Trivia: Stations that serve a completely different purpose to when they first opened

[181]

There's a few like that in the remote Highlands which were originally built for large hunting estates - I would imagine what little traffic they do get is still nearly all leisure orientated but now is towards walkers rather than hunters.

[my bolding]

Corrour, with 12,630 passengers recorded in 2019/20* (and more in each of the two previous years), is actually one of the busier intermediate stations on the West Highland. Presumably this is to do with the popularity of hill-walking and the fact that it gives access to a large area which is hard to reach by other rmeans.

*ORR figures as reported by Wikipedia.

(I think its original function included being a passing place for trains, rather than purely a private estate station, but as it's no longer normally used as a passing place either, it still fits the thread).

 

[Bald Rick]

Corrour, with 12,630 passengers recorded in 2019/20* (and more in each of the two previous years), is actually one of the busier intermediate stations on the West Highland. Presumably this is to do with the popularity of hill-walking and the fact that it gives access to a large area which is hard to reach by other rmeans.

Whilst this is true, it is still small numbers. For example I was personally responsible for 0.1% of all use of Corrour station in 2017/8.

 

[AndyNLondon]

Would it be fair to say that Farringdon was originally built to serve Smithfield Market? In which case, it's been a while since it handled trainloads of meat. (Insert obvious jokes here about passenger overcrowding or clubbers going to/from Fabric...)

 

[robert thomas]

Bistol Parkway was envisaged as a Park & Ride station to serve commuters to London. It subsequently became an interchange point for passengers to & from South Wales and the North which unfortunately has been badly affected by Cross Country's service reductions. It has also encouraged a huge increase in local housing and thus now has created it's own local traffic source.

 

[Kingston Dan]

The orginal Surbiton station was the station for Kingston, and while I think Surbiton was beginning to develop as a place in its own right by the time the station was moved to its present site in the 1840s, Kingston didn't get its own station until 1863. There are probably other similar examples.

Was originally called Kingston upon Railway and was a few hundred metres up the line from the current site (near where the Ewell Road bridge crosses the SW mainline). The LSWR originally wanted to put the mainline through Kingston (as the established settlement) near where the University is today but the council refused as they wanted to protect the coaching trade. A few years later the coaching trade was dead and the burghers were petitioning for Kingston to be served by train as Surbiton was booming.

 

[swt_passenger]

Would it be fair to say that Farringdon was originally built to serve Smithfield Market? In which case, it's been a while since it handled trainloads of meat. (Insert obvious jokes here about passenger overcrowding or clubbers going to/from Fabric...)

I don’t think so, the oldest maps online all show a physically separate goods depot alongside the passenger station, and the sidings under Smithfield are also completely separate. AFAICT the platforms have always been passenger platforms?

 

[gg1]

Broadly on topic for this thread I think:

Were there ever instances of stations making use of pre existing buildings, e.g. a rural station where an old farmhouse was repurposed as a stationmaster's house?

 

[py_megapixel]

I guess any stations that were converted to Metrolink? Bury Interchange, built for EMU stoppers to Man Vic, now used by trams that work beyond the original terminus through Manchester city centre.

All of those trams are effectively stoppers to Vic though, they've just been extended. I don't think these stations are serving a fundamentally different purpose to before, it was just recognised that they could serve their existing purpose more effectively if the service was more frequent and extended into the city, and the smaller, lighter vehicles facilitate that. The line between a metro-style EMU and high-floor tram running off-street is blurry anyway.

 

[Gloster]

Wasn’t Longcross built to serve the Fighting Vehicles Proving Establishment (*), but is now a normal station.

* - I think that was the name when the halt opened, but the establishment had many.

 

[PTR 444]

And what actually happened at High Wycombe? The original station must have been built as a terminus of the branch from the GWR main line at Maidenhead. In fact, the GWR's various cutoffs must have repurposed a reasonable number of stations, as did the bypassing of "Castleman's Corkscrew" between Brockenhurst and Poole/Bournemouth.

When the current Poole station first opened, it was situated at the end of a branch line from Broadstone. The lines east to Bournemouth and west to Hamworthy which form today’s SWML didn’t arrive until much later.

Remarkably, the original Poole station was situated at the end of the now mothballed Hamworthy - Poole Quay line.

 

[181]

Were there ever instances of stations making use of pre existing buildings, e.g. a rural station where an old farmhouse was repurposed as a stationmaster's house?

I can think of two, although in one case the station is long closed and in the other it's been replaced by a tram stop which doesn't use the pre-railway building:

Bourne: https://www.bournetown.co.uk/the-red-hall-bourne
Mitcham: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5861768

Other people may know of more.

 

[Taunton]

And what actually happened at High Wycombe? The original station must have been built as a terminus of the branch from the GWR main line at Maidenhead. In fact, the GWR's various cutoffs must have repurposed a reasonable number of stations, as did the bypassing of "Castleman's Corkscrew" between Brockenhurst and Poole/Bournemouth.

