Station Building Design

[28XX]

To help create a visual block, I want to adopt the ruse of a town street at the back of my layout atop a retaining wall. Pride of place in the middle of the street will be a station building on two levels, passengers access the station at the top level, then reach the platform via internal stairs. A number of questions arise.

 

1. Are / were there any examples of this in real life?

 

2. If the difference in levels is not exactly one (or two) building floors, how would the architect deal with the unusable height?

 

3. Would a refreshment room on street level be a likely feature in the steam age?

 

4. Any other bright suggestions?

[Davexoc]

To help create a visual block, I want to adopt the ruse of a town street at the back of my layout atop a retaining wall. Pride of place in the middle of the street will be a station building on two levels, passengers access the station at the top level, then reach the platform via internal stairs. A number of questions arise.

 

1. Are / were there any examples of this in real life?

 

2. If the difference in levels is not exactly one (or two) building floors, how would the architect deal with the unusable height?

 

3. Would a refreshment room on street level be a likely feature in the steam age?

 

4. Any other bright suggestions?

The old Wolverton station booking hall was accessed from the road bridge, it spanning the lines below. It was linked at high level to the footbridge that gave access to the platforms and there were waiting rooms etc. on the platforms. Demolished some years ago because it was predominantly wooden.

 

Dave

[28XX]

Yes Dave, I know that style, Tyseley, Acocks Green, Water Orton etc.

 

What I’m after is the road parallel to the track, but higher and the station building between them.

[The Johnster]

The Red Dragon Bar was part of Cardiff General, later Central, station for many years, and accessed from the street frontage; there may be other such examples.  

 

A station has to be level or nearly level, so often is not at the same level as the road entrance. and may start in a cutting or tunnel at one end and be on an embankment at the other; a good example is Birmingham Snow Hill. which is accessed from a floor above rail level but is above ground level at the 'down' end.

 

Unless you are modelling a particular prototype, you have a great deal of leeway in positioning the booking hall.  This needs to be accessed from the road frontage, and may well have been above platform level, on a bridge over the railway, or below platform level with the access to the platforms via subways and stairs.  When you are designing it, if you are modelling pre 21st century period, remember to consider mail and parcels access and how such traffic is transferred between road vans and railway vehicles; as well as internally hidden stairwells, you may need lift shafts, the top housings for the winding gear of which are (or were) a prominent feature of many stations/

 

The 'street up a retaining wall behind the railway' is common on models but less common in reality, though not unknown.  The 'Booking Hall on a bridge' is more common even where there were streets on top of retaining walls.  Town centre locations need to have commercial activity on both sides of a street, and it would be more usual to see the backs of buildings facing the railway on top of that retaining wall!  Bargoed, on the Rhymney Railway, is an interesting use of a hillside shelf railway formation where there were buildings on a bridge and at street level depending on which platform you wanted to access.

 

Perhaps some more detail about scale, imagined location, period, and general size of the proposed station will elicit some more ideas!

[tamperman36]

Crewe station is accessed from a road bridge, as is Keighley. On a slightly different layout Dewsbury has access from above down to a footbridge at one side of the station and down to platform level at the other side and leading out to the track which comes in over a viaduct.

[Colin_McLeod]

Belfast Central and Belfast Botanic stations are both accessed from a building at street level and access ramps down to platform level. On both cases the additional height (OP question 2) is just unused.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Colin_McLeod

[28XX]

Thanks for your help chaps. The one shot on the web of Belfast Botanic from the platforms shows ugly modern ramps, but it’s quite clear how that might have looked earlier.

 

I’ll press on with this, I might even design in some faux half-height windows between the floors to balance the design.

[Arun Sharma]

I think Glasgow [High Street] and many of the Great Central stations were entered at street level with steps going down to the platform. Leyton Station on the GE [now LT of course] and Acton Town [LT] also have that type of entrance - in fact many LT and London Overground stations do.

[great central]

Brackley on the GC had it's ticket office at street level, indeed I believe it may still be there and a bridge out to the island platform. Carrington just north of Nottingham Victoria had it's ticket office at street level and a fairly long ramp down to the platforms with a footbridge between them.

Burton on Trent has it's fairly modern ticket office on the overbridge with steps down to the platform.

Hunts Cross has the ticket office at street level again, now a pub possibly, only get a fleeting glimpse but I think there's a load of beer barrels in a cage on the platform. Really should take more notice! This one is quite a difference in height with a retaining wall.

Then of course there's the big example of Nottingham Victoria with ticket office, many other offices and a hotel at street level.with the station itself in a massive cutting behind including two long island platforms with bays set into either end

[great central]

Brackley on the GC had it's ticket office at street level, indeed I believe it may still be there and a bridge out to the island platform. Carrington just north of Nottingham Victoria had it's ticket office at street level and a fairly long ramp down to the platforms with a footbridge between them.

Burton on Trent has it's fairly modern ticket office on the overbridge with steps down to the platform.

