Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Explore 1.5M+ audiobooks & ebooks free for days

    Only $12.99 CAD/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Railway Architecture
    Railway Architecture
    Railway Architecture
    Ebook98 pages43 minutesShire Library

    Railway Architecture

    By Bill Fawcett

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The great arched train sheds of Victorian Britain are often seen as the nineteenth-century equivalent of medieval cathedrals: once specific railway buildings became necessary around 1830 British architects seized the opportunity with both hands, designing some of the great buildings of their age. However, these grand buildings are only part of the story – not only was the country peppered with humbler individually styled station buildings, but also with bridges, signal boxes, engine sheds and other structures specific to the railways. In this illustrated introduction, Bill Fawcett tells the story of railway architecture from the age of George Stephenson to modern times, including such influential architects as Sir George Gilbert Scott and Charles Holden.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJan 10, 2015
    ISBN9781784420475
    Railway Architecture
    Author

    Bill Fawcett

    Bill Fawcett is the author and editor of more than a dozen books, including You Did What?, It Seemed Like a Good Idea . . . , How to Lose a Battle, and You Said What? He lives in Illinois.

    Other titles in Railway Architecture Series (30)

    View More
    View More

    Read more from Bill Fawcett

    Related to Railway Architecture

    Titles in the series (100)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Design For You

    View More
    View More

    Related categories

    Reviews for Railway Architecture

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Railway Architecture - Bill Fawcett

      Middleton Top engine house, Derbyshire, was preserved following closure in 1963 and retains the two-cylinder beam engine supplied in 1829, albeit with many parts renewed. Wagons were hauled up and down the incline on an endless wire rope.

      GETTING STARTED

      BRITAIN ’ S RAILWAY BUILDINGS evoke the country’s rise as the world’s first great industrial power while also reflecting the architectural currents of their time. Causey Arch in County Durham (1727) reminds us that railways derived from wooden-railed, horse-drawn wagonways, generally carrying coal and stone, but between 1790 and 1830 they evolved into major public carriers using iron rails and steam locomotives, and requiring specialised buildings.

      The Stockton & Darlington Railway (September 1825) demonstrates this. At first its locomotives hauled only coal and mineral trains while contractors employed horses for other goods and passengers. Operational buildings were confined to toll houses, workshops, and engine houses both for locomotives and for the winding engines providing rope haulage over the Brusselton and Etherley Ridges. After a year, the goods and passenger traffic justified the company building a warehouse at Darlington, along with inns for waiting passengers, at Stockton, Darlington and Heighington. The last included an agent’s office and is the oldest surviving building at any operational station, though no longer used by the railway. Only a fragment remains of the Brusselton incline engine house but the Cromford & High Peak Railway (now a country trail) in Derbyshire retains one at Middleton Top (1830), as well as a transhipment warehouse (1832) at Whaley Bridge. Darlington’s North Road Museum conserves the Stockton & Darlington’s 1833 goods station and 1842 passenger station.

      Causey Arch near Stanley, County Durham, was built in 1727 for the Tanfield wagonway. Its 32-metre span, then the largest stone arch in Britain, emphasises the profitability of some early wagonways.

      Formal station buildings originated with the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (1830), which provided these at its termini though not, for some years, at wayside stops. Its Manchester station survives as a museum. A low brick viaduct sandwiched between this and the goods warehouse bore trains at first-floor level. First- and second-class passengers were segregated throughout, with separate entrances, booking halls and stairs up to the waiting rooms and platform. Cross-walls divided the warehouse into compartments served by branch tracks at right angles to the running line, wagons being swung into these on hand-operated turnplates.

      Stockton Toll House, seen around 1970 before the tracks were taken up, was one of three designed by John Carter in classic turnpike fashion. Each had a wagon-weighing machine so that the appropriate toll could be calculated.

      Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire. Integrated transport: the warehouse provided shelter for transhipment between a branch of the Peak Forest Canal and flanking railway tracks that entered through the two big arches.

      Early passenger carriages required covered storage, so the Manchester station was quickly extended to provide a carriage shed reached via turnplates, with retail units below; the resulting street frontage resembles a row of houses. The Liverpool terminus has vanished but had a platform canopy, soon augmented by a wooden carriage shed over the main tracks, forming a prototype for the trainsheds that came to epitomise major stations.

      Newtyle station (1831–2), formerly served by a railway from Dundee, is another early survivor – a goods shed with passenger platform at one end. The oldest remaining passenger trainshed is at Selby (1834), terminus of a line from Leeds and transfer point for river steamers to Hull; this was roofed in three spans, with the passenger station in the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1