Leicester, by train

Prompted by the Leicester and East Midlands Open Art Exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery and the added attraction of a possible sneak preview of 4 new Class 99s in their shiny new depot, we had a day out in Leicester. The Stadler-built 99s were wrapped up tight in their purpose-built shed with the doors firmly shut, so no easy cops for me there. The art display, however, was many and varied with a few interesting items spread over two large gallery spaces. The only railway-related offering was Sidney Jordon’s Ben’s Hut, a watercolour on paper, which was still available, it seems, at a modest £60. It shows a Midland Railway Johnson Class 2F 0-6-0, No. 52898, about to pass a platelayer’s hut and a wayside crossing, once Ben gets out of the way. I thought it was a nice scene, but without any stand out features that might have attracted any of the star prizes, from a technical point of view. The loco’s wheels look a little wobbly, for a start. The museum is being done up at present, though the dinosaur section is open and reminded me of the local importance of various significant finds within the Midlands fossil record.

We wandered off down New Walk and found the absolutely excellent Bread and Honey café nearby, for lunch. Leicester is steeped in history, whether it’s the Guildhall, the markets, the cathedral with its Richard III connections, or as the home of the tourism pioneer, Thomas Cook, remembered in a statue outside the station, and more recently, the near miraculous 2015/6 Premiership win of Leicester City by ten clear points. I’ll have to come again when the doors are open, though, to get my 99s.   

   

Lincoln in the rain

What to do on a thoroughly wet day? We went to the Usher Gallery in Lincoln to see Richard Ansett’s Liminal Presence display, subtitled A Street Photography Experiment. Richard went around Lincoln city centre on a summer’s day with an accomplice holding a bright light on a pole to counteract back lit imaging. He took pictures of city dwellers going about their business in an approach not unlike that of Martin Parr and quite spontaneous in terms of his subject matter and their responses - or lack of them. It was described as an immersive experience capturing a moment in time and all wrapped up on the day. The resulting display was a series of bright, ceiling to floor splashes of colour showing some purposeful shoppers going about their business contrasting with others with just hours to fill. Hardly mind-blowing stuff but mildly entertaining all the same.

Newark Castle’s station Italian restaurant is open again under another name, which is encouraging and the replacement station totems in Midland Region maroon reminded me that the MR reached Newark before the GNR, hence this historically significant and architecturally notable building.

I stopped rather abruptly on my way into Waterstones to shake the rain off the umbrella. The lady behind me bumped into my arm and dropped her white cardigan into a mucky puddle just outside the shop. “Oh dear”, I exclaimed as I turned to see what had happened. “No worries”, she said with a smile as she stooped to pick it up. “Good job its not a white one”, I quipped, but her smile quickly turned to a glower. Maybe not, big mouth, I thought, but it was too late.

The train to Lincoln had been facemask busy with Port Vale supporters heading to the match at Sincil Bank. On the way home, it was full of revellers heading for a good night out in Nottingham. It was only half past three, though the boozing had begun on the platform and continued on the train, which perhaps says as much about pub prices in the city as anything else.

 

 

Congleton station

I have a copy of the splendid book, Britain’s 100 Best Railway Stations alongside me. Yesterday, I dropped in on Congleton station in Cheshire, on the main line between Stafford and Manchester Piccadilly, via Stoke on Trent. To say that it was a disappointment was an understatement, though admittedly, it was raining, which didn’t help. It made me think that I should write a book about Britain’s 100 worst railway stations. In my admittedly limited experience, as we did not stay long, Congleton would certainly be up there.

Up the hill and quite a way out from the centre of town, the station was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway in 1848. In 1966, the original station buildings were demolished and rebuilt when modernisation and electrification of the West Coast Main Line took place. The unimaginative, flat roof, Brutalist architecture from the period has become so tired and faded in the intervening years, and north west England certainly got it bad. Reports show that it had won regional best kept station awards in the 80s, but more recently it has been highlighted as having suffered from vandalism.

I couldn’t get an adequate picture of the frontage as it was blocked off by a string of Network Rail vans, parked up for the weekend. There was no obvious dropping off zone, so to avoid forecourt parking charges, I had to cross a cinder path and make use of an extensive lay-by next to the approach road. How dismal is all this, I thought. Does it really have to be like this?

      

Wensleydale

It is a lovely valley, which changes in stages as you proceed westwards. From a wide and undulating plain around Leeming Bar to a broad and attractive valley by the time you pass Leyburn with its handy viewpoint at the Sleeve, then onwards past the surprisingly dramatic Aysgarth Falls [well, it had been raining] before climbing up into the hills, proper, it is extensive, green and sparsely populated North Yorkshire at its best.

