Our fifth and final station of the day brings us back into the beating heart of the East Midlands for the first time in a long time for a stint at Nottingham station. Nottingham's first station was Carrington Street station, which opened in May 1839, when the Midland Counties Railway opened the line from Nottingham to Derby. This terminus station was situated on the opposite side of Carrington Street to the current station, on a site now occupied by Nottingham Magistrates' Court. The original station gate posts still exist and form the pedestrian entrance to the Magistrates' Courts area. In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway merged with two others into the Midland Railway. By 1848, the new company had outgrown Carrington Street station and new lines to Lincoln had been opened. A new through station was opened on the current station site on 22 May 1848, replacing the Carrington Street station. The station was designed by the architect J E Hall of Nottingham, and had its entrance on Station Street. In 1869 the Midland Railway purchased the West Croft Canal arm, filling it and building additional parallel tracks to south. In the 1880s Nottingham station employed 170 men. Although attractive when it first opened, by the early 1900s the station was cramped, with only three platforms. When the Great Central Railway opened its Victoria Station in 1900, the Midland Railway appointed Albert Edward Lambert, a local Nottingham architect, to rebuild the Midland station. Lambert had been the architect for the Nottingham Victoria railway station and consequently the two buildings shared many similarities in their design. The station was re-built largely on the same site as the Station Street station, but the entrance was relocated onto Carrington Street. The first contract for the station buildings was awarded to Edward Wood and Sons of Derby on 23rd January 1903, who were also awarded the contract for the buildings on platforms 1 and 2 on 16th September 1903. The contract for the buildings on platforms 4 and 5 was awarded to Kirk, Knight & Co of Sleaford on 18th June 1903, who were also responsible for building the parcels office on Station Street, which opened in November 1903. The structural steelwork and cast-ironwork was done by Handyside & Co. and the Phoenix Foundry, both of Derby. The station was built in an Edwardian Baroque Revival style at a cost of one million pounds and was described by the Evening News on the eve of its opening as a magnificent new block of buildings. The building used a mix of red brick, terracotta and faience with slate and glazed pitch roofs over the principal buildings. The carriage entrances have Art Nouveau wrought-iron gates. The station's forebuildings were opened to passengers without any formal ceremony on 17th January 1904, although next day the Evening News reported that the platforms were still in a state of chaos and these were not expected to be ready for another nine months. However it did consider that ‘the result promises to be the provision for Nottingham of one of the most commodious and most convenient passenger stations in the country’. The day began with the closure of the booking offices in the old station after the last tickets were issued for the 5:25 am London train and the new booking offices were opened in time to issue tickets for the 6:25 am Erewash Valley train. No attempt was made to exclude the public from the building and many took the opportunity to view the new station buildings. The Evening News commented on the public’s admiration of the style and elegance of the station approaches and booking hall and went on to describe the day’s events. The station became the property of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway under the railway grouping of 1923, and was nationalised in 1948 by the Transport Act 1947, becoming part of British Railways. Following the privatisation of the railways in the 1990s, it was transferred to the ownership of Railtrack and subsequently Network Rail. For many years the Midland Railway suffered the indignity of its rival, the Great Central Railway, crossing above the station on a 170-foot-long bowstring girder bridge. This bridge became redundant in 1973 and was finally dismantled in the early 1980s. The alignment was later used for a new tramway bridge. With the opening of the Nottingham Express Transit in March 2004, Nottingham station became the southern terminus of the new tram line. Nowadays, in this video, we see a variety of East Midlands Trains, Cross Country and Northern Rail stock heading for a variety of destinations including Leeds, Worksop, London St Pancras, Cardiff Central and Birmingham New Street Please rate, comment and subscribe and thanks for watching!

Comments

1. Is that EMT St Pancras/Grantham a permanent service or was it covering for ECML closure?