Advent 2017

[whole diary]

[SandTEngineer]

...and as mentioned in my post above here is the photograph of the Blue Pullman entering Swansea High Street station sometime in the early 1970s (noting that this is in the later BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) 'reversed blue' livery)...


Image (c)2017 SandTEngineer

...and here is a photograph taken at the same time of a Class 52 'Western' hauled London Paddington train...


Image (c)2017 SandTEngineer

[grahame]

Attached is a scan of the area from the Railway Junction Diagrams 1915 book. There's a total of six termini:

With all those railways, was there any space for houses?

...and as mentioned in my post above here is the photograph of the Blue Pullman entering Swansea High Street station sometime in the early 1970s (noting that this is in the later BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) 'reversed blue' livery)...

Love the pictures ... "then and now" have a curious fascination! .... next time I'm in Swansea (13th) I may try to get those angles.

[grahame]

How about this one ...

[RA]

How about this one ...

That looks like the bridge over the former Hayle Wharves line. The ground frame would have been just to the right of the image. Although closed in 1982 before I was around, I would liked to have seen a main line loco trundling down there and across the road with a train of oil tanks for the oil terminal.

[grahame]

That looks like the bridge over the former Hayle Wharves line. The ground frame would have been just to the right of the image. Although closed in 1982 before I was around, I would liked to have seen a main line loco trundling down there and across the road with a train of oil tanks for the oil terminal.

Yes - that's the line;  I'm not sure of the history - came a across it during a week away in Cornwall this summer.   Remains of old swing bridge down by the wharf too - and what was probably a level crossing over what would in those days have been the main road.

[bradshaw]

I had coffee at the small cafe by the harbour in May. The original West Cornwall Rly line is now a footpath leading toward the Angarrack incline.
The harbourside is worth investigating, there is a 'canal' from the basin back to some wharves.

[grahame]

And for today

[trainer]

Parson Street.

[bradshaw]

There is more on the Hayle branch to be found here


http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/hayle-wharf-branches.html

[grahame]

And for today

Yes indeed- taken from a passing train.   Illustrates the difficultly of making a city station look attractive ...

[Red Squirrel]

Illustrates the difficultly of making a city station look attractive ...

So if they had put up that building next to Kemble station it wouldn't be ugly?

I think it is fair to say that planning policy in 60s and 70s treated railway stations in much the same way you'd address the aesthetics of backing onto a sewage farm. Standing on Platform 1 of Clifton Down Station, you are surrounded by astonishingly ugly architecture - worse than at Parson St, I'd say - but that's presumably because no-one cared about a station that wasn't considered to have a future. Canary Wharf is also a station in a city. I think it's quite attractive. Building ugly things is a choice.

[grahame]

Illustrates the difficultly of making a city station look attractive ...

So if they had put up that building next to Kemble station it wouldn't be ugly?

I think it is fair to say that planning policy in 60s and 70s treated railway stations in much the same way you'd address the aesthetics of backing onto a sewage farm. Standing on Platform 1 of Clifton Down Station, you are surrounded by astonishingly ugly architecture - worse than at Parson St, I'd say - but that's presumably because no-one cared about a station that wasn't considered to have a future. Canary Wharf is also a station in a city. I think it's quite attractive. Building ugly things is a choice.

So what do you make of the beauty of this? (and where is it??)

[Red Squirrel]

Yeugh! In the countryside somewhere, by the look of it

[The Tall Controller]

Castle Cary. Before/during Glastonbury festival.

[JayMac]

Castle Cary. Before/during Glastonbury festival.

I concur.