British Rail, London Midland Region : Your New Railway, April 1966 - points of departure
Ah, the cut and thrust of the new! From a lavish 1966 British Rail publication detailing the Manchester/Liverpool - Birmingham - London electrification programme a double page showing the architecture that was being developed to match the infrastructure and rolling stock changes.
To many the poorest aspect of the programme was the impact on station architecture and what good works there were is always overshadowed by the loss of the old Euston terminus and the rather disappointing replacement. Certainly this 'impression' doesn't exactly set the heart beating and I'd certainly say that if Euston's main building has had an issue since construction it has been hideous clutter that has always hidden what was possibly being sold as 'crisp, clean lines' and 'simplicity.
Of the stations seen here, and that illustrate the major reconstructions in the 'provinces' and that included Birmingham New St, Manchester Piccadilly and Wolverhampton, Coventry is arguably one of the best and is indeed Listed at Grade 2 and is currently being 'tidied up'. The station builds on the rather more successful stations associated with the Great Eastern electrification, such as Harlow Town, or other reconstructions driven by aspects of the Modernisation programme such as Banbury.
The 'smaller' stations are represented by Handforth station in Cheshire and this was indeed one of the modular pre-fab stations that hasn't stood the test of time. Perhaps they were always rather 'ephemeral' by design but BR , and the pre-decessor companies, had an interesting 'dance' with modular buildings that never quite came to anything. Faced with thousands of decaying Victorian buildings you can see the thought process; quicker and more effective to demolish and replace with something 'off the shelf'. But, system builds such as 'CLASP' that various BR regions tried turned out to be unsuccessful. I wonder if it was what we in London Underground discovered? It always seemed that of a group of stations you could think of for modular replacement each one had enough significant difference to make the resultant 'personalisation' mitigate the use of a generic building type because it simlply led to modifications that ended up costing more than an individual solutin in the first place?
One thing about Handforth is that sign! One of the last of the old BR regionals, in Gill Sans and LMR red, amazingly it does still survive and in fact Handforth has quite the recently developed 'museum' of signs as local staff have acquired examples of many railway's signage systems, reading Handforth, to add to the platforms!
The 'minor improvements' station escapes me for the moment - but it does have the rather fine GEC manufactured fluorescent lights with the station name on the diffuser and a local bus company timetable frame on the wall!
British Rail, London Midland Region : Your New Railway, April 1966 - points of departure
Ah, the cut and thrust of the new! From a lavish 1966 British Rail publication detailing the Manchester/Liverpool - Birmingham - London electrification programme a double page showing the architecture that was being developed to match the infrastructure and rolling stock changes.
To many the poorest aspect of the programme was the impact on station architecture and what good works there were is always overshadowed by the loss of the old Euston terminus and the rather disappointing replacement. Certainly this 'impression' doesn't exactly set the heart beating and I'd certainly say that if Euston's main building has had an issue since construction it has been hideous clutter that has always hidden what was possibly being sold as 'crisp, clean lines' and 'simplicity.
Of the stations seen here, and that illustrate the major reconstructions in the 'provinces' and that included Birmingham New St, Manchester Piccadilly and Wolverhampton, Coventry is arguably one of the best and is indeed Listed at Grade 2 and is currently being 'tidied up'. The station builds on the rather more successful stations associated with the Great Eastern electrification, such as Harlow Town, or other reconstructions driven by aspects of the Modernisation programme such as Banbury.
The 'smaller' stations are represented by Handforth station in Cheshire and this was indeed one of the modular pre-fab stations that hasn't stood the test of time. Perhaps they were always rather 'ephemeral' by design but BR , and the pre-decessor companies, had an interesting 'dance' with modular buildings that never quite came to anything. Faced with thousands of decaying Victorian buildings you can see the thought process; quicker and more effective to demolish and replace with something 'off the shelf'. But, system builds such as 'CLASP' that various BR regions tried turned out to be unsuccessful. I wonder if it was what we in London Underground discovered? It always seemed that of a group of stations you could think of for modular replacement each one had enough significant difference to make the resultant 'personalisation' mitigate the use of a generic building type because it simlply led to modifications that ended up costing more than an individual solutin in the first place?
One thing about Handforth is that sign! One of the last of the old BR regionals, in Gill Sans and LMR red, amazingly it does still survive and in fact Handforth has quite the recently developed 'museum' of signs as local staff have acquired examples of many railway's signage systems, reading Handforth, to add to the platforms!
The 'minor improvements' station escapes me for the moment - but it does have the rather fine GEC manufactured fluorescent lights with the station name on the diffuser and a local bus company timetable frame on the wall!