And if you want a station ….. we’ve got one to spare ….. Manchester Victoria

Now that’s a bit unfair because Manchester Victoria remains a busy and vital part of our rail network.

But during the 1960s it did seem eclipsed by some of the other Manchester and Salford railway stations.

Across the city London Road got a makeover at the beginning of that decade along with a new name and with its fast InterCity express trains seemed to stand for all that was new and exciting about the 1960s.

Not to be outdone Oxford Road got that new frontage which with its sweeping bold timber design looked equally an embodiment of a new age.

Leaving Central and Exchange to roll over, give up the ghost and depart the scene.

And by what seemed a cruel joke both became car parks.

Nor did Victoria escape the retreat from the great days of the railways.  In the 1970s it must be said it was becoming a tad shabby, despite its stunning exterior and equally wonderful interior.

We used it get trains home to Ashton-Under-Lyne some evenings and Victoria was the jumping off place for journeys back to Newcastle.

But there was this sense that it was in decline.  

The much-vaunted Picc Vic Tunnel connecting Victoria and Piccadilly had been shelved, many of the services had been diverted to other stations and only a handful of platforms remained with a chunk of the station sold off for the construction of the Manchester Arena.

All a sad end to what had once been a thriving and important railway hub which in 1909 boasted 17 platforms and that grand exterior.

To which in 1929 was added an extension linking it to Exchange Railway Station.

Back in the 1970s I hardy noticed the poignant war memorials including that discreet sign to the number of wounded men who returned as hospital patients during the Great War.  

And only gave a glance to the magnificent booking hall, the mosaic lettering above the First-Class Café, or that elegant glass and ironwork at the front of the railway station.  To which can be added the tall tiled map of the destinations which the old Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company served back at the beginning of the 20^th century.

And today I doubt few using the tram interchange to make journeys out to Bury and Rochdale will ever know of those dreary decades or that some of the railway station is built over part of the cemetery at Walker’s Croft which is believed to contain the remains of 40,000 people, many of whom were paupers.  

Or that later the site of the old workhouse on New Bridge Street was also engulfed by another period of Victoria’s expansion.

It remains one of those rarely talked about stories that the development of many of our railway stations resulted in the clearance of some of our worst inner-city slums.  So, while part of Little Ireland vanished under the Oxford Road railway viaducts, Victoria did for properties in Irk Town which was notorious as an area of poor housing and sanitation.

If I was at all fanciful, I might imagine their collective ghosts wandering the platforms, but if such spirits are a foot they will have to share the space with the heave of passengers who today use Victoria, whether it be using Timmy tram or like me out by train to Walkden.

Leaving me to reflect that it was a jolly good job Victoria didn’t go the way of Central and Exchange.

Location; Manchester Victoria

Pictures; Manchester Victoria, 2025-26, from the collection of Andrew Simpson