Exchange Station the one that’s a car park

Now I can’t think of a greater indignity for a railway station than it should become a car park.

Not that I have anything against the car but there is something sad in seeing one of those fine examples of public transport reduced to a storage space.

And before any one accuses me of being either sentimental or nostalgic I accept that it is better to use an old building for a new use rather than just see it go for ever.  This at least was what saved Central Station when it closed in 1969 till its re-emergence as GMex a decade or so later.

But unlike Central, the old Exchange Station did not fare so well.  At its closure the tracks along platforms 1 and 2 were lifted, and while trains still passed through, its train shed was demolished in the early 1980s and the remaining lines were taken up in 1993.

It hadn’t always been such.  It was opened in 1884 giving the London & North Western Railway its own Manchester terminus.  For the first time since the closure of Liverpool Road Station the LNWR no longer had to share a station with another railway company.

Now I am the first to acknowledge that there are people who will do a much better job on telling the story of Exchange from its beginnings in 1884 till its eventual closure.  By far and away the best site is  http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/manchester_exchange/index.shtml which either makes me a very lazy chap or just someone who likes the labours and interests of others to get out into the sunshine.

So instead I shall concentrate on the pictures.  For me the opening photograph perfectly places the station in a context, and anyone driving up the slope today to park has nothing so grand to observe.

It is also that wonderful way the late Victorians and Edwardians matched an empty space to an advertising hoarding.  Now it is difficult with a monochrome image which is not the sharpest to get a sense of the colour and vitality that must have greeted passengers back in 1910 when this one was taken.

On the other hand black and white pictures perfectly capture the magic of a railway station. No more so than on an August day in 1957 on an empty platform as the sunlight cuts through the gloom made all the more striking by the glare of daylight beyond the carriage shed.  We are looking east along platform 2 towards the buffer stops and it is just before one in the afternoon.

This is how I remember railway stations.  And because I grew up just as the age of steam was coming to an end, I am pulled in to the picture of the train about to leave Exchange.  The steam hangs in the air and mixes with the engine oil to give one of those unforgettable smells which no diesel train can ever hope to match.

But then I hear my mother mutter “so much romantic tosh,” because that same powerful and majestic locomotive will send a cloud of sparks and soot across the washing lines of countless houses that stand in tiny gardens up against the railway track.

Well not anymore and certainly not from Exchange.  So having indulged myself in the romance of steam and the glory of the old railway termini I am left with a picture taken just a few months ago.  The tracks have gone, as has the carriage shed and away in the distance on the left is the car park more less where the sun shone down on platform 2 on that August day 55 years ago.

Pictures; Exchange Station, 1910, m62866, Platform 2, August 1957 taken by H.Milligan, m62835, and Steam Locomotve-46110, by  J Clark taken in 1963, m62830, Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council and 
looking west at the site of Manchester Exchange station on 2 June 2012. The footbridge which connected the through line platforms can be seen to the left. The cars seen parked beyond the footbridge occupied the site of the station concourse and the west-facing terminus platforms 1 and 2.  Courtesy of http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/