Hunts Cross has the ticket office at street level again, now a pub possibly, only get a fleeting glimpse but I think there's a load of beer barrels in a cage on the platform. Really should take more notice! This one is quite a difference in height with a retaining wall.

Then of course there's the big example of Nottingham Victoria with ticket office, many other offices and a hotel at street level. The station itself being in a massive cutting behind including two long island platforms with bays set into either end with buildings including refreshment rooms, signal boxes and many other offices

[wombatofludham]

If you are thinking a side mounted street level station with platforms at a lower level, Gravelly Hill on Birmingham's Cross City has such an arrangement, Hartford station north of Crewe has a high level booking office side on as opposed to on a bridge and was rebuilt in the 1960s into that characteristic West Coast modernisation style. Another station with the booking office at high level and offset from the tunnel mouth is Sutton Coldfield which has a long glazed ramp down from the booking hall which is situated in the "V" between the area which was the original terminus and the 1890s extension to Lichfield which curves sharply into a tunnel alongside the original station building, which could give you some inspiration for a fictional setting. Finally, another West Midlands stations with a booking hall at street level parallel to the running lines is Tame Bridge Parkway, which being modern has extensive ramps down to the platforms and was built facing the park and ride site.

[Edwin_m]

Hindley station has a building to one side of the track, from which a footbridge emerges to connect to the two remaining platforms. The building survives though mostly in non-railway use, and I think one of the now-disused platforms may have been accessed by internal steps. 

[28XX]

Hindley, excellent! Just what I was looking for. Wrong railway, but no matter. The road is 1 1/2 floors above the platforms, the half floor is solid bricked with raised courses to provide visual relief. We can only guess what lurks in the void! The footbridge has a dog-leg so a standard staircase could be used on the far platform.

 

Thanks for all your replies.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Cheltenham Lansdown also meets the brief, I think.

[cheesysmith]

What about normanton in W Yorkshire. Ex MR with the station at a lower level than the road, with station buildings both on the platform and the roadside.

[Reorte]

Bolton, I think, although I'm not sure of the exact arrangements.

[dibber25]

Bishopstone has its booking office at street level with footbridge access to the platforms. Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? (CJL)

[28XX]

Bishopstone has its booking office at street level with footbridge access to the platforms. Is this the kind of thing you're looking for? (CJL)

Interesting. Here the buildings are too low to match the footbridge level, so the ramp goes uphill. Building doesn’t extend down to form waiting rooms on the near platform though.

[dibber25]

Interesting. Here the buildings are too low to match the footbridge level, so the ramp goes uphill. Building doesn’t extend down to form waiting rooms on the near platform though.

 

...and the footbridge is mind-numbingly ugly!! (CJL)

[Nearholmer]

It’s not an uncommon arrangement, neither is ‘the other way up’. If you ferret around London Underground’s ‘not tunnel’ sections, you will find several ‘at the side at a higher level’, although they are sometimes hard to spot, because of buildings tight against them. My impression is that buildings with their backs to the cutting is much more common than the arrangement often seen on layouts.

 

Bow Road is a good one, with a very interesting old building and a footbridge part of which is in very original condition, but unfortunately not publicly accessible.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Del]

What about Maidstone West?

[Google Maps link] https://goo.gl/maps/u1FipYtotYo

Edited December 13, 2017 by Del

[DCB]

If you want a really weird station try Cheltenham Spa, the current one former Midland Birmingham -Bristol line.  The station buildings are at street level and the street goes over an overbridge. There are buildings both sides connected by a pair of parallel footbridges, one for the station the other a public footpath and both sides there were steps and a ramp but I think the Down side ramp goes outside the building and is now locked.  Now the good bit, the Down side building with booking office was built circa 1750 as a large house or small mansion nothing what ever to do with a railway, and 50 plus years before Liverpool - Manchester and pressed into service as a station building much later not sure when but t was reconstructed in the 1890s for the opening of the MSWJR.

So if you want an excuse....

Edited December 14, 2017 by DavidCBroad

[nigel newling]

While considering Cheltenham, how about Malvern Road? The station approach was level, with a standard GW station building that stood on a retaining wall foundation that faced onto the railway running below. The station opened onto the footbridge leading across to the island platform.

[Joseph_Pestell]

If you want a really weird station try Cheltenham Spa, the current one former Midland Birmingham -Bristol line.  The station buildings are at street level and the street goes over an overbridge. There are buildings both sides connected by a pair of parallel footbridges, one for the station the other a public footpath and both sides there were steps and a ramp but I think the Down side ramp goes outside the building and is now locked.  Now the good bit, the Down side building with booking office was built circa 1750 as a large house or small mansion nothing what ever to do with a railway, and 50 plus years before Liverpool - Manchester and pressed into service as a station building much later not sure when but t was reconstructed in the 1890s for the opening of the MSWJR.

So if you want an excuse....

As per post 14!

[Mike Storey]

For exactly what you want, a station entrance/ ticket office at high level with a road parallel to the railway, try New Barnet on the GN, or Maryland on the GE.