Tuesday 4 January 2022

Another Christmas Book - The Review

But First : Yesterday's Answers

1. Derby (Moorledge) - now rebuilt

2. Broad Marsh Nottingham

3. Broad Marsh Notttingham - Mark 2

4. Bridport

5. Buchanan Street Glasgow - replaced by "Buchanan"

6. Bedford - now rebuilt

7. Dundee - now rebuilt

8. Gloucester Green, Oxford : now rebuilt

9. Loughborough - gone

10. Portsmouth (The Hard) - now rebuilt

11. Golders Green

12. Northampton Derngate - replaced twice!

13. Bradford - now rebuilt

14. Shanklin - now on-street stands

15.Bolton - now rebuilt

Now, The Book : fbb's Christmas Present
This book is not an academic study! It is a collection of archive photographs and offers a feast of pure omnibological nostalgia.

This book is not a complete set. It provides a good selection of bus stations in England, Scotland and Wales that illustrate how varied the genre was. There is no mention of either Derngate in Northampton or its replacement, Greyfriars, now also demolished.

Development since the eighties are not covered, hence there is nothing about Nottingham's Broad Marsh Mark 3 which currently looks a bit like this:-

The book has no maps, leaving the reader to open up Google Maps or Street Map and search for where these facilities once were. Thanks to the vast amount of information available on-line, this investigation can be a pleasurable, sometimes a frustrating task. Here is a corner of the original Airdrie bus station ...
... and the helpful textk that accompanies it ...
... and a Streetview shop of the buildings today.

The trend in recent years is to remove bus stations and sell the site for development. Where new bus stations have been built, almost always by local authorities as bus companies no longer consider the expense of providing comfort for their waiting passengers worth the reductions in "bottom line" profits. Where new bus stations have been built they are usually smaller than their predecessors.

Many of the stations in this book were owned by the company. Here is East Yorkshire at Bridlington ...
... now The Promenade shopping centre. But "round the back" is a replacement.

By far the most fascinating picture, for fbb, is of this "bus station".
And, wowsers, it is still there!
The building at the back is the point of reference,
It is no longer given the title of a bus station - but it was once known as such. Google maps now call it "turning circle". The buses nip up the cul de sac, turn in the "circle" and use the shelter which once was a lean-to against the wall!
Surely the smallest bus station in the UK, it is in the community of Waterfoot.
It is just along the road from Rawtenstall.

Bus Stations in Britain by Kevin McCormack is published by Capital Transport at a whopping but stimulating £30.

Tomorrow we go on a train ride.

 Next Red Arrow blog : Wednesday 5th January 

4 comments:

  1. Andrew Kleissner4 January 2022 at 08:12

    Er ... Have I lost the plot here? I thought we'd established yesterday that No.15 wasn't Bolton but Wakefield?

    In other news, "When will my bus station come?" - over 6 years and still waiting:https://tinyurl.com/yckj275s

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  2. Broadmarsh Mk.3 doesn't look like that anymore, externally it is finished (indeed the car park on site has been opened) and we are just awaiting internal fit out to be completed before buses can return.

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  3. The new Broadmarsh bus station is close to opening, the completed exterior can be seen in this recent newspaper article
    https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/10-year-agreement-over-running-6206931

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  4. Presumably FBB had today's blog pre written and scheduled to upload so couldn't change anything. No 15 is indeed Wakefield, built by West Riding at their own expense of £60000 and opened by the Traffic Commissioner for the Yoprkshire Traffic Area Major F S Eastwood on 30 September 1952. The picture is possibly from the official opening day as the bus station was in use by then. The roadways look very clean with the beginning of oil staining by the stands and the photographer could only have got in that position by climbing on the roof of the shelters. The official looking party in the image possibly has Major Eastwood in it (comparing to an official ribbon cutting image) and alongside him George Margrave the General Manager.The absence of the civil dignitaries who wore their chains of office for the opening suggests this might be a "Technical Inspection" by the authorities before or after the ribbon cutting.
    If this image is incorrectly captioned in the actual book I wonder how many more howlers there are?
    Ken (ex West Riding)

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