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Railway Murders - Ash Vale

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CarltonA

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I was watching "Railway Murders" on TV today and Ash Vale station was shown as the site of a gruesome incident in 1952. A ticket clerk was murdered by another railway employee who was subsequently sentenced to death. When was the old three level station building replaced with the rather drab modern building in use today?
 
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AY1975

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I was watching "Railway Murders" on TV today and Ash Vale station was shown as the site of a gruesome incident in 1952. A ticket clerk was murdered by another railway employee who was subsequently sentenced to death. When was the old three level station building replaced with the rather drab modern building in use today?
Which channel is that programme on?
 

Dr Hoo

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If you, er, like that sort of thing All Stations to Murder by Barry Herbert (Silver Link Publishing, 1994) has plenty of such stories. The Ash Vale incident is written up as 'Ticket to the Gallows' over three pages but doesn't go into the architectural niceties.
 

Mcr Warrior

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Which channel is that programme on?

I think it was Yesterday channel. Might be wrong though.

Six one hour episodes shown back-to-back on "Yesterday" on Sunday 2nd May 2021.

Should be available on UKTV catch up. Reckon that the particular episode in question is Series 1 Episode 5 entitled "The Guardsman".

Possibly first aired on Channel 5 in 2020.

The perpetrator, a former guardsman but now a railway fireman, had previously been sentenced to death for a previous murder offence in 1948 (but was freed) before then stabbing to death the booking office clerk at Ash Vale railway station in August 1952 during a robbery.

This time he did hang.
 

Gloster

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JJA was found guilty by a court-martial in January 1949 of murdering a German caretaker the previous September while serving with the Grenadier Guards. As he had a Czech partner in crime and it was not possible to discover who had carried out the murder, the sentence was not confirmed and JJA was released and given a dishonourable discharge. He went on to commit the murder at Ash Vale while a fireman based at Hither Green.

When was the old three level station building replaced with the rather drab modern building in use today?
I have found a reference that the new building dates from 1972. The old one had to be replaced as it suffered from subsidence.
 
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47296lastduff

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I watched the whole series on Sunday, and learned something new from it. Episode one featured the 1864 murder of a passenger on the NLR, travelling from Fenchurch St to Chalk Farm. I thought they had got the wrong terminus until I looked it up, and found that Broad St did not open until 1865. NLR did indeed use Fenchurch St initially.
 
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