Actually High Wycombe was a through station in Victorian times, the GWR single line branch went from Maidenhead through Wycombe to Princes Risborough, and branched there for Aylesbury and Oxford. In typical GWR fashion a number of trains continued to run this way right until the various branches closed. There were WR locos allocated to Aylesbury well into BR days. High Wycombe must have been the largest town well within orbit of London in 1900 which did not have a direct train service there.

The GWR did build a considerable number of new main lines in 1900-1910, some less well-known such as various cutoffs and realignments along the Cornwall main, to an extent no other company did, and these gathered up various minor points and put them on the main line. Castle Cary was an odd wayside station that became a significant junction; the line to Weymouth, where the GWR was the dominant company on Channel Islands shipping, actually ran from Chippenham, and Paddington boat trains went this way round.

 

[Grecian 1998]

When the current Poole station first opened, it was situated at the end of a branch line from Broadstone. The lines east to Bournemouth and west to Hamworthy which form today’s SWML didn’t arrive until much later.

Remarkably, the original Poole station was situated at the end of the now mothballed Hamworthy - Poole Quay line.

And Hamworthy station was a junction for Poole from the outset. Effectively lost its original purpose in 1893 and officially in 1896. Been a suburban station ever since.

Yeovil Junction is a good example - since 2015 it has theoretically been a junction for the line to Pen Mill again, but its primary purpose has long been as a station for Yeovil, even though it was in a different county until 1995. There were attempts to close it and use Sherborne as a railhead in the 1960s, but these were resisted.

 

[martinsh]

Matlock. From a fairly important station on a main line which had London - Manchester expresses stopping there, to a branch line terminus

 

[Sprinter107]

I can think of two, although in one case the station is long closed and in the other it's been replaced by a tram stop which doesn't use the pre-railway building:

Bourne: https://www.bournetown.co.uk/the-red-hall-bourne
Mitcham: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5861768

Other people may know of more.

Think Staines West may be in that category.

 

[gg1]

Stranraer station is another initially built to serve a different route.

When built in 1862** the only route was west east to Castle Douglas, and from there on to Dumfries, the Glasgow route wasn't built until 1877**

**Caveat - dates are from Wikipedia, I don't own any books which could provide a more reliable reference - though the key point that the current route to Glasgow opened long after the station is indisputable.

--Edited to correct my east/west brain fart--

 

[Bald Rick]

Stranraer station is another initially built to serve a different route.

When built in 1862** the only route was west to Castle Douglas, and from there on to Dumfries, the Glasgow route wasn't built until 1877**

West of Stranraer is the Irish Sea…

 

[gg1]

West of Stranraer is the Irish Sea…

Doh

 

[SargeNpton]

West of Stranraer is the Irish Sea…

Pedant alert: west of Stranraer is the peninsula known as the Rhins of Galloway, then the North Channel.

 

[Magdalia]

Many stations in the south east started off serving rural communities, with freight more important than passengers, but are now commuter stations, with no freight and often with large car parks on the former freight yards.

 

[matchmaker]

IBM Halt. Built to serve the IBM Spango Valley factory. Station is currently mothballed.

 

[SargeNpton]

IBM Halt. Built to serve the IBM Spango Valley factory. Station is currently mothballed.

Similarly, Redcar British Steel.

 

[bishdunster]

Hurn on the long closed Ringwood to Christchurch line, now the Avon Causeway pub .

 

[Taunton]

Canary Wharf DLR was initially built as a simple wayside stop on high level platforms and little staircases up to it, to serve an abandoned shipping pier with some old warehouses on it. How times change.

 

[plugwash]

Reading the wikipedia article it seems that Canary Wharf DLR station never opened in it's initial form, but was rebuilt before opening when they realised it was inadequate.

 

[TAS]

I can think of two, although in one case the station is long closed and in the other it's been replaced by a tram stop which doesn't use the pre-railway building:

Bourne: https://www.bournetown.co.uk/the-red-hall-bourne
Mitcham: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5861768

Other people may know of more.

Colchester Town is another in this category - the station building includes a Georgian house, repurposed by the Tendring Hundred Railway as its offices and boardroom and later used as the station master's house.

 

[Bald Rick]

Canary Wharf DLR was initially built as a simple wayside stop on high level platforms and little staircases up to it, to serve an abandoned shipping pier with some old warehouses on it. How times change.

It started life not even as a station, just a stop. I vividly remember being on the DLR just after it opened, stopping between West India Quay and Heron Quays, in the middle of mowhere, and my Dad saying “one day this will be a station with office blocks all around it”

 

[Dai Corner]

How about the port stations built to serve foot passengers transferring to/from the ferries and once served by long distance boat trains but now attracting local passengers, the ferries losing the traffic to air or being withdrawn? For example Fishguard Harbour, Pembroke Dock, Harwich

 

[satisnek]

Birmingham Curzon Street was originally the terminus for a high-speed (in its day) transport link with London, it latterly became a parcels depot and in a few years time the site - including the original station building - will become the terminus for a high-speed transport link with London. The wheel has turned full circle.