Derby is another remote station, also absorbed by the city's expansion; the closed GN station (Friargate) was a little closer to the centre.
So Chester station is not that unusual in being about a mile from its city centre (Chester Cross).
Derby isn't as remote as it was.
Fifty years ago, Derby's shopping centre was largely to the north of East Street, and Friargate station was only a few minutes walk from Debenhams (then called Ranby's) and a only a couple of minutes further from other large stores; now, the main shopping centre - presently called DERBION - is south of East Street, and Debenhams was on it's south side. Consequently, it takes at least 50% longer to walk from the relocated Debenhams (which is to reopen as Fraser's in the new year) to the site of Friargate station as it does to Midland.
The walk between Derby Midland and DERBION will eventually be through part of the old railway village and then through an urban village called Castleward; the west side of the walk through the new development is more or less complete, and work is due to start on the other side shortly. It is a pleasant tree lined walk already with a square in which to relax part way along, and it should be really nice when complete; there are some shops, but it is mainly residential. Distance wise, I guess the walk from the station to the start of the city centre is of a similar length to Chester's City Road (but to be honest, I haven't walked that since I lived in the city in the 1950s and 1960s)
My first introduction to Chester station was in 1954
I can't remember if the entrance area was altered at the time of the main alterations or not, but it took place during the late 1950s; the ticket office (on the right going in) was given a glass front and at one time it had ticket machines which I never saw anywhere else. The tickets were on reels in a machine, and the staff just tore them off; I can't remember how they were dated - they were to
"floppy" to have gone in the usual dating machines. There was a train enquiry office on the left which also had a glass front.
The gate line was located between the foyer and the main circulating area and comprised two booths for the ticket inspectors and a full height metal expanding gate between them; one ticket inspector checked those going in, another those coming out (I think you went in on the right - the same side as the ticket office).
The WHSmith book stall was directly opposite the barrier line; the stairs to the main footbridge were behind it, parallel to the station building.
There were three footbridges; the main central one also had lifts, and one of these was located to the right of the WHSmith. There was a signal box on the bridge, and it controlled the crossovers between the through and platform lines. There was a footbridge at the west end of the station, and this extended across the freight lines to Hoole (where there was another ticket office); there was another footbridge at the east end, but I think this only connected what was then platform 5 (what I'll call the down main) with platform 10 (the up main).
The platforms were numbered 1 - 14.
When you went through the barrier and turned left and kept walking, that was platform 2 and was used mainly by trains going along the GWR to Paddington or Barmouth; at the end of the station building (the one on the cover of the the Williams-Shapps plan) was platform 1. This was quite short, and generally used by trains to Mold, Denbigh, and Ruthin - I've heard it referred to as
"the Mold wing"
If you walked forward from the barrier to the platform immediately in front, that was platform 4; this was generally used by trains along the North Wales coast which had started at Crewe, Manchester, or London. Turn left along platform 4, and on the left was terminal platform 3; this was generally used by trains such as between Paddington and Birkenhead, and after the introduction of DMUs it was often used by the Woodside stoppers (some also used platform 13).
if you turned right when he reached platform 4, there was a scissor crossing and the rest of the platform was numbered 5; this often acted as an extension of platform 4, but some North Wales stoppers also started from it. There were three more bays at the eastern end of the station; local trains to Liverpool Lime Street via Runcorn often used 6, and 7 and 8 were typically full of parcel vans.
Over the central bridge, the stairs faced westwards; if you veered to the left, that was platform 9, and the eastern extension of it was numbered 10 and was the main departure platform for trains from North Wales to London, Crewe, or Manchester. I can only ever remember platform 9 being used as an extension of 10, and never in its own use.
At the east end of platform 10 were two more bays, numbered 11 and 12; these were used for local trains going eastwards, such as stoppers to Manchester Exchange via Warrington Bank Quay.
The final platform was a long through one reached by turning right at the bottom of the stairs, numbered 13 at the east end and 14 at the west; at one tome it had been split by a scissor and the supporting steelwork for the overall roof showed clearly where it had been. It was used by a mixture of trains; for example, there was a North Wales - Birkenhead train which left Chester at about 8.15am and it reversed in 14, and some trains using the GWR route used it if they were too long for 2 or 3. I can never remember seeing 13 used in it's own right.
At that time, all of the platforms were covered by train sheds - there weren't any canopies.
There were some GWR auto trains to places like Llangollen, and a service to Whitchurch from the eastern end; these finished round about the time I first visited Chester General, and I don't know which platforms they used.
When I first visited Chester station, it was completely covered - there weren't any canopies; the LMR removed or altered overall roofs at a number of stations at about the same time - Carlisle and Preston come to mind - and installed rather bland canopies in their place. At Chester, the central roof which covered platforms 4 and 5 and the two through roads was removed completely, and those over 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 cut back drastically. From memory, the roof over the island platform (platforms 9-13) wasn't touched, but of course it got severely damaged some years later, was removed, and on my last visit a few years ago there was just open sky were it once was.
The parcels office was on the front of the station - to the right when looking at the station front, opposite what was called the Queen's Hotel (no idea what it's called now); there was a buffet on platform 2, and another on the island platform
Early recollections are that Chester station was very smokey when I first new it, but the removal of the overall roofs made it much cleaner; however, the work was being undertaken at about the same time as diesels were being introduced - I have some photos of DMUs in the station when the work was going on, and I'm not sure whether they were taken in 1959 or 1960. But whereas the more or less identical canopies seemed
"acceptable" at Carlisle and Preston, they never seemed to me to blend in at Chester, and greater care should have been taken to produce something which complimented Francis Thompson's superb frontage.
So I guess you can say it's been grotty for at least 60 years!
.