There were no midweek trains on the Wensleydale Railway but we had a good snoop around Leeming Bar and Bedale stations. At the terminus, they were preparing for the lucrative pre-Christmas special train season - these days often described as the Polar Express rather than Santa Specials - with some energetic dance practice in the marquee and a proliferation of coloured lights. Class 60 “Tug” No. 60087 Ingleborough was unexpectedly parked up behind the carriage stock in the platform at Leeming, at the head of which was Class 33 No. 33035.

Even with no trains about, the view from the platform at Bedale of the home signal, signalbox and level crossing gates is a bit special. Leeming Bar station was opened for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway in 1846 and was at first a terminus for the branch from the main line at Northallerton. It is Grade II listed and boasts a classic portico entrance with some grand stone columns.  

Bennerley viaduct

Striding east to west across the Erewash valley on the border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is Bennerley viaduct. A quarter of a mile long and 20 metres high, it is Grade II listed and one of only two surviving wrought iron railway viaducts in the country. It was built in 1878 by the Great Northern Railway to link Nottingham with Derby.

It is looked after today by the Friends of Bennerley Viaduct and was reopened in 2022 as a walking route and cycleway, though the Notts end remains inaccessible for the immediate future. There are plans for a new car park and visitor centre at the western, Cotmanhay end, where the viaduct crosses the Midland Main Line, adjacent to the Nottingham Canal.  

 

Welcome to York

York station is always a pleasure. Such a magnificent building in its own right, it occupies a wide curve where the main line heading north for Scotland, just manages to avoid crossing the River Ouse. For spotters, the drawback these days is the lack of locomotives, as all the passenger trains using the station are now units, apart from the soon to be displaced Class 91s. Sporadic freights do find a path through the platforms, but the avoiding line to the south and west allows most of these locomotive-hauled trains to by-pass the station altogether.

Nevertheless, it’s a grand place to be, with open access and that central footbridge linking the entrance hall to all the platforms and to the National Railway Museum, beyond. I spent a leisurely hour in the Costa coffee house that occupies the old signalbox on the main London platform, which is reached by the central staircase. I was surprised to see quite a few people bothering to stop and take a photo of their own of the famous old clock [with a clock within a clock!], the footbridge, the signalbox and some fancy wrought ironwork. They don’t make them like that anymore.

   

The NRM at 50.

Station Hall is open again after refurbishment but the familiar entrance to the museum via Leeman Road is still closed while further work is being undertaken. The road itself is blocked off and for now visitors arriving by train and on foot have to make a fairly lengthy journey around the circumference of the site to access either Station Hall or the Great Hall independently, with no direct link between the two while work continues as the former underpass has also been closed off. This state of affairs is due to last until the grand reopening, which is planned for 2027. The rusting tracks outside Station Hall and heading towards it from the north west end of the site were another clear reminder of the motive power depot, 50A York North. Though they are now fenced off, I remember first walking along these lines in the early 1960s, now 60 years ago and 10 years before the museum first opened.

Arriving by car is no problem, as the car park is close to both of the current entrances, but without a shuttle bus to the centre of the city, anyone needing a lift is dependent on the tourist road train at £5 a go. Landscaping surrounding the site goes on apace and what has been achieved so far suggests that this is being well thought out by those responsible, with wide and clearly marked cycle and walkways already laid out. It’s worth noting that the refreshment area in the Great Hall is nowhere near as comprehensive a meal time offering as it used to be, during this period of transition.

I spent some leisurely time at the NRM this week, enjoying a peek around the North shed, where the amazing array of small exhibits used to be a bit more of a jumble than is now the case, with more consideration having gone into the subsequent arrangement. I found a large display case with a multitude of GCR-inscribed crockery from the railway’s dining cars, refreshment rooms and hotels, and all now over 100 years old.

I took a closer look at the royal and other carriages in Station Hall, all beautifully preserved and clearly described, though with so many locomotives to choose from in terms of display items, I thought it a little strange that they had chosen to include 2 examples of the BR[LMR] Blue Electrics.

The walls are adorned everywhere with steam locomotive nameplates, providing a fantastic collection of reminiscences, as well as signalbox boards galore. The imaginative and enterprising winning entries for the Young Railway Photographer of the Year were on display upstairs on the mezzanine level. First prize went to 18-year-old Dale Bristo from St Helens “for his striking and dynamic hyperlapse image of a Merseyrail Class 777, taken at Liverpool Central station on the underground Wirral line platform”.

I had a sit down in the comfy chairs at the entrance to Search Engine, the NRM’s extensive library and archive. Here, I watched 100 of the collection’s most interesting photographs arranged thematically and presented on a VDU loop.