Now I never used Central Railway Station.
It closed just months before I arrived in the city and it would be a full ten years before I discovered it.
By then it was relegated to a car park, which seems a real insult given that the car, bus and lorry helped do for the Age of Steam.
Still, when I wandered in there was still much that was left of its time as a railway station.
No one questioned me being there and I pretty much had the place to myself.
Fast forward almost another decade and I was back with John Smith, the leader of the Labour Party and Keith Bradley soon to be elected as the first Labour MP for Manchester Withington.
We were there to see the work being done to convert the building into the GMex Centre.
They were a series of photographs I took during the late 1970s into the ‘80s and have sat in our cellar for over thirty years.
On that occasion I didn’t have my camera, but back in 1979 I did, and these were two taken in the old days of film, when I developed and printed the pictures in a dark room using smelly chemicals.
Most never got beyond being negatives, including these two, but the arrival of a scanner for Christmas has brought them back into the daylight.
Location; Central Railway Station
Pictures; Central Railway Station, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
By then it was relegated to a car park, which seems a real insult given that the car, bus and lorry helped do for the Age of Steam.
Still, when I wandered in there was still much that was left of its time as a railway station.
No one questioned me being there and I pretty much had the place to myself.
We were there to see the work being done to convert the building into the GMex Centre.
They were a series of photographs I took during the late 1970s into the ‘80s and have sat in our cellar for over thirty years.
On that occasion I didn’t have my camera, but back in 1979 I did, and these were two taken in the old days of film, when I developed and printed the pictures in a dark room using smelly chemicals.
Most never got beyond being negatives, including these two, but the arrival of a scanner for Christmas has brought them back into the daylight.
Location; Central Railway Station
Pictures; Central Railway Station, 1979 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
Congratulations on your trip into the near future, Andrew! It might only be six days (article from 6 Dec 2018!), but now, interestingly, you could report the history of the future. Colin
ReplyDeleteBrilliant memories
ReplyDeleteAndrew, wonderfully, nostalgic pictures of the inside of Central Station, where as a 12 year old lad I happily spent many a Saturday trainspotting and attempting to capture locomotive images on my trusty, well battered Brownie box camera. I traveled alone on the bus down to Cannon Street, Manchester by bus from Top of Hebers village located betwixt Middleton and Heywood. From the bus terminus I walked down to the " Steam Palace " that was Central Station. Halcyon Days!
ReplyDelete