Victoria Station much knocked about but still doing the business since 1844

I don’t think Victoria Station has been best served by what has happened to it over the last few years.

But then it was always a place that grew bit by bit.  It was first opened in 1844 after the old Liverpool Road station proved too small for the volume of passenger traffic and the final phase came in 1909 when the number of platforms was increased to 17 making it one of the largest stations in the country.

Something of the grandeur of the place is still there from the huge stone frontage to the equally impressive wooden ticket office.  My favourite bit is the entrance to the cafe which still has something of that late Victorian and Edwardian period and the huge map detailing all the stations of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.

More sombre is the metal plaque marking the passage of soldiers from the Great War out of the station south to the Western Front and the memorial to all those from the Railway Company who served in the conflict.

But the place has been much knocked about in the last twenty years.  First there is the MEN addition and now the Metro line.  Now I try not to wallow in nostalgia.  Before the arrival of the tram those platforms looked forlorn and neglected and railway stations are practical places but the design of the entrance to the new tram line seems ugly and a little out of keeping.  Still it does allow Victoria to carry on the business of getting people off to other places.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson