National Railway Heritage Awards 2021
THE 2021 National Railway Heritage Awards competition was able to take place under marginally less trying circumstances than in 2020, with the 60-odd entries being successfully judged and the adjudicators able to determine the raft of award winners, writes Robin Leleux, trustee and immediate past chairman of the adjudicators’ panel.
The presentation ceremony was due to be held on December 1 (after this issue of Railways Illustrated closed for press) at Merchant Taylors’ Hall in the City of London, with Andrew Haines, chief executive of Network Rail, as guest of honour, handing over the plaques.
Sadly the event was overshadowed by the death in late October of the awards chairman, Theo Steel, from the sudden aggressive flare-up of a serious illness which had been in remission for some years.
With a strong field of entries, it had already been decided to make a chairman’s special award this year. This immediately became more appropriate, and the plaque was to be presented to the winning entry at the ceremony by Theo’s two sons, Peter and Gareth Steel, and daughter Hannah Deveson, in their father’s memory.
The contest for the 10 awards was strong. Several stations naturally featured, either as whole buildings like Appledore, Chelfham and Hanwell, or with refurbished rooms within them, like Kilmarnock, Llandudno and Saltcoats. Canopies featured strongly at Chippenham, Doncaster, Pembroke Dock and Wallingford, as did the refurbished roof at Hebden Bridge, while new community use brought in Saltash and Stow. Over the water, the former Broadstone station in Dublin has re-emerged as a bus maintenance depot and the former Waterside station in Derry-londonderry has been transformed as the North West Multimodal Transport Hub.
No less than seven signalboxes came in, with Hebden Bridge, Severn Bridge at Shrewsbury, Valley on Anglesey and Wylam all being shortlisted. Finally, bridges and viaducts also appeared in number, including Auch near Tyndrum in the Highlands, Coltbridge in Edinburgh, Falling Sands outside Kidderminster, and Ribblehead.
The adjudicators had a daunting task determining the winners. These will be named, described and illustrated in the next issue of Railways Illustrated.