Tag: Station

November 9th – I’m fascinated by this bit of structural joinery at Blake Street Station. It’s nothing more than the wooden frame supporting the access steps to the Birmingham bound platform, but the way they’re erected is a work of art. At the base, they’re chocked level with two pairs  of perfectly cut reverse acting wedges. You don’t see that very often these days. I’d be interested to know how old this assembly is – had it been crated today, it would be a steel framework with jacking bolts, so it must be at least 2 or 3 decades old. The precision of the wedges makes me smile every time I see them. That was a joiner who understood his art.

November 8th – Walsall Station at night has an odd, other-worldly atmosphere. The view from the ramp has always been great at night, but sadly diminished since the BOAK building in Station Street was lost to arson. It’s a horrid place to wait at – particularly for those on platform one, here waiting for the Rugeley train, as usual delayed by ten minutes.  London Midland, the embattled operator of the station, have talked about removing the staff here and leaving the station unstaffed at night. If they did, I think the service would see much less use – I, personally, would not feel safe. Good old London Midland.

November 2nd – I was pleased to note this year that the re will be a remembrance service on Moor Street Station, Birmingham. There is a war memorial on the concourse here to the fallen railwaymen of the Great Western Railway, spanning two wars. Tucked into a corner, the memorial was restored in 2003 upon the reopening of the old station. A sombre and beautiful thing.

November 1st – Tyseley, the gift that keeps on giving. Yes, I know, two days running. The sunset was dramatic tonight, and it was nearing perfection as I crossed the bridge to enter the station. On the platform, the sunset behind Greet church was far more vibrant than it had been the day before. Autumn, and it’s ever-changing moods. After a thoroughly miserable, wet commute to work in the morning, this evening’s fiery beauty was a tonic. It felt very chilly, though.

October 31st – A grim commute home. The scent of rain had been in the air all day, and in the afternoon, the showers grew more frequent and intense. At Tyseley, I listened to the rain on the roof with a heavy heart. I don’t mind commuting jun the rain too much, but there was a keen wind and with the dark evenings upon us, enjoyment was likely to be thin on the ground.

Having missed my train, I waited at a near deserted Tyseley station for the next service. It was dry, but dingy and darkness was falling. This odd little place really has got a hold on me. I’m fascinated by the dark decay of the station, it’s unexplained wooden screens (seemingly doubling as urinals these days) and mock-victorian fittings. It’s quite the oddest station I’ve used; it should feel desolate and threatening, but doesn’t. I can’t work out why it’s fascinating me so much.

October 29th – One of the many excellent things about Moor Street Station in Birmingham is the Moorish Cafe. Cheap, good food, served to folk on the move, like me, with speed and great service. As I stopped for a butty this morning, I noticed the usual table decorations were out, and halloween pumpkins were in. Must have taken ages to carve them all. I figure pumpkin soup could be on the menu here for quite some time…

October 23rd – The bleak weather continues. Thoroughly depressing commutes were lightened only by getting a decent train service for the first time in weeks. Despite the mass cancellations, I for once fell lucky and managed to get on 2 trains that were on time and 2 that were only a few minutes late. This may seem unremarkable, but the service has been so bad of late it’s been adding whole hours to my commuting time. As my train home rolled into Shenstone, I felt quite pleased, but noticed the announcement as I alighted that the following train was 15 minutes late. That one was set to be seriously overcrowded. The local rail system really is useless at the moment.

Shenstone Station, however, is still beautiful, even in the half-light of a miserable day.

October 12th – Not enough stations have proper clocks anymore. They’ve all got those boring digital things, but few have real, wooden cased analogue clocks. Come to that, few stations are like Birmingham Moor Street, and all should be. Spacious, airy, light, it’s a gorgeous place to wait for a train. Clocks of this style were mainly made by JB Joyce & Co., of Whitchurch, Shropshire, possibly the country’s oldest clockmakers, and often bore the name ‘Joyce, Whitchurch’. This leads to an in-joke amongst railway buffs who often use ‘Joyce Whitchurch’ as a pseudonym on internet forums etc.

They really should get out more.

October 11th – Working late in Tyseley, the service gets patchy after the evening peak. Leaving at about 8pm, I realised my nearest train was going from Spring Road, located on the road to Hall Green. Stoking it in, I made it with a couple of minutes to spare. Spring Road is desolate and isolated at night, and I didn’t like it much. It was drizzling lightly, I was tired, and glad to see the lights of the train…

October 10th – Birmingham New Street. This is Birmingham New Street. As the automated announcements chimed the usual jingle, my train was delayed. Gazing up the platform from where I was sat on the crash barrier, I noticed something darting about. A mouse, or possibly a young rat. He was doing what nature intended – hoovering up.

I’m used to seeing mice and rats in stations: New Street is alive with rodents. People eat whilst waiting at stations, so there’s a ready supply of dropped and discarded food. Normally, such animals tend to look unhealthy, but this fellow was looking quite chipper. Contractors have recently sealed off platform eight as part of the modernisation works, and I suspect Mickey here was displaced, as was the rat I saw at the foot of the steps on the same platform 10 minutes later. 

When the train came, it was too full and I ended up going to Walsall instead. Sometimes I feel I live in the station, just like the mice.

Sorry about the poor quality images. I won’t use flash in a station for safety reasons.