GWSR Broadway Developments

I know what you mean and I've a lot of sympathy with this view. What's the alternative though? I'd imagine many lines have toyed with different arrangements down the years, eventually settling on the one which they know works.

When visitors have parked up, they'll likely want to get their tickets and get onto the platform. At the end of the return journey, once out of the station, it's going to be straight back to the car. Of course, they can be funnelled out through a gift shop, though this can often be seen as blatant and (to some) agressive marketing, which can put backs up. I can hear it now.... "No dear, we haven't got the time now .... now let's get home, or you'll miss [insert favourite TV programme]".

This leaves the platform is the one place where it's reasonably certain they'll have a bit of time and have the choice to enter a shop and put their hands in their pockets.

As I've said in other posts, bottom line - what's on offer is the illusion of bygone days, rather than pukka time travel itself, which no-one (to the best of my knowledge) has cracked as yet..... and I, for one, hope no-one ever does!

 

I agree with you on this, Tommy. One of these sort of areas which has always bothered me, has been the shop and catering block at Sheffield Park. A few years back I tried to make a suggestion along the lines of restoring the platform line of fencing and station flower beds along their original course between the footbridge steps and the corner of the station building, with reasonable sized gaps at each end to allow for access and egress to the catering and shop block.
This would have at least provided a visual break between the platform and the necessary but rather jarring structures behind.
However I was advised ( probably sensibly), that this would then cause pinch points with passengers on the platform, and also quite possibly a trip hazard too. Pity.
The Mid Suffolk railway, on the other hand have had the right idea. They have built all their visitor necessariums in a separate, and unobtrusively designed block, so that when you enter the station itself, you walk out onto an authentic rural light railway platform. It's a gorgeous little railway. if you haven't been there, I strongly suggest you pay it a visit sometime.

 

Not being too familiar with the Mid-Suffolk, I boogied across to their website ( https://www.mslr.org.uk ) and agree with @Mark Thompson that it's a charming station. The obvious 'however' being that when something more is needed than a wee four coupled loco hauling a brace of 4-wheeled saloons, will they find it possible to maintain such an authentic rural atmosphere? If they are to achieve this in the face of mounting passenger numbers, the issue has to already be a priority.

Success invariably brings it's own set of problems!

 

My idea was not to move such things away from the platform (although locating them in a building that looks heritage, something looking like a goods shed that actually belongs there would be better) rather, if you can imagine a gift shop as a rectangle then put the short side of the rectangle on the platform, not the long side. You still attract and funnel visitors through the same door but don't take up platform length.

 

Bridgnorth is an example of a station that can't deal with massive passenger numbers, the platforms are full of a mish mash of odd buildings, some temporary and some more permanent, and the station it originally was seems to have been lost to me personally in the march to provide for every tourist that comes through the door. they are trying to address it but in a town that has very little flat land geographically they want to build on some of the precious few green fields that there actually are (behind the station). It should be an example to other railways of what can potentially happen to the look and feel of a station as a whole if desperately trying to accommodate increased passengers leads to a temporary shed here and a prefab building there and non joined up thinking in general eventually leads to the station becoming a bit of a monstrosity.

 

..... hence those 'pinch points' you mentioned ....

Remember when Horsted Keynes seemed ridiculously large? How many lines could now do with a station that size? Pity most of the punters only see it from their carriage seats these days ...... sometimes, you just can't win!

 

Indeed, I also think this is more inevitable, and sometimes even necessary (not prefab and stuff, just more buildings than would probably be typical) at termini than intermediate stations.

 

Horsted Keynes was the station which sold me on the railway in the first place. I remember sitting on a bench on the then open West platform on a baking hot summer's afternoon, watching the heat shimmering off the rails and thinking "this is heaven!"
It still is the place to be on one of those afternoons, or on a damp winter's evening, with the mist hanging between the platforms, and the station lamps reflecting on the wet platforms.
But I fear we're getting off-topic here....

 

And the 2 cauldron wagons at the North End of what was then Platform 1 - but this is even more OT

David R

 

The South Devon Railway has their shop & cafe building in the car park at Buckfastleigh, an arrangement that seems to work really well.

 

Back on track, more ballasting at Broadway yesterday ready for the tamper and regulator. Time is ticking but work is ongoing!broadwayextensionblog.blogspot.co.uk/

 

The flagged platform surface shown on the latest blog update is looking really good!
Andy

 

Thank you!

We worked three days this week and have virtually finished under the platform canopy, just two more rows to do, and also the section in the alcove where the ladies/disabled toilets are. We hope to finish all this by Monday.

We then have to wait until the tarmac is laid on the platform before we are able to lay a further 9+ meters of slabs north of the station building, however, we are praying for good weather as the tarmacers don't finish until approx. 14th March and we then only have about 1 week to do the final slabbing before the first volunteer/shareholders trains run!

 

Why does the 9+ meters of slabs have to await the tarmac?
I do wish an alternative to tarmac could be used, though, for example all flags, resin-bonded chippings?

 

The heavy machinery used in the tarmacking operation has to pass over the area that is to be slabbed so they can tarmac the northern end of the platform, so would damage any slabs put down .

 

Thanks, that make sense.

 

A really interesting view of Broadway from the Extension blog:



Taken just after the opening in 1904, there's so much detail in this unposed snapshot of a moment in time;

The Broadway team are currently working on exact replicas of the 3x three-footed benches visible in the picture. these were far rarer than the shorter, 2-footed type;

One of the clearest views yet of the under-canopy lanterns which will be hung soon. The new building will have 3, due to its increased length. This difference is something also very apparent here. That hexagonal lantern by the footbridge steps will look fabulous when the far end of the canopy is eventually completed;

The vee-boards in all their clarity;

Other details- the poster boards (already in preparation); the square downpipe recessed into the end wall brickwork. As Jo says, unfortunately there was no will to replicate this.

And finally, the Elgarian gentleman on the bench- who knows, perhaps even studying the racing form, as EE himself would have done!

all in all, a delightful cameo of a leisured Edwardian afternoon.

 

A very fascinating photograph, with much to assimilate.
As far as three footed benches are concerned I can only hope that those who maintains and have to move them are reasonably fit and of not too advanced years. They can be 'killers' to lift! Where I used to volunteer had them. Getting extra feet we shortened them to make two footed versions. This did have the advantage of allowing some of the extras benches we got as a result be sited on other stations.

 

The square downpipe recessed into the brickwork struck me as an interesting bit of detail.

 

You can still get them. Hall Green has new ones. I know the brickwork is only 'skin deep' (a single stretcher) but the square downpipes could have gone along the outside. It strikes me as an obvious and easily replicable detail.

Most 3 legged benches were cut down over the years in a move to 'make three from two' excercise. That is why we decided to make 3 legged ones. They are original. And there won't be any 'memorial' plaques on them.



Here's a typical example of a 'cut and shut'. And yes, the lighter they are, the easier they are to carry. Now you have to chain them down.
These benches are getting shorter and shorter, there is even one on the market that is child size at only 4ft long. It dilutes the brand.