Public Transport Experience: Christmas Re-Cap : Victoria (2)

Sunday, 28 December 2025

Christmas Re-Cap : Victoria (2)

A Tour Of The Station

The above 3D graphic shows the main Nottingham Victoria station entrance, plus the station hotel on the right.

Entering the station you would find the main booking office at street level.

Before we move into the station proper entering on the western side of the site, it should be noted that there was another entrance. This was from Upper Parliament Street on the south ...

... where the arched entrance ...

... led to steps down to the two island platforms.

Beyond the entrance you could just glimpse the southern tunnel entrance ...

... which led to the Market Cross Junction where the GNR line branched off aiming for Grantham. Both these locations are totally obliterated by modern construction.

From the main entrance, however, a huge footbridge led to the platforms.

Here it is for real.

There was another footbridge but it did not serve the station.

It was a public right of way running east west and replacing some of the many streets that existed before the station was ever imagined! Again here it is for real.

Here is another view showing the footway passing through the station buildings.

There were two blocks of offices and public facilities on both of the island platforms ...

... separated by the main foot bridge.

Here is a station plan spun through 90 degrees with north on the left. But it may help our readers post celebratory minds grasp something of the site's geography!

Reading from left to right (north to south) we have a road bridge over the bay platforms, the east west through foot way bridge, the stations footbridge and, far right, Upper Parliament Street.

Seemples?

Nottingham Victoria was a magnificent station, far more grandiose that Midland and a real tribute to those who conceived and built the Great Central Railway.

But long before Richard Beeching was up to his fun and games, the line and all its stations had been deliberately run down by British Railways in favour of the Midland main line and the West Coast main line.

It is a salutary though that, had the cut-back plans been completed, only the West Coast main line out of Euston would have survived with former Great western routes from Snow Hill transferred to New Street and Midland main line trains diverted into Euston or routed to Kings Cross.

If the Great Central had not been removed from the railway map of the UK, might the route have been developed as a much cheaper option for High Speed 2?

The route was engineered for the high speed of the day with easy curves and gentle inclines - it would have been a good start!

Just for completeness, Nottingham Victoria station had sidings ...

... and its very own turntable!

Yes, it was a station to be proud of!

=====================

U ltimate U nderstanding

Quirky Answer : All things work together for those who love God and are fitting in with His plans. Again, God is not a slot machine; to gain his forgiveness we have to make every attempt to do things his way. Lasting, nay ever lasting Good only comes if we do not neglect the often ignored last bit of the quote!

It comes from Paul's Letter to the Romans; some churches use the word "Epistle", which is a little used old fashioned word for, erm, 'letter'!

Paul wrote many, many letters to encourage the early Christians as the church grew dramatically. He also aimed to help those recipients with their problems and provide an antidote to some of the destructive disagreements that will always plague any organisation. His encouragement and advice was circulated widely amongst the various growing churches in the Mediterranean Lands.