Worst station improvements/modernisations 1950s to today

[DavidLong]

How about the hideous Paragon House that was inflicted on the G T Andrews station:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Paragon_Interchange#/media/File:Paragon_Station_-_geograph.org.uk_-_603999.jpg

 

Fortunately removed earlier this century.

 

Referring to Euston, I've used it frequently since just after it opened and do I recall correctly that it was notorious for some years in not having any seats on the concourse?

 

The tower blocks are about to be demolished. The taxi rank has been moved from underground to outside at the front near the gardens. Something to do with the foundations of the tower blocks being around the old taxi rank. The plans for the new Euston do involve improved access to Euston Square - fifty years on!

 

David

[rovex]

How about the hideous Paragon House that was inflicted on the G T Andrews station:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Paragon_Interchange#/media/File:Paragon_Station_-_geograph.org.uk_-_603999.jpg

 

Fortunately removed earlier this century.

 

David

Thanks for posting. It's a long time since I've been to Hull. Glad to know the ghastly Paragon House has gone.

[melmerby]

Referring to Euston, I've used it frequently since just after it opened and do I recall correctly that it was notorious for some years in not having any seats on the concourse?

 

The plans for the new Euston do involve improved access to Euston Square - fifty years on!

 

David

IMHO the concourse is way to small for a station of that size, with those narrow corridors leading off to the platforms at the extremities.

Try making your way from the concourse to platform 17 when a 12 car train from MK has just disgorged it's passengers on platform 16!

At least the new Brum New Street has plenty of circulating space and plenty of seats.

 

The eastern end of Euston Square station platforms is remarkably close to Euston's frontage.

 

Keith

[RJS1977]

IMHO the concourse is way to small for a station of that size, with those narrow corridors leading off to the platforms at the extremities.

Try making your way from the concourse to platform 17 when a 12 car train from MK has just disgorged it's passengers on platform 16!

At least the new Brum New Street has plenty of circulating space and plenty of seats.

 

The eastern end of Euston Square station platforms is remarkably close to Euston's frontage.

 

Keith

 

I understand that as part of the HS2 rebuild, the eastern end of Euston Square's platforms will be connected to Euston Underground station, thence to the main line station. 

[Mike Storey]

You could add to that, ADB, stations such as Hartford where the platform edges have been removed at the extremities in order to (as I understand it) reduce the TOC leasing fees to NR.

Hartford used to have one or two intercity services back in the day, so the extra length was warranted but has nobody thought this through in the current era?

What about in an emergency when a Pendo needs evacuating, yes I know they have SDO but even so the evacuation could be done more quickly if more/all doors were available.

From a purely practical sense the copings should've stayed put, and just to add that had they been retained then station overruns would've been reduced.

 

It's the economics of the madhouse, I tell thee...

 

It would indeed be the economics of the madhouse, because it is completely untrue.

 

Removing or re-laying copers is a very expensive operation. NR would not bother doing it unless gauging or drainage was becoming a problem and the TOC emphasised it did or did not need that length of platform to continue. Otherwise, re-laying the copers to gauge, for something that might happen once a century, is indeed the economics of a complete nutter. There was a period where DDA compliance was posing a problem, where coper replacement was deemed the only solution. But that has long been overcome with innovative solutions available in the market, in most cases, where platform height was not an issue.

 

Indeed, where gauging was an issue, as we discovered when allowing Mark IV's up the Skipton branch, we despatched a bunch of blokes with angle-grinders, to shave off the offending sections, allowing them to be used by the next morning.

 

If there was nothing structurally wrong with the copings, and the TOC did not want to pay for the continuing maintenance of that section of the platform, then a little wooden fence with a sign, would be the way that most stations like that, were dealt with. Cheap as chips.

 

Indeed, the frigging opposite has been more the case over the past 30 years, where platform extensions (or re-instating original lengths) have been more in demand. I spent a considerable part of my career supervising teams and contractors engaged in such activities. Citing what cash-strapped and panicking BR did on a number of occasions and slapping the blame on Railtrack/Network Rail must be considered one of the most blatant mis-attributions I have yet seen.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Mike Storey

[Mike Storey]

I understand that as part of the HS2 rebuild, the eastern end of Euston Square's platforms will be connected to Euston Underground station, thence to the main line station. 

