Crewe Canopy Completion

Any of you passing through Crewe Station in the last few months will have noticed the scaffolding on Platforms 5 and 6. This was because the roof canopies were being cleaned and new glazed panels installed.

The work has now been completed, and the canopies are cleaner than, well, probably some time before the Grouping. You can get an idea of the improvement in these photos:

Canopy over the south footbridge, P6:

http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/p68697554.html

Canopy over P6:

http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/p68697555.html

Canopy over south footbridge, P5:

http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/p68697556.html

Canopy over P5:

http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/p68697557.html


--
Tim
http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/
http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/
@zelo_street on Twitter

 

Gosh, that takes me back some years................ My parents and I used to have about an hours wait there when travelling to Leamington Spa during the school holidays. We,d come in from Stockport and would pick up a train to Nuneaton, usually a Scot or Jubilee. I obviously used to disappear on Crewe station much to the old man,s consternation. All the loco numbers were new to me. I also had a fascination with a red machine that stamped out aluminium names...............still have one. That,s got to be over 50 years ago. The trip from Nuneaton to Leamington Spa was a lovely slow stopping train usually an Ivatt 2-6-2. All the stations had beautiful flower beds, and all sorts seem to be carried on the train, unofficially of course.......fond memories indeed..............

 

Wow - it looks amazing! It brings back many memories...

 

Are they still refurbishing Crewe station? I heard rumours they were going to build a totally separate new station outside Crewe itself

 

To add to the link that Ralph posted:

NR came up with the Basford scheme some time ago, although it has been canned partly due to opposition, and partly because the resignalling for the area also got canned.

The original scheme for updating the station was the Crewe Gateway project, which was quietly taken off the table and the Basford one substituted (anyone wanting the details could usefully start at the CREAM blog). My take was that this was a way of NR getting themselves a nice little earner by forcing car drivers to pay through the nose for parking (most use places where they can park for free, or use cheaper council run parks) and pricing up retail concessions by having the station out of town and with no walking route - rather like groundside at an airport.

The Basford scheme has now been dropped, and NR is committed to the Crewe Gateway once more - problem is, there's no dosh to pay for it. The latter would include a multi storey car park where the Royal Mail site is now (the one just closed) and a new main concourse overlooking the roundabout at the end of Nantwich Road. There would be a smaller entrance and concourse facing Nantwich Road where the present taxi rank and drop off exit is now.

The canopy work - as well as other items such as re-treading the south footbridge, now in progress - is a stop gap measure to make the station environment marginally less grim. The Crewe Gateway scheme would have involved all-new canopies like the one already installed on Platform 12.

NR's list of excuses for moving the station included talk of conflicting movements, but those would still occur if the station moved to Basford. The conflicts could be mostly removed by adding new platforms on the Manchester Independent lines - the land is there to do it.

--
Tim
http://tim-fenton.fotopic.net/
http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/
@zelo_street on Twitter