The station was split in two by a pair of extra-long platforms that cut the concourse in half, leaving a narrow, winding path to connect the two sides of the station or, as is visible above, a network of high-level foot-bridges.
Once the busiest commuter station in London, it still had (and still has) an immense volume of commuter traffic.
But it was those that I remember most vividly -- a Class 37 about to depart with an InterCity service to King's Lynn via Cambridge. While this next shot conveys the atmosphere of the run-down concourse (so preferable to the sanitised shopping mall we have today):
This is what a railway station should look like -- all vaulted ceilings and expanses of platform...
Or here, where the youth waits idly for his train, a pair of Class 31s aligned beyond him, the smartly turned-out platform official about to give the Right Away signal:
Let's end here, at the far end of the line in 1980, the positively gleaming Class 31 having arrived at Lynn.
That smart rake of Mk2 carriages behind it provided the most comfortable ride ever experienced on this line, including today's dreadful plastic electric multiple units with their cramped and mean seats.
5 comments:
How things change!
I especially like that shot of the line up of blue/grey class 307/308/309 EMUs near the platform ends.
Interestingly, the train nearest the camera, set 309 624, has recently been preserved and may yet run again.
Ah fond memories. Long-long-ago I worked near Liverpool Street and remember walking through on the above platform walkway. It was a good short cut from an alleyway between Liverpool Street and Broad Street (of blessed memory) Station to Bishopsgate.
Brought back memories!
Do you happen to know why those two platforms were so long? I always assumed they were to serve the boat trains to Harwich, but as I never had reason to travel on one, it remained an assumption. They were a confounded nuisance if one had to change trains in a hurry; I more than once failed to make it, having only about four minutes to get from one side of the station to the other.
The two long platforms were a result of the phasing of the building of the station and of the presence of the railway hotel -- they serviced the platform-level goods entrance, loading and unloading laundry, coal and supplies.
In later life their extra length accommodated the longest InterCity trains, usually the named expresses such as the Harwich boat train, the East Anglian, the Broadsman and the Fenman.
I loved the quirkiness of those platforms; I loved the winding, overhead footbridges; and I especially loved the Europa Bistro, at first floor level overlooking the station.
Thanks for the info. Most kind.
The Europa bistro though was after my time, I think.
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