 

Quite, and I believe that also involves a new entrance closer to the HS2 platforms.

[The Johnster]

My nomination isn't a rebuild, it's a new build; Bristol Parkway.  The original concept was that the punters would be kept in the warm, dry, terminal building where they could be sold weak coffee and stale sarnies until their train was announced, when they made their way by lift or staircase to the platform just as it was running in.  There was nothing at all on the platforms for many years, and they were decanted out of the stairwells on to one of the bleakest spots on the WR, to either freeze in the cold, drown in the rain, or bake in the pitiless 1976 sun.  And, with the down trains being announced before they'd got to Westerleigh and prone to delay at that junction, people were left in the howling Arctic wastes for considerable lengths of time on occasion, sometimes with trains passing them a few feet away at speed.

 

Eventually shelters were erected to solve this, but they are not what you'd call pretty.  Anyone who remember's the station's early days must be very grateful for them, though.

[dibber25]

This topic probably needs to be split into small, medium and large categories. My nomination would hardly compare with Euston or New Street for over-powering awfulness but it is awful, nevertheless. Newquay. To be fair it probably vies with its South Cornwall equivalent at Falmouth Docks, but while few people venture to the deepest end of the Falmouth branch, lots (in summer at least) go to Newquay. It is scarcely recognisable as a station, from the street, merely a gap between the shops in a crummy 1970s precinct. The gap is a passage where one wades through cigarette butts and piles of puke to reach a one coach train parked way down a lengthy platform because, apparently, a couple of track panels could be saved by not laying track right to the end of the platform. I'll admit my impression is a little dated but I wonder if there's been dramatic improvement in the past few years? (CJL)

[Zomboid]

Newquay station is awful, but it's also probably the highlight of the town...

[EddieK]

A former station manager at Euston told me that if the concourse was heaving with people, back in the day, then the job was up the wall. Nowadays, the concourse is heaving all day, every day. Presumably a victim of increased rail usage.

I always thought that 1960s Euston was not a bad place to catch a train in the 1970s and 1980s. Not entirely convinced about the retail nightmare that has been developed within the station, nor by the concrete jungle of offices and ever-more retail just outside the front.

When I worked in the concrete box on stilts over the bus station at the front of Euston, my window view was a concrete fire escape. When I was offered a job in the old NER HQ offices in York, I took it without hesitation. My window view became the York city walls.

 

Down the road, I am not keen on the concrete box that has been added to the country end of the iconic train shed at St Pancras. It just does not complement the original station. 

 

The train shed at KX seems a bit of a soulless place nowadays, but I remember the station with Deltics. Not keen on the lack of platform access until the train is announced, unlike the old days when platforms 1 and 8 were freely available.

 

Although I was frustrated by trains at Watford Junction on many occasions, the old LNWR station was far preferable to the present concrete and glass 5hitehole with the (former?) IVECO-Ford offices over the ticket concourse.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I much prefer Snow Hill to New Street. Snow Hill may be draughty, but it doesn't suffer from the permanent fug of diesel fumes that New Street does. 

 

Of course Moor Street is in a different league to both, with its retro 1930s GWR feel.  

 

Anyway, my nomination for terrible station improvement is the down side building at Grantham. It replaced the previous (dry rot infested IIRC) building in the 1980s, and consists of a waiting room and a small staff office. And no other facilities for the large number of passengers who change trains here, who have to trudge 100 yards to the loo on the up side.

 

Oh and the waiting room is shut at night, so waiting for a Nottingham train on a windswept platform in winter isn't fun. Still, it's in keeping with the spirit of the GNR, which generally built the cheapest stations it could. 

[wombatofludham]

 

 

Down the road, I am not keen on the concrete box that has been added to the country end of the iconic train shed at St Pancras. It just does not complement the original station. 

