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Last Gas Lit Stations on BR

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Mutant Lemming

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I recall staff at Roby station lighting the gas mantles at dusk and wonder what was the last station on British Railways to be gas lit also do any of the preserved railways have stations that are gas lit only ?
 
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30907

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Think the KWVR has one or more?
I remember gas lighting at various SR stations, IIRC including West Dulwich (until the wooden bit fell down?), but that's early 70s so unlikely to be the last.
 

edwin_m

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I have something in the back of my brain that says Dalmeny was the last gas-lit station but I can't quote a source.
 

hexagon789

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I recall staff at Roby station lighting the gas mantles at dusk and wonder what was the last station on British Railways to be gas lit also do any of the preserved railways have stations that are gas lit only ?

I believe Ilkley was the last gas lit station under BR, the gaslamps finally being extinguished in 1988 I think.
 

hexagon789

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Yep, came here to say Ilkley. Sure I've read somewhere that the station became completely unstaffed in order to save money, except for a bloke to light the lamps.

Quite possibly, I couldn't say myself. Seems like such an anachronism, unstaffed but you still need someone to deal with the gaslamps, surely a ticket seller could've been trained to do it or vice versa and kept the station staffed!
 

Busaholic

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The last gas-lit station in London was Selsdon, on the Woodside line, which closed in 1983. I managed to visit it just the once before it closed, but as it wasn't dark I didn't get the effect.
 

Mutant Lemming

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The last gas-lit station in London was Selsdon, on the Woodside line, which closed in 1983. I managed to visit it just the once before it closed, but as it wasn't dark I didn't get the effect.
That's sounding like the last one - most of those I recall were late 60's to mid 70's
 

Busaholic

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That's sounding like the last one - most of those I recall were late 60's to mid 70's
This is just an aside, but Beckenham lay further up that railway line and there were certainly gas lamps still in use in the area (nearer Beck Junction) a quarter century ago, and I'd be surprised if some still didn't exist.
 

nw1

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Were those lamp styles that had white, octagonal (?) lamp shades, mounted on horizontal rather ornate concrete arms coming from concrete possibly octagonal pillars, on the Southern, originally gas lit?

I ask as I remember seeing a photo of that style in one of the railway books and they were described as gas lit.

Guildford still has those on the northern end of the platforms through much of the 80s, though at that time the bulbs were electric I suspect as I remember being on the platforms in the dark and the light didn't seem unusual - not to mention no-one went around lighting them! One or two of the intermediate stations to Waterloo had the same style - Walton possibly and Hersham. Maybe Vauxhall too, though not sure if my mind's playing tricks here.

I think Haslemere had the same style in 1982 when I first started using the station but were replaced by the fluorescent style soon after.
 
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AY1975

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I first went to the Isle of Wight in about 1985, and I seem to remember that Brading station was still gas-lit then, so I guess that may have been one of the last. By the time I next went there in the early 2000s it still had the same lighting columns and fittings but they had been converted to electric.
 

AY1975

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Were those lamp styles that had white, octagonal (?) lamp shades, mounted on horizontal rather ornate concrete arms coming from concrete possibly octagonal pillars, on the Southern, originally gas lit?

I ask as I remember seeing a photo of that style in one of the railway books and they were described as gas lit.

Guildford still has those on the northern end of the platforms through much of the 80s, though at that time the bulbs were electric I suspect as I remember being on the platforms in the dark and the light didn't seem unusual - not to mention no-one went around lighting them! One or two of the intermediate stations to Waterloo had the same style - Walton possibly and Hersham. Maybe Vauxhall too, though not sure if my mind's playing tricks here.

I think Haslemere had the same style in 1982 when I first started using the station but were replaced by the fluorescent style soon after.

I know the ones you mean - they were still quite widespread on the Southern in the '80s, and yes I do remember them at Vauxhall. I also remember them at Clapham Junction and at my local Underground station, East Putney, when it was managed by BR (despite being only served by LU, although it did have SR empty stock trains passing through it). I am fairly sure that they were always electric, though. They tended to have three bulbs per lamp at larger stations and only one at smaller stations.
 

Journeyman

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The last gas-lit station in London was Selsdon, on the Woodside line, which closed in 1983. I managed to visit it just the once before it closed, but as it wasn't dark I didn't get the effect.

Still on the Southern, Tunbridge Wells West was still at least partially gas-lit right up until closure in 1985.
 

Hornet

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I first went to the Isle of Wight in about 1985, and I seem to remember that Brading station was still gas-lit then, so I guess that may have been one of the last. By the time I next went there in the early 2000s it still had the same lighting columns and fittings but they had been converted to electric.

A quick look through my collection shows similar lamp posts at Brading (by the Nameboard) and Selsdon (by the pallett stack on the Down Platform). Can't make out what was at Tunbridge Wells West.

Brading.

Brading-M.jpg

Selsdon

Selsdon.jpg

Tunbridge Wells West

Tunbridge Wells West.jpg
 

nw1

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A quick look through my collection shows similar lamp posts at Brading (by the Nameboard) and Selsdon (by the pallett stack on the Down Platform). Can't make out what was at Tunbridge Wells West.

