New role for Manchester Central station
MORE than 50 years after it saw its last trains, the former Manchester Central station has been given a new lease of life – as one of the Government’s‘nightingale’hospitals for coronavirus patients.
On March 27, NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens announced that the former terminus, now the Manchester Central Convention Complex, would become a temporary hospital for the pandemic, similar to London’s Excel centre.
It will take between 750 and 1000 patients, probably medium-level rather than the sickest cases, in a national plan that has been drawn up with the help of the Army and input from local leaders.
Designed by Sir John Fowler, Manchester Central was opened in July 1880 by the Cheshire Lines Committee and became the terminus for Midland Railway express trains to St Pancras. Its huge wrought-iron single-span arched roof, spanning 210ft, 550ft and 90ft high is the widest unsupported iron arch in Britain after the Barlow train shed at London St Pancras.
It received Grade II* listing in 1963 and closed to passengers on May 5, 1969, when the remaining services were switched to Manchester Oxford Road and Manchester Piccadilly.
It was subsequently converted into an exhibition and conference centre, originally known as G-mex but now named Manchester Central in honour of its railway past.
The National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham is also to become a Nightingale hospital to help tackle the pandemic.