 

 

 

That is probably the point.  Modern conservation thinking regarding adapting listed buildings for modern needs has largely moved on from trying to replicate the old as being inappropriate (not always, here in the areas administered by the National Park they expect you to follow much stricter guidelines), so, when the roof and platforms needed adapting to modern needs at St Pancreas, the obviously 21st century extension looks just that and doesn't give a false impression of having been part of the original station.  Whether this approach is appropriate is something that has aroused some debate in planning circles, personally I prefer it as a building is listed at a point in time for various reasons, and if it needs to be adapted at some point in the future for a new use then the adaptations should be recognisably not part of the original structure as listed, but equally I've seen some listed buildings where good extensions to match the existing have been added which add to the character.  However, there is a sound and logical reason why you might not want to add a strict copycat extension in that it helps explain to future generations how buildings evolve and change, and in the case of St P the rest of the station has been magnificently restored and adapted sensitively, so I feel the add-ons at the "domestic" end have been correct and were designed in a way so as not to interfere with the view of the trainshed from outside the station.

 

As I say, not all conservation planners follow this thinking and it's a matter of ongoing debate within the profession.  Fortunately I'm a retired town planner so have no more part to play professionally in this debate!

[Fenman]

... when the roof and platforms needed adapting to modern needs at St Pancreas, the obviously 21st century extension looks just that and doesn't give a false impression of having been part of the original station. Whether this approach is appropriate is something that has aroused some debate in planning circles ...

It’s an interesting question. The opposite approach was taken on the preserved side of the Liverpool Streeet trainshed, the original extended like-for-like: these things are often a matter of taste, but that approach seems to have worked well. (It’s also vastly nicer to use than the “new” side, which to me feels dark and cramped).

 

The problem at St Pancras is that the extension is anyway just a poor piece of architecture: lumpen, dark, draughty and yet still stinking of diesel fumes. It doesn’t have to be like that: the King’s Cross works next-door are light, airy and effective, yet obviously a modern addition.

 

I think Euston is not bad, though for me it loses points by adopting a US-type approach of hiding the trains away down long ramps (I also dislike the Liverpool Street approach of hiding the trains behind “retail opportunities”). It helps users orientate themselves if they can see the trains, just as airport terminals where you can see planes feel less disorientating.

 

Some of the stations slagged-off in this topic are, I think, rather good: Coventry, Harlow, Broxbourne, or the glorious light-filled concourse at Barking (now ruined by both chronic neglect and having stuffed the formerly open space full of those damn “retail opportunities”).

 

I’d nominate Southampton Central as a poor modernisation. Always problematic (it was designed as a secondary station, compared to the glamorous but now disused Southampton Terminus), war damage on the north side and a series of cheap “solutions” has left the city without an appropriate gateway compared to similar-sized places (the small Jazz Age entrance on the south side was designed as a “back door”).

 

Paul

Edited January 25, 2019 by Fenman

[Hobby]

My nomination isn't a rebuild, it's a new build; Bristol Parkway.  The original concept was that the punters would be kept in the warm, dry, terminal building where they could be sold weak coffee and stale sarnies until their train was announced, when they made their way by lift or staircase to the platform just as it was running in. 

 

 

I much prefer Snow Hill to New Street. Snow Hill may be draughty, but it doesn't suffer from the permanent fug of diesel fumes that New Street does. 

 

Those two are connected, though... The whole point of the large modern stations is that (as The Johnster says) they are designed to keep the traveller in the warm and dry and hopefully reasonable conditions, only going down to the train shortly before it arrives. I've never felt that BPW works well in that way, having to go up from road level to a rather cramped waiting area that is off the main bridge rather than part of it  doesn't work very well. That's how the new New Street is designed and if used that way it does work very well. Trouble is many people head off to the platform as soon as they get there and are greeted with diesel fumes (New Street) or cold draughty platforms (Snow Hill)... At least New Street has got somewhere you can wait in the warm, unlike Snow Hill (says he who has had to wait numerous times on cold draughty Snow Hill!) which has a complete lack of concourse... Moor Street has the same "concourse" set-up but the advantage that no-one destroyed the nice buildings and we still have a nice waiting area, though the waiting room where the toilets are is a bit weird!