Interesting photos, what date were these? They "look" old - older than when I first started using the railways regularly in late 1982 - but it's obviously "modern" (blue and grey) BR era from the livery - I'm guessing maybe mid 1970s?
Tunbridge Wells clearly appeared to have quite a big depot for all the Oxted line stock at the time!
 

eastwestdivide

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On the dating of the photo, the Oxted line stock in the TW pic is in blue-grey, and that was only applied later than the mid-70s, from about 1980ish.
 

Hornet

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Interesting photos, what date were these? They "look" old - older than when I first started using the railways regularly in late 1982 - but it's obviously "modern" (blue and grey) BR era from the livery - I'm guessing maybe mid 1970s?
Tunbridge Wells clearly appeared to have quite a big depot for all the Oxted line stock at the time!

Brading 26th July 1983 (13:37 Ryde Pier Head to Shanklin)
Selsdon 1980 (Service from Sanderstead)
Tunbridge Wells West 24th March 1984 (10:34 Eridge to Tonbridge)
 

kje7812

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I recall staff at Roby station lighting the gas mantles at dusk and wonder what was the last station on British Railways to be gas lit also do any of the preserved railways have stations that are gas lit only ?
The platforms at Kidderminster SVR are as well as the station forecourt. The concourse/canopy is electric though.
 

Flying Phil

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Rothley Station on the GCR is entirely gas lit. (Apparently, it only got electricity when the GCR took it over!)
 

derekjbd@gmail

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I recall staff at Roby station lighting the gas mantles at dusk and wonder what was the last station on British Railways to be gas lit also do any of the preserved railways have stations that are gas lit only ?
Yes Edwin it was Dalmeny station, it was light by my dad Charlie Johnston. There was an article in the Edinburgh evening news. I can recall in the last 80s driving him along the line to fill the parafin signals but not sure of the years for either of them
I recall staff at Roby station lighting the gas mantles at dusk and wonder what was the last station on British Railways to be gas lit also do any of the preserved railways have stations that are gas lit only ?
 

Midnight Sun

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Yep, came here to say Ilkley. Sure I've read somewhere that the station became completely unstaffed in order to save money, except for a bloke to light the lamps.

It had long been the case that street lights lit by gas used to turn themselves on and off using a clock switching system set for lighting up times. Troop Road in Bournemouth is lit by gas. The clocks just need to be wound once a week, all 28 of them. They can never be repace as they are now listed.
 

Taunton

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I wonder if oil-lit actually existed until later. To have gas meant you were on a, generally urban, gas supply, which normally had electricity close to hand by BR times. If the station was still gas lit it was more because they had not got round to updating it. Country stations might well have neither.

I can certainly remember stations in Somerset being oil lit in the 1960s. Yeo Mill Halt, on Taunton-Barnstaple, was the last I recall. Halts, with no staff, would require some way to turn them on and off, sometimes by a porter from an adjacent station travelling to and fro, sometimes by the guard on the last train. If there was a reliable regular passenger on the last train the guard would maybe give them the nod to do the work instead on their way out, saving them
time and the effort. Country people still had a good understanding then of what to do with oil lamps.

It had long been the case that street lights lit by gas used to turn themselves on and off using a clock switching system set for lighting up times.
Not necessarily. Every gas lit station I recall had lamps that were manually activated by a balanced chain that the lamplighter had to do with a long pole. I know the remaining ones on streets have time clocks but that is relatively recent automation of them. Quite a number were done during the 1970s-conversion from coal gas supply to natural gas, which required complete new mechanisms, which had to be supplied free by the gas organisation.
 
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Wychwood93

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It had long been the case that street lights lit by gas used to turn themselves on and off using a clock switching system set for lighting up times. Troop Road in Bournemouth is lit by gas. The clocks just need to be wound once a week, all 28 of them. They can never be repace as they are now listed.
A link to the gas lights at Throop from Dorset Life:

Live locally all your life and find a new fact!
 

WesternLancer

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Of tangential note is the story about natural gas being discovered when the Cuckoo Line was being built through Heathfield in East Sussex, which was put to use by the LBSC to light the station for a good many years as indicated here


Despite what the link says it says, it's not to Tunbridge Wells West.
 
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Midnight Sun

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Not necessarily. Every gas lit station I recall had lamps that were manually activated by a balanced chain that the lamplighter had to do with a long pole. I know the remaining ones on streets have time clocks but that is relatively recent automation of them. Quite a number were done during the 1970s-conversion from coal gas supply to natural gas, which required complete new mechanisms, which had to be supplied free by the gas organisation.
Throop Road did not get it's Gaslights until the 1930's when Holdenhurst Village and Troop Road became part of Bournemouth. The lamps were installed with time clocks at the start, as the area then was remote, therefore saving money. When the changeover for the remaining Gas Lights to Electricity took place in the 1950's and 1960's, the lights in Throop Road were missed off the list due to I gather as there was no Gas Lighter alcated to Troop Road. A pen-pusher at the Town Hall conclude that the road was lit by electricity. Therefore the changeover was never done.
 
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