Alfreton provides lessons for building new stations
As I was reading about the Kenilworth station farce ( RAIL 850), my train stopped at Alfreton station.
The latter has two platforms that accommodate 12-coach trains, a small pre-fabricated booking office, a footbridge, car park and waiting shelters. The booking office is smaller than the structure built for Kenilworth, but the platforms are much larger.
I was the technical officer responsible for the construction of Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway (as it was originally called). The station was, I believe, sponsored by both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire County Councils.
Their main requirement was for the booking office to be constructed using the ‘CLASP’ method that had been developed by Nottinghamshire County Council for school buildings, and so on. Otherwise, design and construction was left in the hands of British Rail and carried out by the Divisional Civil Engineer, Nottingham.
Authority to carry out the work was given in August 1972, with the instruction that it MUST open on May 7 1973 because the stop had already been incorporated into timetable planning. The whole of the works were completed by that date, and the station was opened by Sir Peter Parker.
Thus, we took about eight months to carry out the whole project, including site surveys, detailed design and planning. Its cost was measured in tens of thousands of pounds, not millions.
Of course, we did have many advantages. The only contractors used on site were a specialist ‘CLASP’ builder for the booking office and a surfacing contractor for the car park - all other work was carried by British Rail direct labour. Thus, there was no need for complicated contracts or expensive consultants.
Furthermore, the railway family assisted by delivering materials direct to site by rail, particularly concrete copings and wall blocks from Taunton concrete works, and by providing a traffic supervisor on site to regulate trains and authorise periods of ‘between trains’ protection that enabled the swift construction of platform walls and other works next to the track.
One innovation was using spent ballast for platform fill. It was brought to site directly from weekend ballast cleaning sites and off-loaded directly into the platforms instead of going to tip, thus not only providing us with free material but also avoiding tipping charges.
It would seem that Kenilworth station will have taken about seven years to construct from the date when planning permission was given, compared with eight months for Alfreton. I suggest that there are lessons to be learned.
Brian Maddison, Bingham