 

I believe the Reading station rebuild was designed so people would use the overbridge/concourse to wait for trains as well, but again that doesn't happen, and the rebuild has made it one of the draughtiest stations I've worked through (gives Stafford a run for it's money!), having spoken to the platform staff many times it's why they only come out when the train is coming in otherwise they'd freeze to death!

[Fenman]

Those two are connected, though... The whole point of the large modern stations is that (as The Johnster says) they are designed to keep the traveller in the warm and dry and hopefully reasonable conditions, only going down to the train shortly before it arrives. I've never felt that BPW works well in that way, having to go up from road level to a rather cramped waiting area that is off the main bridge rather than part of it  doesn't work very well. That's how the new New Street is designed and if used that way it does work very well. Trouble is many people head off to the platform as soon as they get there and are greeted with diesel fumes (New Street) or cold draughty platforms (Snow Hill)... At least New Street has got somewhere you can wait in the warm, unlike Snow Hill (says he who has had to wait numerous times on cold draughty Snow Hill!) which has a complete lack of concourse... Moor Street has the same "concourse" set-up but the advantage that no-one destroyed the nice buildings and we still have a nice waiting area, though the waiting room where the toilets are is a bit weird!

 

I believe the Reading station rebuild was designed so people would use the overbridge/concourse to wait for trains as well, but again that doesn't happen, and the rebuild has made it one of the draughtiest stations I've worked through (gives Stafford a run for it's money!), having spoken to the platform staff many times it's why they only come out when the train is coming in otherwise they'd freeze to death!

 

Many stations don't take account of the problem of the "nervous traveller": we want to see whether or not our train is pulling into the station, since years of rubbish PIS systems (and doesn't that acronym tell you everything you need to now about the contempt in which passengers are often held...) have taught us that we can only trust our own eyes.

 

The layout used in the refurbished Harlow Town or Broxbourne is rather good: the bridge across all the tracks is so wide that part of it is a dedicated seating area with views down to the platforms and approaching tracks (and coffee stalls, etc, for those who want them). That way you can sit in the warmth, and not clog-up the platforms, until you see your train approaching. Then it's easy to go downstairs and get on. 

 

No views, then upstairs, is not at all as easy (at Clapham Junction, it is vastly preferable to use the wide footbridge at the country end than the narrow cramped tunnel at the city end - same principle).

 

Paul

[Butler Henderson]

The one that in a sense escaped was Nottingham Victoria - if the GC had remained open no doubt it would still have had a shopping centre built on top and in probability the sad sight that exists of the clock tower dwarfed by 1970s brutalism would still have occurred.

[Reorte]

It’s an interesting question. The opposite approach was taken on the preserved side of the Liverpool Streeet trainshed, the original extended like-for-like: these things are often a matter of taste, but that approach seems to have worked well. (It’s also vastly nicer to use than the “new” side, which to me feels dark and cramped).

I usually go for trying to match  - well, not necessarily match, but at least not clash, and think that if you want changing styles completely new buildings are the place for them. It's not as if the records of which bits were built when are likely to be lost. Sometimes mixing in some obviously modern features into an old building can work; I've mentioned Manchester Piccadilly somewhere else, but that's a bit different from a completely new extension. At the completely opposite end of the scale some of the new shelters on Settle-Carlisle platforms where the originals have been lost are both clearly modern and clearly in a matching, old style - stone (or at least stone faced) but with a glass front for Kirkby Stephen for example, it fits in, obviously isn't old (because of the glass) and is probably nicer to wait in than the original, being lighter.

[Hobby]

rubbish PIS systems (and doesn't that acronym tell you everything you need to now about the contempt in which passengers are often held...)

 

Which is probably why they are now called customer information screens... Less obvious!

 

Trouble is at a place like New Street getting down to the platform early if you are not a very good traveller is a guaranteed way of ending up on the wrong train.. On stations where you can only go one route it's OK but at New Street where you can have trains to all parts of the country on one platform it's a disaster waiting to happen... Hence the idea of keeping them all upstairs until near the time, especially if there's a late platform alteration......

 

"I thought this train went to Wolverhampton?" As we head towards Derby!

