Now you will have to be a certain age to remember this image of the old Central Station before it was transformed into G-Mex.
And even older if you used it as a car park and of course older still if you caught a train from one of its nine platforms.
It opened in 1880 and closed to passengers in 1969.
I missed it by a couple of months and only discovered it in the late 1970s when I wandered in and photographed the interior.
Sadly the pictures have long since been lost, so I was very pleased when my friend Ann sent this one taken by her husband sometime around 1978.
Like other disused railway stations it suffered from dereliction, the indignity of being used as a car park and was damaged by fire.
But in 1982 it was bought by the Greater Manchester Council and work began to convert it into an exhibition centre.
This was a bold and imaginative plan and by one of those odd coincidences I got to see the work in progress sometime in 1985 or ’86, in the company of John Smith the leader of the Labour Party and Keith Bradley who went on to become the first Labour MP for Manchester Withington.
And just six years after G-Mex was opened part of the railway track that once ran into Central was adapted to take the Metro link which today is being extended to accommodate the Second City Crossing.
Like many who use the line I often gaze across at that great arched structure of iron and glass and reflect on just what was saved and how it could all have been so different when Howard photographed the building.
Picture; Central Station, 1978, from the collection of Howard Love
It opened in 1880 and closed to passengers in 1969.
I missed it by a couple of months and only discovered it in the late 1970s when I wandered in and photographed the interior.
Sadly the pictures have long since been lost, so I was very pleased when my friend Ann sent this one taken by her husband sometime around 1978.
Like other disused railway stations it suffered from dereliction, the indignity of being used as a car park and was damaged by fire.
But in 1982 it was bought by the Greater Manchester Council and work began to convert it into an exhibition centre.
This was a bold and imaginative plan and by one of those odd coincidences I got to see the work in progress sometime in 1985 or ’86, in the company of John Smith the leader of the Labour Party and Keith Bradley who went on to become the first Labour MP for Manchester Withington.
And just six years after G-Mex was opened part of the railway track that once ran into Central was adapted to take the Metro link which today is being extended to accommodate the Second City Crossing.
Like many who use the line I often gaze across at that great arched structure of iron and glass and reflect on just what was saved and how it could all have been so different when Howard photographed the building.
Picture; Central Station, 1978, from the collection of Howard Love
What about when The Queen visited in 1986 ?
ReplyDeleteSo tell me more.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsTx-2jnduo
ReplyDeleteBorn 1960@ st Mary’s. Lived Damascus house. Used it when I was a kid. The smiths made good use of it on their somewhat premature 1986 queen is dead tour. Future nightclub / more music please?
ReplyDeleteMy father grew up in Beswick (Manchester). He has always complained about those responsible for rationalising the city's railway infrastructure in the 60s, claiming that they made a subjective decision (lacking in supporting evidence). The result was the closure of Manchester's best railway station - Central Station in 1969. Thankfully (unlike Victoria Station (Nottingham) or St Enoch's Station (Glasgow) it avoided being demolished. After years of dereliction and vandalism, work began on converting the building, (complete with its glazed; single span arched roof) into a conference centre. The repurposed structure opened in 1986.
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