Huddersfield

There is a bit of a mis-match at Huddersfield station. The frontage is something special but the interior struggles to keep up the impression. I’ve only been seriously worried for my safety on a train twice in my life. Once was when hurtling down from Beattock summit behind a blue electric. I was glad that I didn’t have a cup of coffee at that moment because it would have gone everywhere.

The other time was when I was a teenager and our steam-hauled Leeds-bound train emerged unsuspectingly from the tunnel immediately west of Huddersfield station. Either, the driver had forgotten about the existence of Huddersfield station, or it had just happened upon him rather more quickly than he had expected. I think, from memory, that he perhaps realised a little late that he was expected to stop here, but the crew might also have been unaware that they were going to be slewed across to what is now number eight on the island platform, or they would not have been doing anything like the speed with which the approach was made. I have never felt the jerk of unexpected points so markedly, before or since. Derailment could not have been more severely tested and still found wanting. The first thing I did when I stepped out onto Huddersfield station yesterday morning - for the first time ever - was to inspect this site of my narrow escape of around sixty years ago. The driver had got away with it and so did we. On the other hand, perhaps the event has just got worse in my imagination as time has passed by. I was probably quite partial to a bit of exaggeration when I was young.

The station was designed by James Pritchett and constructed for the London and North Western Railway in a neo-classical style. The facade was thought by John Betjeman to be the most splendid in England, and the station is now a Grade I listed building. My attention, however, had been drawn to the overall roof. Maybe I’ll start a survey, in which this one may well be propping up the rest of the table. At first glance, it appears less than substantial. The visible metalwork reminded me of a Meccano set that had gone a bit rusty and the “glass” sections resembled strips of grubby, corrugated plastic. I was a little relieved to discover that there are plans afoot for the roof, as part of the major upgrade associated with the eventual electrification and quadrupling of the Trans-Pennine route. Network Rail’s 2021 proposals have to take account of the fact that this is actually a rare surviving example of a “Euston truss roof” and part of the protection order. Whatever they come up with, I’m sure it will enhance the overall ambience below.

Taking centre stage on the paved area in front of the station is a sculpture of Harold Wilson, who was born in Huddersfield and elected four times as prime minister. I remember how significant my folks thought his election to power was in 1964. It was a time of great optimism for many. Back inside, it was lunchtime and it was cold. I made for the buffet on the island platform. Though the sign on the door said it was open, it was locked, and with no signs of life within. Perhaps it’s taken a leaf out of the book of many an afternoon tea shop in Britain that closes just around the time of day that you fancy a nice afternoon tea. I ate my sandwich, instead, in a glass-sheeted goldfish bowl of a waiting room, which was heated, except that because I was sitting near the automatic doors, whenever I lifted food to my mouth the doors opened in response to my action, accompanied by yet another blast of cold air. With doors at each end, it was a bit like sitting in a wind tunnel.

Class 68 No. 68026 Enterprise arrived with a sleek TransPennine express heading for Scarborough. The main line from Leeds to Manchester was being well served by a range of units, including Class 185 Desiros and Class 802 Novas. I like the TPE livery, which is bright and cheerful, yet remains stately.

I ventured back through the subway to the main platform and headed for the Head of Steam bar and buffet. They advertise pies but don’t do chocolate bars. It was a delight - warm and cosy, and with 60s music playing and railway bric-a-brac and photos of steam trains on the walls. Coffee was two thirds of the price that you could obtain it at the platform kiosks. It is accessible directly from the street as well as from platform one - even though this is not just a barriered station, but a manned, barriered station, at that, so I’m not sure how that that works. Maybe it’s why there appeared to be dedicated and uniformed security personnel standing around and looking at me suspiciously, as I stood around with my camera at the platform end. I’m not sure I’ve noticed that before, away from the London termini, and during what I was about to describe as “normal times”, before I thought better of it.

    

Leamington Spa

Why? I was asked. A number of things, actually. I knew it was an Art Deco station building, having seen the pictures and read Simon Jenkins’ Best 100 Railway Stations, and it looked intriguing. There are not that many main line examples of 30’s architecture, outside suburban London at least. It’s also a four-track, junction station, which always has its own appeal. The ex-GWR legacy gives it a spacious layout, courtesy of broad-gauge being reduced to standard between the same platforms, all that time ago. It’s also on the Birkenhead to Paddington route, one end of which I knew very well, having travelled it from the Wirral as far as Birmingham Snow Hill, in times past. This would give me extra miles along the same route for the first time, through Tyseley and Hatton. I also got some new route miles in on the way back, as it happened, via Kenilworth, on the former freight line to Coventry.

Leamington Spa station is excellent and just what I expected. Rebuilt in the late 1930s, it was refurbished in 2011 when the Art Deco fittings in the waiting rooms were either retained or appropriately replaced. It has been a Grade II listed building since 2003. Chiltern Railways have run the station since privatisation in 1996, and a Friends Group began their active support in 2004.

The buffets on both of the main platforms are part of the GWR Centenary Lounge initiative begun in 2009, aimed at bringing back the Art Deco-style to some West Midlands locations served by the former GWR, beginning then with Birmingham Moor Street station café. Fitments and furnishing in the waiting rooms, too, are all in keeping with the overall theme. Shiny steel, glass and polished wood all complement the cast iron supported platform canopies and the impressive facade. It was a cold day, so I took a leisurely coffee in the buffet. Although it has two doors that open and bright metal handles to match, access is only achieved by pressing a large pad well to the side of the entrance itself. This means that everyone that doesn’t already know this is abruptly halted while they rattle a door that is unyielding until the guy behind the counter has yelled to them to “press the button”. Even then, there is a delay, while the pad is located. It had obviously become a ritual performance for all those wishing to enter therein.

The centre roads were being used by some lengthy freightliner container trains hauled by Class 66s. The platforms were generally fairly busy and all the main line services to stopped here. Suburban services to Snow Hill, Moor Street, New Street, Coventry, Nuneaton and Banbury are complemented with Crosscountry trains to Manchester Piccadilly and Edinburgh from the south west, but it is Chiltern Railways that dominate the scene. The silver-grey and light blue livery of the sleek and elegant Class 68s matches the carriage stock and certainly works well in bright sunlight, conveying a harmonious sense of importance to the Marylebone-bound workings.

What a contrast it had been with New Street, I thought, as we dived under central Birmingham for the second time in the day - a bland, dark, congested and claustrophobic entity, with its garish corporate crown high above. I gave that a miss once more, relieved by a short turn around for my connection and the eventual reappearance of by then fading daylight.

  

Watermeadows Park and Penistone Viaduct

 

This colourful and vibrant new painting by Jennifer Margaret shows the varied vegetation in Watermeadows Park in Penistone. It has as its backdrop the 29-arch railway viaduct built in 1850 for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The line to Huddersfield crosses the River Don at this point and is now a Grade II listed structure.