The work on Lewis Cubitt’s 1852 Grade 1 listed station built for the Great Northern Railway has transformed the way passengers see and use the station. The project, begun in 2007, has seen the construction of a new passenger concourse including an impressive new roof and improvements to passenger facilities. The final phase, due for completion in August 2013, will involve the removal of the front canopy in order to reveal Cubitt’s original station façade for the first time in 150 years. (see images of the development on the Network Rail website).

Here are a few images of the station façade from the National Railway Museum collection.

Watercolour, Arrival of Queen Victoria at King’s Cross Station, by an unknown artist, possibly Lewis Cubitt, the station’s architect, about 1852

King’s Cross Station, about 1927

Rebuilding the forecourt of London’s King’s Cross station, 26 January 1973

Kings Cross station frontage, 2007.

The awards jury described the transformation of the formerly ‘depressing’ building as ‘both welcome and essential’ calling the project ‘inspiring’. They were impressed by the reuse of areas such as the former Parcels Office (as a pub/restaurant) and reinstatement of the Booking Hall but in particular “were uplifted by the exhilarating curves of the western concourse.” (http://www.europanostra.org/awards/108/).

The European Heritage Awards are overseen by the European Union and Europa Nostra and an awards ceremony for the winners will take place in Athens on 16 June. 15 prizes have been awarded in the conservation category, also including work on Railway bridges in the Langstraat Region, from ‘s-Hertogenbosch to Lage Zwaluwe, THE NETHERLANDS. Overall 200 projects were nominated in four categories, with six to be nominated as grand prix winners at the awards ceremony, with a further public choice award. For further information about the prize and other winners see http://www.europanostra.org/laureates-2013/.

Here’s another image from our ever-increasing online photo collection. This one’s the choice of Ruth Leach, our Interpretation Developer:

Over the last year or so I’ve frequently turned to our image collection for inspiration for the Station Hall redevelopment. When I was looking at how stations had celebrated royal arrivals, I found this one of George V and Queen Mary arriving at Rochdale station in 1913. I love it not only for the fantastic hats and foliage, but also because I grew up a few miles down the road and have used those steps myself. I have to say I’ve never seen the station look quite this good – but it’s great to see somewhere I know captured in a moment of time.

More info about the image on its photo page.

In honour of the 150th birthday of the tube, we’ve dug out these eerie pictures of Euston underground station, taken in 1908 – a year after the station was opened by the City and South London Railway. The tube in these pics is familiar in many ways, but bizarrely unfamiliar in others, not least in the signs, the rolling stock – and the prices. Enjoy!

Update – 3D photos: our marketing team have unearthed these amazing stereoscopic photos of early work building the London Underground’s tunnels. You can try to view them in 3D using the same method as for those old Magic Eye pictures.

We have an ever-increasing collection of 1000s of historic railway photos to browse on our main website.

Poster, British Railways (London Midland Region), Manchester’s New Station, by Claude Buckle, 1960

As a regular visitor passing through Manchester Piccadilly train station, I’ve been interested by some of the paintings and photographs in the collection which give a few insights into its history. I’ve selected some of my favourite images to show the story of the station’s fantastic transformation over the years.

Manchester London Road station and forecourt, 1913

The station was originally built as Store Street Station by the Manchester and Birmingham Railway in 1842, before being renamed London Road Station in 1847.  It was shared by the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne & Manchester Railway and it has been rebuilt and added to a number of times, with two news spans added to the train shed roof in 1881 and island platforms added linking to Manchester Oxford Road in 1882 (replacing two old Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway platforms which were built next to the station).

Trains waiting at Manchester London Road station, 1913

Manchester London Road station dining room, about 1956

In 1960, under nationalised control by British Railways, the London Road Station became Manchester Piccadilly and reopened in 1962. The painting below (and the poster it became, at the top of this blog post) shows the huge contrast with the old station buildings.

Painting, oil on canvas, Manchester’s New Station, Piccadilly, by Claude Buckle, 1960

In 1992, the vaults below the station, formerly a goods depot, were transformed to incorporate the MetroLink tram service. The station was once again modernised in the run up to the 2002 Commonwealth Games in the city, with dramatic results. I haven’t been able to find a photo of the current building among our collection, but here is one of the MetroLink instead.

