eventual electrification masts ( if it ever gets that far).
BTW, I discovered, reading the Survey of London volumes relating to Woolwich, that the idea and technology for overall roofs of the sort that we tend to think of as railway specialities, in fact originated in the late 1830s in the provision of a cover for boatbuilding dry docks, to enable work to carry on throughout the winter. At that time, mainline termini (a) were very few and far between, and (b) were open to the elements as at Euston, with a sort of courtyard, in effect.
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Post by John Tuthill on Sept 17, 2014 8:41:01 GMT
Thank you for the various pictures of Hull - I've never had occasion to use that station but the sense of spaciousness -- - seems a shame to spoil it with eventual electrification masts ( if it ever gets that far). BTW, I discovered, reading the Survey of London volumes relating to Woolwich, that the idea and technology for overall roofs of the sort that we tend to think of as railway specialities, in fact originated in the late 1830s in the provision of a cover for boatbuilding dry docks, to enable work to carry on throughout the winter. At that time, mainline termini (a) were very few and far between, and (b) were open to the elements as at Euston, with a sort of courtyard, in effect. Isn't there one in either Plymouth or Portsmouth that dates back to the Tudor times? Seem to remember seeing it on the 'Coast' programme. |
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Post by grahamhewett on Sept 17, 2014 10:20:05 GMT
I suspect that what was new in the 1830s was the use of iron to span much greater distances than had been possible with timber. .
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Post by Chris M on Sept 17, 2014 10:36:02 GMT
Isn't the widest timber roof that at Westminster Hall?
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Post by theblackferret on Sept 17, 2014 10:59:55 GMT
Isn't the widest timber roof that at Westminster Hall? Could be, because Brunel's Temple Meads 1840 station, according to NR's site: The original Brunel train shed functioned for 125 years until its closure on 12 September 1965. His mock hammer beam roof, built of wood to emulate Westminster Hall in London, can still be seen as part of the car park at today’s station.
And, incidentally, Paddington(1838) was originally a wooden roof too. The 1854 rebuild incorporated iron and glass throughout the roofing. Both were Brunel, although the second station's detailing was mainly the work/inspiration of his assistant, Matthew Digby Wyatt. So, I wonder if a major switch to iron and glazed roofs coincided with the erection of the original 'Crystal Palace' in Hyde Park in 1851 and the Great Exhibition therein from May-October that year? However,  Phillip Hardwick seems to've been off to the foundries for Euston a little earlier than that. His original 1837 roof was wrought-iron. It was planned by Robert Stephenson & designed by Charles Fox, so I bet they tried out a few ale-houses on the way with Phillip! |
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Post by phillw48 on Sept 17, 2014 16:40:29 GMT
Thank you for the various pictures of Hull - I've never had occasion to use that station but the sense of spaciousness -- - seems a shame to spoil it with eventual electrification masts ( if it ever gets that far). BTW, I discovered, reading the Survey of London volumes relating to Woolwich, that the idea and technology for overall roofs of the sort that we tend to think of as railway specialities, in fact originated in the late 1830s in the provision of a cover for boatbuilding dry docks, to enable work to carry on throughout the winter. At that time, mainline termini (a) were very few and far between, and (b) were open to the elements as at Euston, with a sort of courtyard, in effect. Isn't there one in either Plymouth or Portsmouth that dates back to the Tudor times? Seem to remember seeing it on the 'Coast' programme. IIRC The ones at Chatham date back to the 17th century. |
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