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Grovel Apologetically
for late posting of yesterday's blog. Forgot to
press the appropriate button - yet again
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When you consider the engineering required to build Brighton Station and, even worse, get trains into it, it is not at all surprising that the London Brighton & South Coast Railway came very close to going bust in 1866. Fortunately revenues increased and it survived by the skin of its boiler plating.
Let's see how challenging it was to get trains over bits of the South Downs and in to the developing seaside resort.
From the west it was relatively straightforward. The line, set at (or near) sea level at Shoreham-by-Sea ...
... could move inland and rise gently in the residential hinterland of the West Sussex coast and, by so doing, avoid major bridges (River Adur excepted!), tunnels and embankments.
Travelling south from London, a longish tunnel was needed at Clayton ...
... and a smaller bore at Patcham.
But it is the approach from the east that is the most spectacular and was the most challenging to build.
After a short tunnel at Falmer Hill the line is mainly on a low embankment until it crosses the Lewes Road (in PINK) ...
... before running along an escarpment on a hillside opposite Moulsecoomb estate. Moulsecoombe station is up quite a steep hill from the main road ...
... but well placed for the expanding premises of Brighton university.
Then, to get to the Brighton station site, the line has to cross another deep valley formed, historically, by the River Wellesbourne, now barely a trickle. Starting our look-see at Ditchling Road ...
... the line is in a cutting. At London Road station the tracks are at ground level ...
... with a footbridge and footpath taking both passengers and local residents to and from the north side of the station.
Then the land plunges. The valley is traversed on the massive multi arch London Road viaduct ...
... crossing first Beaconsfield Road ...
... and then Preston Road.
The stylised engraving below gives an exaggerated view (looking towards the sea), showing Brighton locomotive works perched on a near vertical cliff.
Height is ludicrously exaggerated but a glance at Google Earth today ...
... shows the ground floor of the flats that replaced the "works" at or above roof level of the premises on Argyle Road, glimpsed bottom left. The bridge (bottom right) ...
... once carried the track to the goods depot (at a lower level than station platforms) ...
... note the "locomotive" crossing behind the railings!
Part of this route is now a footpath ...
... which also illustrates the height of the post-railway structures compared with the A270 below (left). Even these flats needed an arched "underneath" to lift the building to the level of the access road on the far side.
And did you spot fbb's "deliberate" mistake in yesterday's blog? The confused old man wrote that the freight line had been replaced by Stroudley Road. WRONG! Poor map reading! Bad house point!
As the above picture shows, the railway line has been replaced by the footpath ...
... which slopes UP to join Stroudley Road (within the curtilage** of the former works, not below). Streetview and Google Earth are superb resources, but, clearly, they do not replace an on-site visit.
Another one for fbb's bucket list, now becoming an unachievable large tin bath list!
But this brings us neatly to an examination of the station and its surroundings which will follow tomorrow.
** Curtilage - the land surrounding a building. It is such a splendid word, much underused, so fbb just had to squeeze it in!
** Curtilage - the land surrounding a building. It is such a splendid word, much underused, so fbb just had to squeeze it in!
A Puzzle from a Twitterer
Below is a detail from the gorgeous Eridge Station where GoAhead Southern diesels on their run to Uckfield connect with trains on the Spa Valley heritage railway.
It has got one of those!
It is hard to believe that Royal Mail business at rural Eridge ...
Next Brighton Station blog : Wednesday 10th July
Back in the day, there was a similar type of chute alongside the steps leading down to platforms 1 & 2 at Halifax station.
ReplyDeleteIt was used mainly for carpets (woven then by Crossley's - a major employer in the town) and mailbags.
With the demise of Crossley's, the loss of mail traffic, and the refurbishment of the station lifts, I suspect the chute has been long since removed.
With a bit of sacking and nobody looking, it was a wonderful helter-skelter to amuse young boys (not me, I hasten to add!)in the boring periods between trains.