Six of UK’s best railway stations in North East

OUR REGION LEADS THE WAY IN BRAND NEW TRAIN BOOK

Reporter GIVEN the North East’s pioneering railway status, the region would always be on track to feature prominently in a book titled “Britain’s 100 Best Railway Stations.”

And so it does. It has six of the best in the hefty volume, published by Viking at £25.

The author is the authoritative Simon Jenkins, former chairman of the National Trust, deputy chairman of English Heritage and founder of the Railway Heritage Trust, who travelled the length and breadth of Britain to compile the book.

The North East can be proud of its half dozen which make the grade, since there are 3,600 stations on Britain’s main line network.

Newcastle, that great railway masterpiece by North East architect John Dobson, is in the top 10, as would be expected.

But what is a surprise is the inclusion of the city’s modern Jesmond Metro station which, says Jenkins, is sandwiched between a submerged urban carriageway and, aptly, a church by John Dobson. The man gets everywhere.

Jenkins likes the Metro system which, he says, is “second only to the London Underground in urban transit design”, and he name checks Haymarket, Four Lane Ends, Pelaw, St Peter’s and Northumberland Park stations.

His favourite is Jesmond, opened in 1980, with its black and plain glass flooding the interior with light, the view from the inside of the surrounding trees, dramatic abstract mural, and ornamental garden flanked by obelisks – “it is all faintly surreal,” he says.

Another Metro stop in the top 100 is Tynemouth, accommodated in the 1882 station by North Eastern Railway architect William Bell.

As seaside excursions and holidays increased in popularity from the later 19th century, Tynemouth and Whitley Bay reaped the benefit.

The original stone-built Tynemouth station by Benjamin Green still stands near the William Bell version, which Jenkins describes as “a winter garden wonderland, a feast of Victorian ironwork. One hundred columns march into the distance beneath a rolling canopy of roofs.” A double staircase leads to a curved footbridge, and there is a tiled wall map of NER territory.

At weekends the station market pulls in the crowds, and it becomes ”what every good station should be- the life and soul of its community,” says Jenkins.

Huw Lewis, customer services director for Nexus, which owns and operates Metro, said: “It feels appropriate that if there are two Metro stations among the 100 best then one should be a Victorian masterpiece and the other modern.

“Our Victorian predecessors are recognised for pride in their railways, but the same was true of the civic leaders and engineers who had a vision in the 1970s for what Metro should be.

“We have always sought to live up to that legacy, so we are honoured that Simon Jenkins, while singling out Jesmond and Tynemouth, also mentions St Peter’s in Sunderland and Haymarket as examples of Metro stations from this century that maintain that tradition of strong design.”

So on to Top 10 – Newcastle, for which Jenkins has high praise indeed.

“This is the grandest of provincial stations. The street façade, concourse, train shed and curved tracks offer some of the finest views in British architecture.”

But Dobson’s station could have been ever grander. His 1848 design was, judges Jenkins, “one of the grandest neo-classical buildings of its day in Europe,”

But the architect’s vision for a long, colonnaded frontage and tower was sunk by the ruin of the “Railway King”, entrepreneur and Sunderland MP George Hudson.

Jenkins has harsh words for the 2013 glazing by Network Rail of the station portico to form a retail concourse, slamming it as a “disaster” and ”thoughtless.” He says: “What had been epic became anaemic.” The station interior, however,