Trivia: stations that were always too big for their traffic

[Mikey C]

Stratford International, once Eurostar decided to not stop there...

 

[Revaulx]

Norwich City looks like it was a bit like Marylebone; the station building being much wider than the platforms. Not excessively large platform-wise though:http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/n/norwich_city/index.shtml

Chester Northgate was quite an impressive structure when built, but it only ever had two platforms. By the time I got to know it, half of the overall roof had been removed and it looked pretty awful: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/chester_northgate/index.shtml

 

[ian1944]

Blackpool North, Skeggy and Wemyss Bay, mentioned above, used to get a lot of long-gone holiday and excursion traffic and presumably were appropriately-sized at the time. But was the size of Hellifield ever justified, in platform length if not number of platforms?

 

[yorksrob]

Blackpool North, Skeggy and Wemyss Bay, mentioned above, used to get a lot of long-gone holiday and excursion traffic and presumably were appropriately-sized at the time. But was the size of Hellifield ever justified, in platform length if not number of platforms?

With regard to Hellifield, I doubt it - country junction syndrome !

I think Normanton might be in this category - given it used to have a similar layout to Doncaster, but the other island platform dissappeared long ago in the mists of time !

 

[30907]

But was the size of Hellifield ever justified, in platform length if not number of platforms?

Long enough for a full-length train, which would have called pre-grouping when there were through portions from Manchester.
And Normanton was an important junction back in the day.

 

[PeterC]

Until the HSTs in the 1970s, all the stations from Paddington to Reading had a platform on the down main as well as the island on the up main. the only exception being Burnham. Wiki says it wasn't opened until 1899, so a late Victorian addition.

By that token you can probably add in every station on the GEML from Maryland to Brentwood. Maybe exclude Romford and possibly Ilford as there used to be a lot of mail and parcel traffic across the platforms but four platforms at Maryland or Gidea Park has always been total overkill in normal day to day use. (A great convenience during engineering work but nobody would sanction that amount of spare capacity today)