You can now browse 1000s of photographs from our collection on the new photos section of our main website.

For more on the history of the station check out the Network Rail Archive, which has further details and plans of the buildings.

We’re continuing to celebrate the launch of our new railway photos browser, and now it’s my turn to choose a photo from the collection.

Britain’s railway companies have never been averse to celebrating their long history and heritage. 1930 marked the centenary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway – the first railway in the world to link two cities. To mark the occasion, the London Midland and Scottish railway held a pageant marking the historic landmarks of transport. This included a working replica of Stephenson’s Rocket with carriages,and a modern Coronation Class express passenger locomotive.

But the pageant started with a scene that represented the beginning of the story of transport: a caveman dragging a cavewoman by her hair from the jaws of a dinosaur.

Will this moment will be recreated at the bi-centenary in 2030?

There are 1000s more old railway photos to browse at the photos page on our main website.

It’s my turn to pick a Picture of the Week, and I’ve chosen this vertigo-inducing shot of the widening of a railway cutting in Liverpool in 1881. The supervisor playing dare with the edge of that precipitous drop – bashed out of the limestone years before by an army of navvies – helps convey the incredible scale that Victorian engineers were working at. The picture is from the Crewe Works collection, which has plenty more like it – photos that demonstrate the dizzying contrast between us tiny, vulnerable-looking humans and the enormous and imposing things we’ve built. (Click for a closer look.)

By the way, this is the railway from Liverpool Lime Street to Edge Hill (below), and the photo is taken at one of the points where the line dives into a tunnel – can anyone from the area work out exactly where?

Even better, the photos are released under a Creative Commons license: they’re free for any non-commercial use as long as you include credit and add a link back to the photo page. (Each individual photo has the full credit line and link).

To celebrate all this, each week a different member of staff will be choosing one of their favourite photos for this blog. We’re kicking off with Lorna Frost, Assistant Curator of Image Collections:

My photo of the week is this image of the Great Hall of Euston Station, 1890. It shows the commanding statue of George Stephenson who now presides over our own Great Hall.

There are some pictures of the statue as it stands today on its Our Collection page.

I’ve been working on the Station Stories project. As part of this, I recently accompanied Sally Sculthorpe, an Assistant Interpretation Developer, to Birmingham to gather stories from former railway workers at the London Midland Railway Club Association in Tysley.

Here’s a snap of me talking to a former railway worker.

I’ve selected a few stories to share with you along with some images in our collection that really bring these stories to life.

Porters loading luggage onto a Great Western Railway van at Paddington station, July 1940

I was a junior porter in them days. I had a job on the tractors moving the parcels. We often used to get girls coming down from the Cheltenham ladies college. One day, a girl come off the train with a heavy case. I put it on my tractor’s running board. I said, “I’ll see you on platform number nine”, because I had to go to the parcels office on number ten. I went on round the corner and the case fell off and busted. There were tennis balls all down the platform. I hastily tied up the case, and took it up to the train for Cheltenham. The next morning I had to go and see the Station master, he said, “Next time, put it on a luggage barrow properly”.

Interior of Kings Cross station, October 1970

In the booking office we used to get accidents reported. One Christmas eve, this chap came running down the stairs at Nottingham station. It was slippy. The porter opened the train door for him, the train went off, and the chap they’d let appeared on the track on the other side. His excuse was, “I thought it was a corridor train.” He’d run right through the train. The porter said, “All I can do is submit a report”.

Warning notices at Pitsea level crossing, Essex, August 1961

It’s amazing how people don’t read notices. I remember once the station ceiling was being re-plastered. We put a notice up saying, “Please use other entrance”. Most people would look around, realise what was going on, and read the notice, but this person didn’t. He actually had to walk around the notice to get down the steps. We couldn’t believe it. My colleague said to me, “Why is it that people leave their brains behind when they walk into a railway station?”