[Andy Kirkham]

Concur, need to go to Sparkford tomorrow, the direct train from Weymouth still goes through the village and passes within 50 yards of where I am driving to. Unfortunately Sparkford station was closed in the 60s. A bus shelterised station would have sufficed.

Unfortunately nowadays it seems that building even the simplest of stopping places is regarded as equivalent in magnitude to, say, a new hospital and requires complex partnerships, funding packages and years of feasibility studies. 

[DY444]

Thameslink platforms at St Pancras International. Clean and functional. Not a clue to help bemused visitors understand that this is in fact NOT international, but actually the suburban services only platforms. All signage in English, so that those from abroad have very little information about how to reach the actual International element of St Pancras.

Your comparative assessment with St Pancras International Shopping Mall will be welcomed.

 

Quite stark I'll agree but imo infinitely better than the Kings Cross Thameslink/Midland it replaced.

[Mike Storey]

Unfortunately nowadays it seems that building even the simplest of stopping places is regarded as equivalent in magnitude to, say, a new hospital and requires complex partnerships, funding packages and years of feasibility studies. 

 

Around 80 new stations have been opened (or re-opened) on the national rail network since 2000, with another dozen or so in the pipeline, and a further list being considered across the country. That doesn't include all the new stations opened on metro or tram style routes.

 

Compare that to the previous several decades, when funding was very "simple".

[caradoc]

Glad to see my very first workplace on the railway, Harlow Town, mentioned in a positive light. I started there in 1978 and it was a pleasant place to work, whether in the Booking Office, the Parcels Office or the Parcels Concentration Depot. I did revisit a couple of years ago (having left in 1980), but although the building has not been replaced or ruined, somehow it just wasn't the same. Perhaps it was the lack of Class 31s and 37s working the main line services.....

[Nearholmer]

Mike

 

I do think that Andy has a bit of a point, though. ‘The System’ does have the capability to make simple things complicated.

 

It is still possible to ‘whip-up a station in ten minutes’, as was evidenced a few years back when one was created to provide a service during flooding in Cumbia(?), so ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’.

 

The rash of Halts built c1905 when motor-trains were invented would take far, far longer if ‘the system’ was allowed to play out today. Not anything like entirely ‘a railway’ problem, of course, because planning regulations are now, rightfully inmy view, in place, but ‘planning’ isn’t the whole story.

 

Kevin

[Reorte]

I do think that Andy has a bit of a point, though. ‘The System’ does have the capability to make simple things complicated.

 

It is still possible to ‘whip-up a station in ten minutes’, as was evidenced a few years back when one was created to provide a service during flooding in Cumbia(?), so ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’.

It was also largely made out of scaffolding. I'm not criticising it for that - it was a very impressive quick response to an emergency situation, one that the railway should taken a lot of credit for (although they really should've made the most out of it by labelling the trains that stopped there "road replacement trains" ), but I think it's fair to say that what's acceptable as a temporary emergency measure is different from what's acceptable as a long term project, and so the latter should be more complicated. That isn't to say the level of complexity's right but the comparison's a bit harsh.

Edited January 25, 2019 by Reorte

[Andy Kirkham]

Mike

 

I do think that Andy has a bit of a point, though. ‘The System’ does have the capability to make simple things complicated.

 

It is still possible to ‘whip-up a station in ten minutes’, as was evidenced a few years back when one was created to provide a service during flooding in Cumbia(?), so ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’.

 

The rash of Halts built c1905 when motor-trains were invented would take far, far longer if ‘the system’ was allowed to play out today. Not anything like entirely ‘a railway’ problem, of course, because planning regulations are now, rightfully inmy view, in place, but ‘planning’ isn’t the whole story.

 

Kevin

The particular example I had in mind is "Portway Parkway", a proposed stopping place on the Severn Beach line near Avonmouth. The line skirts an existing park-and-ride facility, so car parking is already in place and the line is single so there is no need for a footbridge. I can't see what needs to be built other than a platform with a shelter and lighting. The local paper has been reporting for years that it's "about to happen" but so far nothing ever has.