Precedent Lincoln

Let’s be honest. If you were planning a town centre from scratch you wouldn’t plonk a railway level crossing straight over the High Street. That would especially be the case if you knew that road traffic volumes were going to rise, trains were going to run more frequently, and that one of the two stations would be earmarked for closure, thus funnelling even more trains than before over the road at the same point. In fact, Lincoln’s central area once had 5 level crossings, with two of them only 200 yards apart across High Street. It was certainly a recipe for getting things clogged up.

What was clearly needed was a mathematician, someone who could see the wood for the trees and realise that this just wasn’t going to add up. Luckily, Lincoln had such a man in George Boole FRS [1815-1864], whose recently erected statue outside Lincoln station recognises him as “the grandfather of the digital age”. Unluckily, Boole’s expertise came too late for the city’s railway builders. They’d already set their precedent by opting for level crossings from the off.

Lincoln’s response in recent times, additional to the closure of St Mark’s station and level crossing by British Rail in the 1980s, has been to pedestrianise the High Street and to build a footbridge across the railway so that people are not detained unnecessarily at the level crossing barriers. They have also added lifts to the bridge to ensure equal access for all. It’s difficult to make lift shafts that enhance the overall look of a place. As lift shafts go, these are probably above average in design terms.

Dipping in to online chat about Lincoln suggests that the High Street level crossing is still a topic of conversation, locally, with some even seeing it as a dividing point between “buzzing and cool” Lincoln to the north and “rather falling behind” Lincoln to the south. In the meantime, it remains a significant and characterful part of the city landscape, especially if you like trains and you’re not in a hurry.

George Boole was already an accomplished mathematician during the railway age, but it seems that it was not until 1937 that his work helped lay the foundations for modern computer and communications systems. From his present position, he can just about make out the High Street level crossing at the next corner. He’s probably muttering something like, “Mmm, not sure that’s going to work”. However, we idle passers-by have now got these two notable features of interest to attract our attention in this ever-changing part of the city landscape.