Buildings that look like railway buildings but are not

[Andy Kirkham]

Do you know any buildings that look as if they ought to have been stations or other railway strauctures?

 

I give you this rather grand terminus (Midland Railway I fancy) facing on to Park Place, just off Bristol's busy Queen's Road.

 

In reality the former Roman Catholic Pro-Cathedral, never completed due to subsidence and shortage of funds, derelict for many years, and now being converted (inevitably) into flats

 

Had it really been a railway terminus, it could, just conceivably have been connected to Clifton Down by means of some hefty civil engineering and a swathe of demolitions through genteel Clifton, and offered direct cervices to Birmingham and Bath via Ashley Hill Junction and Kingswood Junction.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Andy Kirkham

[J. S. Bach]

To me, the cross over the one corner would be a give-away that it was not a railroad building.

[Chris M]

Carlisle market

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle_Market_Hall#/media/File:Victorian_covered_market,_Carlisle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_978507.jpg

Edited August 13, 2023 by Chris M

[jamieb]

There's a building on the road from Telford to Bridgnorth,between the river and the cliff that looks like it should be a railway station but I think it was some kind of waterworks 

[jamieb]

The Bunbury Arms at Great Barton in Suffolk looks like it once had trains running past too

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Alternatively, buildings that don't look like railway buildings but actually are...

I give you most of the grey, cold, soulless structures put up over the past 30 years which purport to be railway stations. 

[Reorte]

If we can tolerate structures rather than buildings Torr Vale Viaduct in New MIlls looks very railway-like, at least from that level. It's a bit of a giveaway that it never was when you're on it, the slope's rather excessive for a railway.

[kevinlms]

23 minutes ago, Reorte said:

If we can tolerate structures rather than buildings Torr Vale Viaduct in New MIlls looks very railway-like, at least from that level. It's a bit of a giveaway that it never was when you're on it, the slope's rather excessive for a railway.

Oh, it's for a canal then?

[phil-b259]

5 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Alternatively, buildings that don't look like railway buildings but actually are...

I give you most of the grey, cold, soulless structures put up over the past 30 years which purport to be railway stations. 

 

Or the 30 years before that...

 

Am I the only one whose getting rather fed up with the 'lets clad everything in glass' ethos which dominates these days - much like the 1960s and 70s fascination with concrete its all getting rather over the top.

 

 

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Or the 30 years before that...

 

Am I the only one whose getting rather fed up with the 'lets clad everything in glass' ethos which dominates these days - much like the 1960s and 70s fascination with concrete its all getting rather over the top.

 

 

Glass is better than much of the cladding thats been used the last 25 years or so and is the cause of many fires.

[Nearholmer]

How about one that looks like a model railway station, but is actually a swimming pool?

 

The Mounts Baths, Northampton, which Councillor W J Bassett-Lowke oversaw the design and construction of as Chairman of the Baths Committee:

 

 

And, the Trix Manyways station system, also overseen by WJB-L at pretty much the same time. I believe the drawing for both were prepared by George Winteringham, leader of one of the firms in the complex Bassett-Lowke family of companies.

 

 

The match is by no means exact, but when you see the station kits in context of the swimming pool and the rest of the range of municipal buildings at The Mounts, the relationship is clear.

[Rugd1022]

Here in Rugby we have a few buildings which resemble quite closely some on the real railway - there's an apartment block near Rugby School which looks like Newton Abbot station, one of the more recently built GP surgeries in town looks like the 1984 Westbury PSB and the soon to be demolished Cemex / Crown House / Rugby Portland Cement building always reminds me of the early '60s tower block at Plymouth North Road station.

 

Just south of Hampton-in-Arden station on the down side there is a modern office block that looks like a large signalbox.

[Chris M]

The recently closed New Street station signal box is a fine example of the opposite to this thread.

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_New_Street_Signal_Box#/media/File%3ABrum_New_St_Signal_Box.jpg

Edited August 14, 2023 by Chris M

[J. S. Bach]

Looks more like a bellows, I would like to see it fulled contracted!

[Johann Marsbar]

This place in Chicago which is actually a library and was only built in the late 1980's......

 

 

Not far from the La Salle Street Metra terminus station and the former Dearborn terminal.

[Kickstart]

To me, this M&S just off the A52 in Derby looks like it was designed to look like an engine shed:-

All the best

 

Katy

[Ben B]

On 13/08/2023 at 19:55, Chris M said:

Carlisle market

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle_Market_Hall#/media/File:Victorian_covered_market,_Carlisle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_978507.jpg

 

When I first moved to Carlisle in 2004, I was so convinced this must once originally have been a railway station that I went to the library my first month in the city to look it up on old maps and in the history books :)  Loved the place, really atmospheric, and there was a nice little toys and model railway stall in the market at that point.

[The Johnster]

10 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Looks more like a bellows, I would like to see it fulled contracted!

 

Look, someone's dropped an accordion on it's side...

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Though I do like the appearance of the (now closed) Hill St box in Birmingham. 

Is it deliberate now that signalling centres are housed in anonymous-looking structures, which look like they've come from an industrial estate? Is it a security thing?

[Nearholmer]

Yes, and now that they can be sited anywhere, having them away from the actual running lines, where access is safer and simpler for those who need to enter them, and easier to prevent in the case of those who don’t, makes good sense.

[The Johnster]

No reason they can't be outsourced to Mumbai...

[rovex]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

No reason they can't be outsourced to Mumbai...

Don't go giving them ideas

[Nearholmer]

The way the world works, there’ll come a day when the Mumbai suburban service is overseen from a big shed in an industrial estate in Wigan, and the WCML from a big shed in an industrial estate in Mumbai, and both administrations will be proudly claiming that they’ve reduced costs and found a better motivated workforce.

[Reorte]

23 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Is it deliberate now that signalling centres are housed in anonymous-looking structures, which look like they've come from an industrial estate? Is it a security thing?

That's just any and everything that ever gets built these days.