Fish at Grimsby docks, 1961

The travelling ticket collectors would come in to the booking office and they’d tell you stories of what they’d come across. One chap was working in Chester at the time. They had a station cat there. He said it was amazing because the cat instinctively knew which platform to go on to get a bit of fish. The cat always turned up when the fish train was pulling in.

Driver in an electric locomotive, 1956

All drivers from Birmingham bought pork pies from a particular butcher’s when they stopped in York. One day a mate of mine said to the lady in the shop, “I’d like the biggest pork pie you have”. He meant the large one in the window, but she went out the back and returned with a giant pork pie as big as a Christmas cake. He hadn’t the nerve to say no to it.

Chipperfield Circus elephants being loaded onto a British Railways van at St Botolph station, September 1961

I once drove the circus train after a performance by the Chipperfield Circus from Dudley up to Stoke-On-Trent. It was winter time and there was a heavy snow. The elephants were led on to the freight train. The heat of their bodies melted the frost on top of the vans.

If you’re a former station worker with a story to tell, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by filling in our online Station Stories form or emailing your story to station.stories@nrm.org.uk.

However I can’t think of any others that feature such a glamorous vehicle than the one in this set of photographs.

James Bond Aston Martin DB5 being loaded onto the Daytime Anglo Scottish Car Carrier at the Caledonian Road loading bay. (Liverpool St PM227)

James Bond Aston Martin at Caledonian Road Loading bay (Liverpool St PM231)

These photos are part of a set of images taken by the British Rail Eastern Region Public Relations & Publicity Department in August 1965 to promote the Anglo Scottish Car Carrier service.  They feature the iconic Aston Martin DB5 from the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger, complete with bulletproof screen, machine guns and other gadgets. (Although it would have been pretty inadvisable to operate most of these gadgets whilst on board the train - especially the ejector seat!)

British Railways started its car carrier services in 1955, as part of a strategy to reduce the impact from the growing use of private motor cars for long distance travel. Travellers could load their cars on at various loading bays, and then be transported in comfort in attached carriages and arrive refreshed at their destination with their car without having to drive hundreds of miles. It was a quite useful service at a time when the motorway network was at an early stage of development.

Car Carrier services were available on a range of routes, and on some, overnight sleeper services were also provided. There was even a Manchester to Boulogne service via Dover (ideal for secret agents heading on foreign assignments!). Later these services were marketed as ‘Motorail’ and BR continued to run them until the mid 1990s when they finally ceased operation.

John Hassall’s ‘Skegness is SO Bracing’ is one of the most iconic British railway posters and has been a popular image since its first publication by the Great Northern Railway in 1908. It has been repeatedly reproduced, reworked and parodied, and the Jolly Fisherman, featured in the poster, has become an icon of his hometown, Skegness.

We have one of the originals, which is a large 2.8m by 1.4m. It had been rolled in store since its purchase in 1992 and was in poor condition. It had become very brittle with age and received some unsatisfactory restoration before being acquired by the museum, so it wasn’t in suitable condition to be shown. When we decided we wanted to display the poster in the Hints for Holidays exhibition, we contacted local conservator Ruth Mathias to see if she could help.

Skegness is SO Bracing, GNR, 1908. Before conservation

Skegness is SO Bracing, detail, before treatment

Skegness is SO Bracing, detail, before treatment

Ruth examined the poster and found that the acid in the paper had caused it to become brittle, and that some of the surface was starting to flake away (this is called delamination). The old repairs needed removing and new ones adding in with correctly toned paper to disguise the repairs.

The poster had been backed onto linen and ideally Ruth wanted to remove this. But initial investigations showed that this wouldn’t be possible due to the type of adhesive that had been used and the fragility of the paper from which the poster itself is made.

Skegness is SO Bracing, detail, after treatment

Skegness is SO Bracing, detail, after treatment

Skegness is SO Bracing, detail, after treatment

Nonetheless, Ruth was able to clean and repair Skegness, replacing the old repairs much more sensitively and consolidating the surface (to stop any more flaking). The Jolly Fisherman has been given a new lease of life.

Hints for Holidays run until 2 September 2012.