Improving The Passenger Experience in York (1)

Chaserider PS

Evidence!! The reprint of the excellent leaflets is shown above. Again, well done D & G!

York Station; Something Special

York station seems even more splendid in the snow, but dates from 1877. The previous permanent York station was a terminus.

If you enter the city from the south via Tadcaster Road, you approach Micklegate Bar ...

... where through traffic is required to turn left on to Queen Street. Oddly this thoroughfare rises up onto a bridge ...

... as it follows the city's walls round towards the station ...

... before passing the superb east wall of the trainshed.

Then, for no obvious reason, the road descends again to the station entrance.

Why?

There is a clue to be seen if you look right from the top of the rise.

These arches, unsympathetically cut through the historic city walls, took the tracks into that first permanent York station, opened in 1841.

The green fields, upper left, are where the present station was built on the oddly named Thief Lane..

The present road layout (seen overprinted on the old map) was developed to serve the new station, but with a bridge over the old tracks at the holes in the wall.

The road going out of shot, above top left, is  no longer a public road (possibly never was) ...

... but is the driveway for the York Station Hotel (now the "Principal")

The old station remained intact until relatively recently, being used as carriage sidings.

Some of the original buildings still stand, incorporated into a very station-like block of offices for York City Council.

The old frontage has been thoroughly restored as have many of the "wing" buildings.

Since the removal of the carriage sidings, the Queen Street bridge serves no useful purpose.

But historically it was a pain in the firebox to reverse into the station travelling from the north, and reverse out travelling from the south, in order to continue a journey via the East Coast main line. Hence the present station!

It was, and still is a magnificent edifice ...

... but some of its elegance has gone ...

... as have memories of train travel in days gone by.

A signal box is now a Costa Lot ...

... but the splendid station clocks remain.

The one adjacent to the former signal box has a feature that can easily be missed by the hurrying passengers ...

As well a two magnificent side faces it has a repeater end-on that can easily be seen as you descend from the footbridge.

Every so often, the station is "improved", sometimes less sympathetically that it should be ...

... and now comes news of another upgrade (?).

Unfortunately this proposal will turn a large booking and enquiry office, often full with queues ...

... and coloured RED (in the main station block - above) into shops; replacing the ticket office with something much smaller where Hertz car rental was, now the gents toilets (coloured BLUE).

The revised layout (shown below and looking from the platforms, i.e. in the opposite direction from the above ...

... shows the mini booking office (PINK, left) and the replacement "retail areas" (GREEN) on the right.

Here is how the booking office looked in 1935!

Ladies will get new "facilities" and there will be a First Class lounge (PALE MUD).

It is not clear where the Gents will be located - maybe they've forgotten about that! Nor is it clear on-line whether this has happened yet or is a work in progress.

So prepare yourself for even longer queues if, heaven forfend, you might want to buy a ticket, or, even worse, make an enquiry of a real person.

For bus publicity, that would be for those big things stopping just outside, there is no chance.

So, from an information point of view, it looks like a step backwards. But of course, it is all on line.

On the other hand, outside the station ...

 Next York station blog : Friday 12th February